VIENNA — Austrian oil, gas and petrochemicals multinational OMV has hired Sylvia Shin as the group’s senior vice president of communications.

Shin joins from Bayer, where she is currently vice president responsible for executive communications and strategic PR for its pharmaceuticals division globally. Her eight-year tenure at Bayer has included global communications roles in the healthcare and pharmaceuticals division.

Before that, Shin held senior positions at Sony Group Corporation where she was latterly general manager of corporate communications, responsible for the consumer electronics group’s corporate PR in Europe.

When Shin joins OMV on 1 April, she will report to chairman and CEO Alfred Stern, who said: “OMV is embarking on a major transformation towards chemicals, circular economy and greater sustainability where strategic and convincing communication will play an integral role. At this important stage of our company, I am delighted to bring on board Sylvia Shin who is an accomplished communications executive with a breadth of international, cross-industry experience in innovation-driven transformations.”

Stern thanked head of public relations Andreas Rinofner for also serving as acting head of communications since the departure of Hans-Peter Siebenhaar at the end of 2021, after seven months in the post. Siebenhaar, a former correspondent for German business newspaper Handelsblatt, has returned to journalism.

OMV had 2021 group sales revenues of €35.6 billion and a workforce of around 22,400 employees.