Effective November 1, 2009, Saori Dubourg will be appointed new head of BASF's division Regional Functions & Country Management Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong. The current division president, Dr. Tilman Krauch, will assume responsibility for BASF's Construction Chemicals division as of the same date. Dr. Bernhard Hofmann, who was previously responsible for this division, will retire at the end of 2009.
After joining BASF in 1996, Dubourg worked in strategic marketing in the Dispersions & Pigments division before gathering international experience in a variety of functions in the U.S., Japan and Singapore and heading the European business for acrylic monomers and superabsorbents. Since the end of 2007, Dubourg has been responsible for BASF's global Diversity & Inclusion project as senior vice president.
Following post-doc positions in Russia and Japan, Krauch joined BASF's Polymer Laboratory in 1990. After working as staff to the Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, Krauch gained further international experience at BASF Corporation in the U.S. before heading the global business unit Polyamides & Intermediates from 2004 until 2006. Since 2006, he has been responsible for the division Regional Functions & Country Management Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong.
Hofmann's career started at Hoechst. As managing director, he was based in Mumbai from 1996 until 1997, where he was responsible for all of Hoechst's operations in South Asia. In 2001, Hofmann was appointed head of the Construction Chemicals division at Degussa, before being appointed to Degussa's Board of Management at the beginning of 2006. Following BASF's acquisition of Degussa's construction chemicals business, Hofmann was appointed head of the Construction Chemicals division in 2006.