Marijn Dekkers received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the Radboud University of Nijmegen (Netherlands) and his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Eindhoven (Netherlands).He began his professional career in 1985 as a scientist at the corporate research center of General Electric in the United States, gaining experience in various units of the company before joining AlliedSignal (subsequently Honeywell International Inc.) in 1995. In 2000, Marijn Dekkers became chief operating officer and subsequently president and chief executive officer of Thermo Electron Corporation, the world’s leading manufacturer of laboratory instruments (later renamed Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. following the acquisition of laboratory supplier Fisher Scientific). He joined Bayer, a global healthcare, crop science and material science company, on January 1, 2010, first serving as interim chief executive officer of Bayer Healthcare and since October 2010 serving as chairman of Bayer’s management group. Marijn Dekkers is vice president of the German Chemical Industry Association, Frankfurt, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of German Industry, Berlin.He also served as a director at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. during the last five years.