Ulrich Küsthardt took over as Chief Innovation Officer at German chemicals company Evonik at the beginning of this year. Küsthardt, who succeeds Peter Nagler, plans to continue strengthening the company’s innovation capacity, continuing his predecessor’s work.
Dr Nagler will remain involved and step up efforts to internationalise innovation at Evonik in the future.
Küsthardt, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, began his career at an international consulting firm. Starting in 1997, he held positions at a predecessor of Evonik, initially in controlling as well as in marketing and sales. He later went on to manage various business units, heading up the Coatings & Additives Business Unit of Evonik Industries from 2008.
Evonik says it has an innovation pipeline of approximately 500 short-, medium-, and long-term projects. To keep up the flow of ideas and innovations in the future the Group has increased its spending on research and development by an average of 9% each year since 2009. R&D spending in 2013 totalled €394m.
