Covestro has announced managerial changes in its polyurethanes and coatings, adhesives, specialties segments, effective September 1.

Markus Steilemann, Ph.D., chief commercial officer (CCO) with board of management responsibility for innovation, marketing and sales, will relinquish his position as head of the polyurethanes segment. Plans reportedly call for him to succeed Patrick Thomas as CEO next year.

The new head of the polyurethanes segment will be Daniel Meyer, who has led the coatings, adhesives, specialties segment since 2011. He will be succeeded by Michael Friede, who currently manages the company’s global elastomers business from France.

Steilemann has had a long international career that began at Bayer in 1999. In 2004, he moved to Bayer’s new MaterialScience subgroup, which now operates as Covestro. From 2008 onward, Steilemann held various management positions in the polycarbonates segment in Asia, including serving as head of global industrial marketing. Between 2013 and 2015, he headed the entire polycarbonates segment before being appointed to the Covestro board of management.

Meyer joined Bayer France S.A. in 1992. After transferring to Bayer AG in Leverkusen in 1997, he held various positions in the pigments business before becoming product manager for coating resins in 2002. From 2004, Meyer held a number of different positions in Asia-Pacific for a total of eight years, including managing the marketing of coating raw materials. He went on to head business development before assuming responsibility for the entire coatings, adhesives, specialties segment in the region, and subsequently around the globe.

Friede came to Bayer as a trainee. After working in the corporate audit department and as an assistant to the board of management, he spent a number of years in procurement, some of them in the U.S. In 2012, he returned to Germany to manage the global key accounts team in the coatings, adhesives, specialties segment. During this period, Friede won the Handelsblatt Stratley Award for up-and-coming managers. He assumed global responsibility for Covestro’s elastomers business in 2014.

For more information, visit www.covestro.com.