More than 89,000 BASF employees have received mail from the new chairman of the Board of Executive Directors. The letter was sent out simultaneously in almost 100 countries and in 24 languages, including Chinese, Urdu and Croatian.

‘Communication is the key for our successful work together’, stressed Dr Jürgen Hambrecht, who assumed the function of chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF Aktiengesellschaft following the Annual Meeting on May 6. ‘I decided to join BASF because I could sense that it was a company in which people truly interacted and communicated with one another’, is how Hambrecht described the start of his career at BASF in 1976.

In his letter, Hambrecht said that together with employees he wants to perpetuate and build on what have made BASF successful for almost 140 years, and use chemistry to create excellent solutions for customers around the world. In doing so he is placing his trust in the leadership team, which has wisely and consistently ensured that BASF are in a good strategic position and today lead the world’s chemical industry.

Hambrecht also paid tribute to the achievements of his predecessor, Dr Jürgen F Strube, under whose leadership BASF became more powerful, more innovative and more international than ever. ‘No one can say what economic or geopolitical crises we will have to deal with’, wrote Hambrecht. But BASF’s new chairman is convinced of one thing: ‘We will continue to be successful in confronting future challenges if we all pull together.’