Reinach, 21 January, 2020 – At the 2020 Annual General Meeting, in addition to Beat In-Albon who will be proposed as Chairman, two other new board members will stand for election to the Board of Directors of Evolva. Richard Ridinger, former CEO of Lonza, as well as Stephan Schindler, currently CFO of Bachem, are proposed to join the Swiss biotech company. Gerard Hoetmer, the current Chairman of the Board of Directors of Evolva, as well as Thomas Videbaek have decided not to stand for re-election. The search for a fourth board member with in-depth bio-technology expertise has started.

Richard Ridinger is a German national and has extensive leadership experience. He has held numerous leadership functions at Henkel (14 years) and Cognis (11 years). Most recently, Richard Ridinger served as CEO of Lonza Group. His career involved process development, production leadership as well as marketing and product management.

Stephan Schindler, a Swiss national, is the CFO of Bachem Group. He started his career at Hoffmann-La Roche and joined DSM Nutritional Products at the time of the acquisition of the Hoffmann-La Roche’s vitamin business. Stephan Schindler has been actively involved in building finance business processes and the integration of the business into DSM.

Gerard Hoetmer, Chairman of the Board of Directors, commented: “Now that the company has finalized its major transformational change initiative and concentrated its main activities in the Basel area, this is an opportunity to also locate the board and management into closer proximity of the company’s headquarters. Beat, Stephan and Richard are a perfect fit to the Evolva Board of Directors. They bring in international business to business experience as well as their local Know-how to contribute to the success of Evolva in delivering the strategic objectives.”

On the executive management level, the following changes will occur:

Effective immediately, André Pennartz has been appointed to the management team of Evolva as CFO. He brings extensive financial leadership experience across global companies such as Leica, Nobel Biocare and Danaher. The COO Scott Fabro will leave Evolva at the end of June 2020 to pursue his career outside of the company.

Oliver Walker, CEO of Evolva, said: "We are making these changes to harness the full strength of Evolva as a company with all key functions centered around the Basel area. The focused organization will support the acceleration of our efforts to reach strategic goals, such as to reach cash break even latest by the end of 2023, and to fully concentrate on operational execution. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank Scott for his contributions to Evolva over the past two years.”

Scott Fabro stated: “I’m proud to have supported the team at Evolva through its transformation and to leave the company ready to deliver on its strategic priorities.”

As Scott Fabro will depart, the existing commercial teams (Flavors & Fragrances, Human Health and Pest Control segments) as well as the supply chain and manufacturing functions report directly to the CEO. The company is led by the CEO and CFO, supported by functional leaders.