Dr. Kurt Moser and Mr. Brendan Cummins

 Two Leaders I Remember from My Ciba-Geigy Years

Looking back at my years with Ciba-Geigy Hong Kong, there are many people I remember.

Some were colleagues. Some were friends. Others were senior executives whose positions placed them well above me in the organization.

Two names remain particularly meaningful to me: Dr. Kurt Moser and Mr. Brendan Cummins.

I knew them during an important chapter of my working life, long before I could have imagined how far their careers would eventually take them.

Dr. Kurt Moser

When I was working at Ciba-Geigy Hong Kong, Dr. Kurt Moser was one of the senior leaders of the company.

At that time, Ciba-Geigy Hong Kong was a substantial organization with different divisions and functions. I remember the senior management structure covering areas such as dyes and chemicals, plastics and pigments, pharmaceuticals, finance and accounts, and personnel administration.

Dr. Moser was the kind of senior executive whose presence gave the organization a sense of direction and stability.

At the time, I was simply doing my job and taking care of the responsibilities given to me. I did not think much about what would happen to the people around me after we eventually went our separate ways.

Many years later, curiosity led me to look up Dr. Moser again.

I was surprised to discover that his career after Hong Kong had been far more significant than I had realized.

In 1987, after returning to Switzerland, Dr. Moser became Director of the Vorort, the important Swiss organization representing business and industry. He remained in that position until 1998.

Suddenly, the man I remembered from Ciba-Geigy Hong Kong appeared in a very different historical setting — playing an important role in Swiss business affairs.

Later, he was also associated with the Swiss-Hong Kong business community, including serving as President of the Swiss-Hong Kong Business Association.

I find this discovery fascinating.

When I knew Dr. Moser in Hong Kong, I had no way of knowing what the future held for him. To me, he was simply Dr. Moser, one of the senior people in the organization where I worked.

Only decades later did I discover the larger story of his career.

Mr. Brendan Cummins

My memories of Brendan Cummins are somewhat different.

Mr. Cummins was a senior executive in Finance and Administration, and his influence on my own career was important.

One decision I remember particularly well was his selection of me to succeed Mr. Mok in Personnel Administration.

That opportunity became an important turning point in my Ciba-Geigy career.

I was also involved with him in the implementation of the Hay Points system, a company-wide project that required careful evaluation of positions and responsibilities.

At the time, I was concentrating on the work in front of me. I certainly did not imagine that the man I knew as a senior executive in Hong Kong would eventually become one of the highest-ranking leaders of Ciba Specialty Chemicals.

But that is exactly what happened.

According to Ciba's later corporate records, Cummins had joined Ciba-Geigy in Ireland in 1971. He moved to Singapore in 1979 and then transferred to Hong Kong in 1984 as Head of Finance and HR North Asia, with project responsibility for China. His career subsequently took him to the Philippines, the United Kingdom, China and Switzerland. He became Regional President Greater China in 1997 and later became Chief Operating Officer of Ciba Specialty Chemicals in 2005.

On January 1, 2008, Brendan Cummins became CEO of Ciba Specialty Chemicals. Contemporary reporting confirms the appointment and his earlier role as COO.

He eventually led Ciba during its final years as an independent company, before its acquisition by BASF in 2008.

When I look at that career path today, I feel a quiet sense of amazement.

I knew Brendan Cummins when he was working in Hong Kong.

I did not know that one day he would become CEO of the worldwide Ciba organization.

Looking Back

This is one of the interesting things about getting older.

When we are young and working, we usually see only the part of the story that is immediately in front of us.

We go to work.

We attend meetings.

We solve problems.

We work with people above us and below us.

Then life moves on.

Decades later, we look back and discover that the people who crossed our path went on to write their own chapters in history.

That is what happened when I searched for Dr. Kurt Moser and Brendan Cummins.

I was not looking for famous people.

I was looking for two people from my past.

And I discovered that their stories continued long after my own Ciba-Geigy chapter had ended.

For me, that is part of the value of writing this memoir.

I am not trying to write the official history of Ciba-Geigy.

I am simply recording the people I knew, the work I did, and what I remember.

Sometimes, many years later, the larger history helps us understand just how interesting our own ordinary working lives really were.