Accordingly, Zuzana Halkova is the successor to Georg Müller. Ms. Halkova studied psychology in her hometown of Bratislava. In 1992, she joined what used to be Henkel Palma in Slovakia to work as an assistant to the head of the legal department. Three years later, Zuzana Halkova was transferred to Henkel CEE in Vienna, where she was named Assistant Marketing Manager for detergents and cleansers. After serving in various managerial positions in the company, as well as developing a training and development concept for the CEE region, she assumed responsibility for day-to-day human resources management for 12 countries in 2005 along with the entire personnel policies for the detergents/cleansers and the cosmetics/body care segments.

Zuzana Halkova is married to the Austrian psychologist Peter Schütz. Multicultural thinking is more or less in her genes. Her grandparents comprised four nationalities and three religions. “An open-minded way of interacting was a natural thing in my family”. The Slovakian manager not only speaks her native language, but also German, English, Hungarian, Czech and Russia, which is certainly an advantage in the Henkel CEE region with its 32 different countries, nationalities and legal systems. “The diversity of the cultural heritage in the company enriches our cooperation, because it demands openness and flexibility from every employee,” Zuzana Halkova says. From the very beginning, she highly valued the cosmopolitan atmosphere at Henkel and the experience, “that I have had extensive opportunities to shape things in every position I have held, and have been ultimately able to implement numerous ideas and concepts.”