Frankfurt Only last Thursday did Helene von Roeder announce her imminent departure from the real estate group Vonovia. It is now clear where the Chief Digital Officer (CTO) is headed: On July 1, von Roeder will become CFO of the Darmstadt-based pharmaceutical, life science and technology group Merck KGaA. She replaces the longstanding CEO Marcus Kuhnert. However, he is not leaving the Merck Group entirely, but will remain on the Executive Board of the personally liable partner E. Merck KG for another year.
The 52-year-old already knows the Dax group Merck. She has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Merck KGaA and the Board of Partners of E. Merck KG since 2019 and was also Chairwoman of the Audit and Finance Committee. If she does a good job, she could also be a candidate to succeed Belèn Garijo. The CEO became chief executive officer in May 2021 and would be around 65 at the end of a five-year contract in mid-2026.
The Board of Partners welcomed Helene von Roeder with many words of praise. Johannes Baillou, Chairman of the Board of Partners of E. Merck KG, is quoted as saying that she brings “extensive expertise in investment banking, capital markets and the financial industry as such, coupled with the natural curiosity of a physicist”. Before her time at Vonovia, where she was also CFO for many years, the manager managed Credit Suisse’s German business, among other things.
“Her long-standing association with Merck and her experience as part of our board structure will ensure a smooth transition and stability,” continued Baillou. Baillou is also Executive Vice President of E. Merck KG, which is 99.9 percent owned by the Merck family. As a personally liable partner, E. Merck KG holds around 70 percent of the total capital of Merck KGaA.
As a member of the Kley family, with roots in industry and the world of finance
At Vonovia, Roeders’ departure came as a surprise to many outsiders. But internally it has long been said that von Roeder did not like the fact that she had to hand over the finance department to Philip Grosse in 2022.
Since then, von Roeder has been responsible for innovation and digitization – a department that is obviously less close to her. The manager is deeply rooted in the investment banking world, but is clearly reluctant to make bold statements in public. She likes to work in the background and left the stage to CEO Rolf Buch.
Internally, however, she acted much less cautiously. The fact that after the takeover of Deutsche Wohnen, its boss Michael Zahn stayed away from the newly formed Vonovia board at the end of 2021, where he was intended to be the designated co-boss, is also said to be due to the clear announcements made by the woman on the board. At the first joint board meeting of the new body, von Roeder approached Zahn openly and asked how he imagined his new portfolio and asset management work area.
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Zahn was visibly irritated by Vonovia’s enthusiasm for discussion, which did not spare its CEO Buch – and neither did he himself, as it was said. A few days later, Zahn declared that he was not available for the Vonovia Executive Board after all.
Von Roeder is a mother of three, the family still lives in Frankfurt, and she commutes to Vonovia in Bochum during the week. The top manager has known the financial world since she was a child. Her father Max Dietrich Kley was CFO of BASF, grandfather Gisbert Kley was on the board of Siemens. And her uncle Karl-Ludwig Kley was the CEO of Merck in Darmstadt for nine years.
Key role in takeover of Deutsche Wohnen by Vonovia
von Roeder studied physics and astrophysics in Munich and London. She is therefore very familiar with statistical models and the world of numbers. Her thesis at the University of Cambridge dealt with aspects of theoretical astrophysics. She began her professional career in 1995 at Deutsche Bank in London, where she worked in risk management for derivatives.
After positions at UBS and Morgan Stanley, she finally joined the Swiss bank Credit Suisse in 2014 as head of Germany. There, von Roeder primarily dealt with mergers and acquisitions financing. Against this background, her contacts with investors are excellent: the fact that the takeover of Deutsche Wohnen, worth billions, ultimately went through in 2021 was also thanks to her negotiating skills.
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New tasks await von Roeder at Merck. The Dax group, which recently had sales of around 22 billion euros, has held its own well in the corona pandemic, but growth now has to be stimulated again.
Because there is a lack of product supplies in the pharmaceuticals sector, the electronics industry is cyclical and the life sciences sector is returning to normal after the corona boom. CEO Garijo has already expressed interest in larger acquisitions. A field in which Helene von Roeder’s expertise will help.
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