Wacker Chemical Corporation under new management
Christoph Kowitz, currently Head of Corporate Research at Wacker, will take over the management of the US subsidiary Wacker Chemical Corporation (WCC) at the beginning of May. He succeeds David Wilhoit, who has been responsible for the Group’s North and Central American business since 2015 and is now retiring.
Christoph Kowitz was previously head of central research and development at the Wacker Group for six years. “I’m looking forward to my new role in the USA,” says Kowitz, who holds a doctorate in chemistry. As a manager in the Wacker Silicones division, he was already in close contact with silicone production and application technology at the US sites in Adrian and Ann Arbor, Michigan. “The United States 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. The US government is driving this development forward with numerous investment programmes. My goal is to make the most of the opportunities that arise from this for our growth.”
Kowitz has already held a wide variety of management positions. After completing his doctorate in organic chemistry and polymer chemistry, he began his professional career in 1996 as a product developer at BASF in Ludwigshafen. From 1997 onwards, he worked for several years as a management consultant for McKinsey in Asia and Europe. After several positions in the chemical industry, including at speciality chemicals manufacturer Cognis, Kowitz moved to Wacker in 2013, where he took over as head of the Performance Silicones unit within the Wacker Silicones division. Since 2018, he has headed central Group research and thus also innovation management within the Wacker Group.
