CFO Studio Magazine with Bernd-Peter Bier, CFO, Bayer

18 WWW.CFOSTUDIO.COM 4th QUARTER 2015 FEATURED CFO CAST IN A DIFFERENT MOLD SCHOOLED INCHEMICAL ENGINEERING, BURKHARD ZOLLER LEARNED TECHNICAL CONTROLLINGON THE JOB AND LIKED IT BY JULIE BARKER P erfectly at home discussing methacrylates and performance polymers, Burkhard Zoller, CFO for Evonik Corp. – North America, has spent 30 years with the chemical company based in Essen, Germany, starting right out of college as a plant engineer. Three decades and 11 jobs later, he is experienced at running plants and business units. He has also run finance and strategic projects, and was controller for two different business units for about seven years. All this serves him well day-to-day in his current job. And when he scrutinizes acquisition targets, he gives them the once-over in two ways. He examines the financials and the balance sheets, as all CFOs do, but he also evaluates the firm’s technology to ensure that it’s not only capable of what the target company claims, but is also a good fit with Evonik’s extraordinarily broad portfolio of applications. Zoller, whose master’s degree is in chemical engineering, is a different type of CFO for our times. But he’s not unique in this particular regard. According to a Bank of America report titled “Evolving Role of the CFO,” 63 percent of CFOs are taking on