Derk Haank was appointed CEO of Springer Science+Business Media in February 2004.

After obtaining a degree in economics and business administration and spending a few years as a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Mr Haank began his career in publishing in 1986 at Elsevier Science, where he held various management positions, spending part of this time based in the UK. He was appointed CEO of Misset, Elsevier's B-to-B division, in 1991. From 1998 to 2004, Mr Haank was CEO of Elsevier Science and was also an Executive Board member at Reed Elsevier.

In the little spare time he has, he is a passionate reader and loves sports.