WESEL, Germany – The Supervisory Board of the specialty chemicals company ALTANA has appointed Martin Babilas to become the Chief Executive Officer. On January 1, 2016, he will succeed Dr. Matthias L. Wolfgruber, who will retire. Babilas has been the Chief Financial Officer of ALTANA AG since 2007. In November of last year, he took over additional responsibility of two of the company’s four divisions from Wolfgruber. Babilas has worked for ALTANA since 1998.

The Supervisory Board appointed Stefan Genten as ALTANA’s new Chief Financial Officer as of August 1, 2015. Genten worked in various management capacities for the Grünenthal pharmaceutical group for 13 years, since 2005 as a member of the Corporate Executive Board and as the CFO.

Babilas will take over responsibility for Corporate Development/M&A, Human Resources, Corporate Communications and Internal Audit. Additionally, Christoph Schlünken will assume responsibility for Innovation Management, also on January 1, 2016. Schlünken became a third member of ALTANA’s Management Board last November.