Michael Schade Gets Promoted to Managing Director of Bayer Leverkusen

May 14, 2013

Michael Schade, who has been the Head of Global Communications at Bayer Leverkusen for more than five years, has become the new Managing Director of the Bundesliga club starting July 1, 2013.

He will succeed Wolfgang Holzhäuser as Managing Director of the Bayer Bundesliga team effective October 1, who will retire at that time. Schade has been a member of the shareholder committee for Bayer 04, the supervisory board of the Bayer Bundesliga team, since March 2007.

“Michael Schade has contributed greatly to Bayer Communications over many years and in many different capacities,” says Bayer CEO Dr. Marijn Dekkers. “Under his leadership the organization of global communications was recently restructured and preparations initiated for multiple events celebrating the company’s anniversary. I am personally thankful for his support during my first three and a half years at Bayer.”

MichaelSchade_BayerOn joining Bayer in 1980, Schade, a journalist by trade, became editor-in-chief of all Bayer’s internal and external publications. In 1994, he was appointed Head of Corporate Policy, assuming additional responsibilities for media relations three years later. Since the reorganization of the Bayer Group in 2002, Schade has headed Corporate Policy & Media Relations. On May 1, 2008, Michael Schade became the Head of Communications at Bayer as Executive Vice President with responsibility for the Group’s global communications activities. 

Schade has served on various committees of professional associations at both national and international level. For example, he was for many years a member of the committee of the German Public Relations Association and a member of the presidium of the European Federation of Internal Communications Associations. He is currently a member of numerous bodies of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI), of two international PR organizations and of the board of trustees for two Bayer foundations. 

Read the exclusive interview with Wolfgang Holzhäuser here

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