A Speaker Roundtable from NAFES25 - A Finance Conversation with Volkswagen, Bayer US, and Alfasigma

At the 2025 edition of the North American Finance Executive Summit series we sat down with Elmar Licharz of Volkswagen, Guru Ramamurthy of Bayer US, and Tatiana Simonelli of Alfasigma —all members of the NAFES25 speaker faculty— for a wide-ranging discussion about the issues, ideas, challenges, and opportunities that are top of mind for finance leaders today, as suggested by the attendees of the event. Give it a listen!

This roundtable includes…
 
 Panelists:

Elmar Licharz
Chief Financial Officer, North America
Volkswagen 

Dr. Elmar-Marius Licharz, Chief Financial Officer for Volkswagen North American Region and Volkswagen Group of America, oversees the development and implementation of the financial strategy for Volkswagen Group of America.

Elmar joined Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg, Germany, in 2005, and most recently served in the position of Head of Digital Finance. Prior to joining Volkswagen AG, Elmar worked for McKinsey & Company, Inc. where he was responsible for national and international projects in the pharmaceutical, aerospace and automotive industries.

Elmar earned his PhD at the University of Kassel.
 

Guru Ramamurthy
Chief Financial Officer, Bayer U.S.
Bayer US

Guru brings wide-ranging global finance and leadership experience across different businesses and countries.  He has a strong track record of enabling business turnaround and expansion and driving functional transformation. Guru has worked with Bayer in a range of roles over the past 20 years. He recently served as Chief Financial Officer of AskBio from March 2021 to July 2023. He was previously the Global Finance Lead for the Oncology franchise from January 2020 until February 2021; CFO of the North American business at Bayer Consumer Health from 2016 to 2019; and CFO of the Bayer Medical Care Division from 2013 to 2016. Prior to that, he held various finance roles in Germany (Berlin, Wuppertal); Italy; Japan; and Berkeley, California. Before Bayer, his career was focused on finance, audit, and accounting roles at various companies, including Siemens, Citibank, and PWC.

Guru holds an Executive Master of Business Administration degree from INSEAD, France, and a bachelor’s degree in commerce with emphasis in accounting and tax from St. Xavier’s College, India. He is an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) and Graduate Cost and Works Accountant (Grad CWA), both internationally recognized professional accounting degrees.

Tatiana Simonelli
Corporate CFO
Alfasigma 

Tatiana is a transformative international business and finance leader with significant experience in tackling today’s complex challenges. Over nearly 30 years of global experience, she has acquired expertise in financial strategy, business model transformation, commercialization excellence, crisis navigation, and large-scale M&A integration. 

Tatiana is currently Corporate CFO in Alfasigma, Italian multinational pharma company with very ambitious organic and inorganic growth plans. Prior to that, she built her career in Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) over 15 years starting as Finance Director in Italy, then progressing in various senior roles in Commercial Finance, Business Development and Business Insights & Analytics; her last role in BMS was Senior Vice President of Finance for Commercialization providing financial leadership to ~45+$Bln business. Before joining BMS, Tatiana spent 14 years in Finance leadership roles at Procter & Gamble in Russia and Italy.

Moderator:

Geoff Micks
Head of Content & Research
Executive Platforms