The former CEO of the chemical company BASF, Martin Brudermüller (63), is the new chairman of the supervisory board of Mercedes-Benz. The control committee elected the manager as the successor to Bernd Pischetsrieder (76) after the online general meeting on Wednesday, as the car manufacturer announced in Stuttgart. Brudermüller had already been on the supervisory board and was proposed for the chief position a year ago. His term at BASF in Ludwigshafen ended in April after six years.
The former one BMW– and VW boss Pischetsrieder has been on the Mercedes supervisory board since 2014. In 2021 he was elected chairman. The committee controls the management around CEO Ola Källenius (54). During Pischetsrieder’s term of office, several strategically important decisions were made by Stuttgart, including the separation of Daimler trucks and the renaming of what was then Daimler AG to Mercedes-Benz Group AG. On Wednesday the company announced that it was considering to part with Daimler Truck shares. CFO Harald Wilhelm (58) could sell the shares from the end of the year. Meanwhile Shareholders are worried about the China business.
The 63-year-old Brudermüller is a chemist through and through and not an electrical or mechanical engineer like most automotive executives. As the long-time head of BASF, the leading manufacturer of chemicals, plastics, paints and catalysts for the automotive industry, he still knows this industry and its challenges well. Brudermüller has been CEO of BASF since 2018. The doctor of chemistry, a native of Stuttgart, worked for the world’s largest chemical company for 36 years, where he began his career in the ammonia laboratory.
BASF career ends at difficult times
Brudermüller had to say goodbye to BASF defended the chemical giant’s austerity measures. These are still stormy times for chemistry, said the manager at the DAX group’s general meeting in Mannheim at the end of April. Due to significantly lower prices, the group recorded a decline in sales and earnings at the start of 2024. Negative currency effects also had a negative impact. Revenues in the first three months fell by a good twelve percent year-on-year to 17.6 billion euros. This is why the challenge for Brudermüller’s successor Markus Kamieth is not just to turn around the recently weak numbers manager magazine reports. His predecessor made a few last-minute deals, but the new guy’s scope is extremely narrow.
As a company leader with a clear stance, Brudermüller took a position in the discussion about risky dependencies on China and defended the commitment of BASF and German companies to what he sees as an important growth market. He knows the market intimately; a few years previously he was on the board responsible for the Asia-Pacific business based in Hong Kong. Brudermüller was also considered an advocate of ambitious goals for CO₂ reduction. In this way he could lead Mercedes-Benz with CEO Källenius further on the path to CO₂ neutrality by 2039, which is currently due to weak demand for electric cars
becomes difficult.