Michel Demaré is to succeed Leif Johansson as Chair of the Board of Directors at AstraZeneca. Johansson has led the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company since June 2012. Demaré remains a member of the Remuneration Committee and has now also become Chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee.
Sixty-six-year-old Michel Demaré from Switzerland takes over as Chair of the Board from Leif Johansson with immediate effect. Johansson has been Chair of AstraZeneca since 2012. The handover took place at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), since Johansson is retiring, as was made known some time ago. Michel Demaré had been the designated Chair of the Board since June 2022. The orderly handover process, which was managed by Philip Broadley and supervised by Johansson, has now been completed, with Demaré taking over as Chair of the Board of Directors.
“It is a great honour for me to take over from Leif Johansson as Chair of the Board of Directors at AstraZeneca. I’m also very much looking forward to the journey that lies ahead of us and to everything that we can achieve together”, said Michel Demaré.
Demaré now also heads up the Nomination and Governance Committee
The highly internationally regarded Demaré joined the Board at AstraZeneca in September 2019 as an independent Non-Executive Director. As Chair of the Board of Directors he remains a member of the Remuneration Committee, but he will give up the Chair position on that Board and on the Audit Committee, as required by the rules of governance. He now heads up the Nomination and Governance Committee.
Successful career with various Board positions
Michel Demaré is also a non-executive director of Vodafone Group Plc and Louis Dreyfus Int'l Holdings BV, and Chair of the IMD Business School and Nomoko AG.
Demaré is originally from Switzerland and can look back on a varied and successful career: He was Deputy Chair of the UBS Group AG (2010 to 2019), Chair of Syngenta and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (2013 to 2017) and Chair of Swiss Holdings (2013 to 2015). Between 2005 and 2013 Demaré was CFO of ABB Ltd, and in 2008 also acting interim CEO. He came from Baxter International Inc. to ABB, where he was CFO Europe from 2002 to 2005. Before that, Demaré spent 18 years at the Dow Chemical Company working in several international finance functions – among others as CFO of the Dow Global Polyolefins and Elastomers Division between 1997 and 2002.
Demaré began his career as a bank official at the Belgian subsidiary of Continental Illinois. He completed his university studies with an MBA at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and has a degree in applied economics from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
Media contact
Tel. +41 (0) 41 725 75 75; media.switzerland@astrazeneca.com
Barbara Hess, Corporate Communications Lead, AstraZeneca Switzerland
AstraZeneca in Switzerland
AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company and has been active in Switzerland for almost 50 years. The company is among the ten largest pharmaceutical firms in Switzerland and is involved in the following therapy areas: oncology, respiratory diseases and immunology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases, as well as vaccines and immunotherapy, which also includes medications to combat Covid‑19. The primary aim of the over 250 staff members is to make new medicines available to patients as rapidly as possible. In Switzerland, more than 250,000 individuals are under treatment with an AstraZeneca medication. By 2025, the firm anticipates licensing over 35 new therapies. AstraZeneca is committed to the goal of making the Swiss health care system more sustainable and resilient. In order to honour its commitment to a healthy planet and a healthy population, the company is working tirelessly to reduce CO2 emissions and waste products. Thus, it has set a target for itself to come carbon-negative by 2030.
Further information about AstraZeneca Switzerland: www.astrazeneca.ch
CH-5741, 03/2022