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That says a lot about the 56-year-old, who until recently was the head of pharmaceuticals at the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, hired by Bayer on April 1 and will become CEO on June 1. Anderson is unconventional, dynamic, has a penchant for risk. “Bill is American through and through,” says someone who has seen him up close. “He’s curious, progress-driven, optimistic.” The Swiss pharmaceutical analyst Michael Nawrath from the research house Octavian, who has known Anderson for years, characterized him as “agile” and “extremely ambitious”: “He wants to be the first everywhere.” When it became clear , he announced that he would not be promoted to CEO at Roche.