Spaniard first ‘but not last’ woman to join German blue-chip CEOs

FRANKFURT – Belen Garijo will take over as CEO at German pharmaceuticals giant Merck from May — the first woman to singlehandedly run a DAX 30-listed company — as Europe’s top economy debates quotas for greater boardroom equality.

Spanish-born Garijo, 60, currently serves as the group’s deputy chief executive officer and head of its healthcare unit and says she’s not content to be a one-off.

“It’s more important to me not to be the last woman at the top of a company than to be the only one,” the trained doctor recently told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

She is replacing Stefan Oschmann, 63, whose term ended after five years at the helm of the Darmstadt-based, family-owned group, which had never…