It's the tallest building in Italy with a load-bearing structure made of laminated wood, LEED certified, and designed according to sustainable construction criteria. We're talking about the Horizon complex, located in Milan's MIND - Milano Innovation District, in the Expo area. Here, in a complex designed with solutions geared toward reducing environmental impact, Bayer has reserved two floors, covering nearly 4,000 square meters, for its new Italian headquarters, after nearly 80 years in the aging complex on Viale Certosa.

Located in the vast Mind construction site, in the west area, right in front of the subway exit, the complex was opened to employees in early September, while a preview was held for the press on October 6th.

As the executives explained, "Innovation isn't just what a company produces. It's also how it works, collaborates, and creates the conditions for people to fully express their potential. It's with this belief in mind that Bayer Italia has chosen MIND – Milano Innovation District as its new headquarters. Bayer thus enters an ecosystem that brings together businesses, universities, research centers, hospitals, and startups, in a unique collaborative model where science, technology, and business meet to shape the future. A place where the fusion of diverse skills, experiences, and perspectives represents an accelerator of innovation.

"This is much more than a simple change of direction: it represents the Bayer of today and the direction we have chosen for the future," said Arianna Gregis, CEO of Bayer Italy. "We continue our history in Milan, in a place that makes innovation its hallmark. Being part of this ecosystem allows us to strengthen dialogue with diverse entities, develop new synergies, and accelerate innovation processes capable of generating value for people, the healthcare system, and the country. This is an opportunity we intend to seize by contributing, with our expertise and our ability to innovate, to the growth of this district."

But that's not all. The new headquarters is part of a broader transformation of Bayer's way of working, inspired by the Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO) organizational model, which aims to make the company more agile, faster, and impact-driven. The model fosters autonomous, cross-functional teams, shared responsibility, and decision-making processes that are more aligned with the needs of customers and stakeholders. It's a symbolic building, consistent with the leading life sciences company.

This evolution also takes shape in the spaces of MIND Horizon: The open and flexible environments alternate areas dedicated to discussion, co-creation, and socializing with spaces designed for individual work and concentration. Space thus becomes a concrete enabler of a more agile and connected organization: not just a workplace, but an environment where different people, skills, and functions can meet, collaborate, and generate new opportunities.

As Bayer explains in a statement, "This transformation is accompanied by a new vision based on the belief that everyone must play an active role in their own growth journey. A company's success is measured not only by its ability to innovate through products and solutions, but also by how each individual questions the impact they want to generate and their own ambitions.

"For us, innovation comes from the energy of people: from their ideas, the passion, and the talent they put into what they do every day. The new headquarters is the place where this heritage can best express itself, fostering new connections to tackle tomorrow's challenges together," added Arianna Gregis.

Ultimately, architecture, light, materials, wood, steel, and greenery as a wellness infrastructure merge into a single element, capable of representing the innovative nature of the headquarters.