Marcus Kuhnert has been appointed new chief financial officer of German chemicals and pharmaceuticals producer Merck KGaA, effective Aug. 1, 2014.

Since 2010, the 45-year-old manager born in Chicago, U.S.A. has been CFO of the Laundry & Home Care business unit at Henkel, with sales of €4.6 billion annually. He succeeds Matthias Zachert, who left Merck to head Lanxess at the beginning of April.