About

Dr Gabriel Harnier became general counsel of Bayer in autumn 2016. He replaced the long-serving Dr Roland Hartwig, who had served as Bayer’s general counsel for 17 years and was a much respected figure in German legal circles. To make matters more challenging, Dr Harnier was appointed to the role just as Bayer was finalising the details of its reported €60bn merger with Monsanto. The ongoing deal has naturally occupied much of the legal team’s time, but Dr Harnier has not let that distract him from developing the function. Nominators were struck by Dr Harnier’s wider vision for Bayer’s legal team – which operates separate departments in over 30 countries – and noted that he has already made a number of improvements to both specific legal units and the overall coherence of the global legal team. His ‘visionary yet pragmatic’ approach to running a legal function caught the attention of private practice and in-house nominators in a number of markets, including the US, UK and China. Dr Harnier started his career in 2000 as a commercial and corporate lawyer at Raupach & Wollert-Elmendorff (now Deloitte Legal). He joined Bayer in 2005 and served as head of commercial law in its Law and Patents business unit until 2010, after which time he transferred to Bayer’s Corporate Centre to support the chairman’s office as a member of the executive committee. In 2013 he was appointed general counsel of Bayer MaterialScience, which was spun-off as Covestro, an independent listed company, in 2015.