Frank Laukien

Laukien, whose father co-founded the business in 1960, spent more than $100 million buying additional company shares since 2004 and now has a 24 percent stake in the business. The acquisitions leave him as Bruker’s largest shareholder, in contrast with his siblings and stepmother, who have pared their inherited stakes. German physics professor Guenther Laukien founded Bruker in 1960, focusing initially on the production of laboratory magnets and power supplies. Soon afterward, the company started building nuclear magnetic resonance systems that analyzed materials at the molecular level. Now a market leader for molecular research equipment, it also produces X-ray machines and microscopes. Frank Laukien is the Chairman, President and CEO of Bruker Corporation and he is also President of Bruker Daltonics. Dr. Laukien holds a B.Sc. in physics from MIT, and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University. Throughout his 20 year business career, he has taken numerous courses and done extensive reading in business, innovation and R&D management, accounting and corporate finance as well as in business, corporate and IP law. He has been a part-time professor at the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS) of the University of Amsterdam, and in 2002-03 served as Chairman of the Analytical & Life Science Systems Association. He is a Trustee of the Rivers School in Weston, MA.