Covestro Announces Leadership Change at Performance Materials Operations in Europe
Dr. Yun Chen will take over the leadership of European production for Covestro's Performance Materials (PM) Business Entity. Image courtesy of Covestro.
Covestro recently announced that effective February 1, 2025, Dr. Yun Chen will take over the leadership of European production for the company's Performance Materials (PM) Business Entity. In this position, Chen succeeds Dr. Daniel Koch, who is leaving the company at the end of January at his own request.
Chen begins the new job after three successful years as head of Performance Materials Operations APAC. A chemical engineer who brings three decades of experience in various positions at Covestro and Bayer, Chen has technical expertise and comprehensive international industry knowledge, in addition to longstanding leadership experience.
"I would like to sincerely thank Daniel Koch for his excellent work and commitment over the past years. I wish him all the best for his future career," stated Hermann Dörholt, head of the Performance Materials Business Entity at Covestro. "At the same time, I am delighted to welcome Yun Chen in his new role as head of our production in Europe. His leadership skills, comprehensive industry knowledge, and not least his impressive achievements as production manager in the Asia-Pacific region make him the ideal candidate for this important position. With his many years of experience and international perspective, I am confident that Yun will successfully guide and develop our European sites through the current challenges."
"The chemical industry in Europe faces numerous challenges and, like Covestro, is in the midst of a transformation. In the coming years, we will make our production even more reliable and efficient and drive the transition to climate neutrality and a circular economy. I look forward to tackling these challenges together with our dedicated team. The current developments also offer numerous opportunities, for example through the increased use of digitalization and artificial intelligence," said Chen. "I want to bring in my experiences from Asia while also benefiting from the expertise of our European colleagues. I am particularly focused on the safety of our employees and production facilities. It therefore remains the foundation for our daily actions."
Chen has held numerous leadership positions within the group. After studying chemical engineering in Beijing and Shanghai, he earned his Ph.D. at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. In 1994, he began his career with Bayer AG at the Krefeld-Uerdingen site. Here, he took on various positions with increasing responsibility.
In 2001, Chen moved to Shanghai, where he helped build up polycarbonate production as plant manager and from 2008 took over production and technology management for the corresponding business unit. In 2017, Chen was appointed senior vice president and head of Covestro Integrated Site Shanghai (CISS), the company's largest single production site worldwide. Most recently, in 2021, he took on the additional role of production manager, Performance Materials Asia-Pacific.
Additional information about Covestro is available at www.covestro.com.
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