Christoph Kowitz, currently head of WACKER’s Corporate Research Department, has been chosen to take charge of the Group’s US subsidiary Wacker Chemical Corporation (WCC) at the beginning of May.
He succeeds David Wilhoit, who is now retiring. He was responsible for WACKER’s North and Central American business since 2015.
WCC’s future President & CEO has headed WACKER’s Corporate R&D for six years. “I’m looking forward to my new job in the US,” says Kowitz, who — as a senior manager for WACKER SILICONES — has already been in close contact with silicone production and application technology at WCC sites. “The US is, and will remain, one of WACKER’s most important markets. With our products from all business divisions, we are ideally positioned to support the climate-neutral transformation of US industry with innovative solutions.”
Christoph Kowitz has already held various management positions within the company mainframe. After obtaining his doctorate in organic chemistry and polymer chemistry, he began his professional career as a product developer at BASF AG in Ludwigshafen in 1996.
From 1997 onwards, he worked for several years as a management consultant for McKinsey in Asia and Europe.
After several management positions in the chemical industry, including Germany-based specialty chemicals manufacturer Cognis, Kowitz moved to WACKER in 2013, where he headed the Performance Silicones unit within the WACKER SILICONES division.
Since 2018, he has been Head of Corporate R&D and thus also responsible for innovation management within the Group.