Sigma-Aldrich Announces New Organization to Accelerate Customers' Success and Growth
Sigma-Aldrich announced a new organization consisting of four customer-centric business units, each headed by a President reporting to the Company's President & COO, intended to further enhance its ability to serve its diverse base of more than sixty thousand commercial accounts comprising one million individual customers worldwide and the potential for above market growth rates.
After an extensive six month study which included interviews with nearly 650 customers around the globe, the Company is reorganizing its two existing life science and high technology Research businesses - Scientific Research and Biotechnology - into three units, each with its own distinctive competencies to meet the needs of carefully defined customer segments:
- Essentials (20% of the Company's current sales), which will offer customized account management to largely economic buyers in pharmaceutical, academic and commercial research organizations, headed by Gilles Cottier, 47, most recently Vice President - Sales. Cottier joined Sigma-Aldrich in Lyon, France in 1986 and has served in a number of positions of increasing responsibility including country manager for France and Vice President - International Sales and Operations;
- Specialties (35% of the Company's current sales), which will offer the Company's traditional broad line of specialty products through its web site and catalogs to lab scientists in these same accounts worldwide, headed by David Julien, 50, most recently President - Biotechnology;
- Biotech (20% of the Company's current sales), which will focus on providing innovative, first-to-market research tools for life scientists, headed by Shaf Yousaf, 45, most recently Vice President - Corporate R&D and Biotechnology Marketing. Yousaf has helped launch many of the Company's new initiatives in molecular biology and biotech since bringing 13 years of experience with another leading global biotech company to Sigma-Aldrich in 1996.
The Company's final business -- SAFC -- which stands separate from these Research units and represents 25% of the Company's current sales after the recent acquisition of JRH Biosciences, offers fine chemical products and flexible service solutions for customers in the three key industrial market segments of Pharma, Biosciences and Hi-Tech. SAFC will continue to be led by Frank Wicks, 52, who has served as the unit's President since January 2003.
Both Cottier and Yousaf will join Julien, Wicks, Chairman & CEO David Harvey, 66, President & COO Jai Nagarkatti, 58, and Chief Administrative Officer & CFO Michael Hogan, 52, as members of the Company's Executive Management Group.
While these organizational changes are effective immediately, the Company plans to continue to report its sales results for its three existing Scientific Research, Biotechnology and SAFC business units through 2005 and begin reporting under the new four-unit structure in 2006. Further details regarding the Company's goals, high-level strategies and growth initiatives for this new organization will be shared at its annual business review for shareholders and analysts on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 at 8:30 a.m. (Central Daylight Time).
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