Bernd Hirsch Appointed New CFO of Symrise

11-16-2009: The Supervisory Board of Symrise AG has appointed Bernd Hirsch as the new CFO of the Company. Mr. Hirsch will be joining Symrise from exchange-listed Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Jena, where he has been active as CFO since 2002.

Bernd Hirsch (39) will be assuming the position of Symrise AG CFO from his predecessor, Dominique Yates, as of December 1, 2009. As was already announced on November 5, Mr. Yates is leaving the Company at the end of year.

At Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Mr. Hirsch has considerably contributed to the development of the company to global market leader in ophthalmology and microsurgery systems since his appointment as CFO in 2002. There, his responsibilities included the areas of finance & controlling, investor relations, legal, and tax affairs. In addition, he spearheaded supply chain optimization and was in charge of the area of Business Process Excellence, including IT.

Before his time at Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Mr. Hirsch was involved in many international projects as the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Carl Zeiss AG and as Head of Auditing at the auditing company Arthur Andersen. He earned a degree in business from the University of Würzburg.