When Jochen Maas looks out of the window in Industriepark Höchst, he looks back on a proud past, but also on a happy future.

Maas, Managing Director Research and Development at Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, is very familiar with West Frankfurt.

“When I looked out the window here in 1992, there was a company, Hoechst AG, with 24,000 employees on site.

Now 92 companies employ 25,000 people here,” says Maas: “And the chemical park has a major advantage, because we can map the entire value chain here, from research to production.”

Carsten Knop

Editor.

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Creating added value from this network in the truest sense of the word has been a matter close to Maas' heart since he took on his current role in October 2010.

"The most important molecules for the company come from here," says Maas self-confidently - and knows that it would not work without teamwork, not in Frankfurt - and not in the world either: Because Frankfurt is one of a total of four integrated research and development centers of Sanofi.

Former national handball player

He is constantly in touch with his research colleagues via video conferences, which have become ubiquitous during the pandemic - and yet he is pleased that more personal encounters in the company are now possible again in Frankfurt.

At Sanofi, you can now contribute up to 60 percent of your working hours from home, at least when it comes to purely office jobs, and yet Maas is a friend of a "back to office" campaign to restore presence as much as possible: The Creativity that arises when talking to the coffee machine cannot be replaced by digital formats.

In particular, in hybrid conferences with a partial presence in the office and others who are connected remotely, there are great dangers in this regard.

The former national handball player Maas wants and would like to see his team again, an individual sport would never have been something for him.

And because his two new knee joints give the 2.04 meter man new mobility again, he talks about cycling.

He does not do this alone, but with his adult sons.

The man is a communicator.

Bookworm and opera lover

In this function he has been traveling in town and country for quite some time.

And Maas has the gift of being able to explain complicated relationships in an easily understandable way.

For him, science has no place in the famous ivory tower, especially when it came to the corona pandemic, he has repeatedly succeeded in explaining vaccines and mutations, educating about the dangers, giving vaccines the place of grandiose research progress from Germany, which they made from his earn sight.

He is convinced that China would be in a much better position with regard to its corona policy if Western vaccines such as those from Biontech had been used there early on - and would be happy if German society would accept more broadly how important it is right now also such research.

The biologist and veterinarian, who has never lost his language tint from his Swabian homeland in all his professional positions for Sanofi and its predecessor companies around the world, otherwise reads a lot and likes, usually several books at the same time.

On paper, if that's possible: "I need the feel, even with my daily newspaper," says Maas.

And when he's not researching or reading, he's at the opera, to which he's had a subscription for many years.

He is highly praised for what is on offer there in Frankfurt, almost like in the industrial park.