Carsten Knobel

Carsten Knobel is CEO of Henkel, a leading company in the industrial and consumer goods sectors with more than 50,000 employees and sales of 20 billion euros, which produces famous brands such as Schwarzkopf and Persil. He is one of Germany’s most influential top managers and is a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Lufthansa, vice president of the Chemical Industry Association (VCI), and a member of the executive board of the Federal Association of German Industries (BDI).

Mr. Knobel was appointed to the management board of Henkel at only 43 years of the age and was CFO and one of the youngest board members of a DAX company, responsible for finance, purchasing, and the Integrated Business Solutions division. Previously he was, among others, corporate senior vice president for finance and head of group strategy & group controlling, after working as director of business development cosmetics/toiletries in the USA and as controlling director responsible for the cosmetics business in North America, Latin America, and Asia. Mr. Knobel began his career at Henkel as an executive assistant.

Mr. Knobel studied business administration and technical chemistry at the TU Berlin and took part in the Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.