The Materials Science Division of DowDuPont, announced that the Materials Advisory Committee of the DowDuPont board of directors, intends to appoint Jim Fitterling, currently COO for the Materials Science Division of DowDuPont, and President and COO of The Dow Chemical Company, to the role of CEO of the intended Materials Science Company to be called Dow, upon intended separation of the company, announced in February 2018.
Additionally, the Materials Advisory Committee also announced that Howard Ungerleider, CFO of DowDuPont and vice chairman and CFO for The Dow Chemical Company, will serve as President and CFO of the intended Materials Science Company.
Both Fitterling and Ungerleider will continue to serve in their current roles at DowDuPont until the completion of the division’s intended separation, which is expected to occur by the end of first quarter of 2019.
“Ensuring a thoughtful and orderly leadership succession has been a top priority for the Board and for me throughout my tenure as CEO and as a result we have had a very comprehensive succession process since the beginning of my tenure."
"We have conducted a robust and thorough validation of our candidates through internal and external benchmarking, and as we stated upon the announcement of the DowDuPont transaction, we intended to announce the future leadership of Dow in advance of the spin and creation of the new Dow,” said Andrew N. Liveris, current DowDuPont executive chairman.
“Therefore we believe that now is a good time to put in place the succession plans. Many of our mega-investments, including in Saudi Arabia and on the US Gulf Coast, have started up; the integration of Dow Corning is complete; and our plans to launch the three new spincos are almost completed, with the spin of the future Dow set for the end of the first quarter of 2019. I am confident there is no better leader than Jim, nor a better team of Jim and Howard, to lead Dow into the next chapter of our storied history.”
Liveris said: “Jim and Howard have been valued members of Dow’s and my most senior leadership team and have each played a pivotal role in developing and executing Dow’s market-driven strategy.”
“It has been an unbelievable honor to lead Dow for the last 15 years and I am extremely proud of the work our people have done over that time to put Dow in the position it is in today – the world’s leading Materials Science company. Dow’s future is extremely bright,” concluded Liveris.
“Andrew led one of the most complex and forward-looking corporate transformations in all of industry. As a result, today Dow delivers higher and more stable returns for our investors, more innovative and collaborative solutions for our customers and more world-class opportunities for our employees."
"Our goal is to continue to exceed the expectations of our customers and shareholders by leveraging our integration-backed and innovation-led business model to provide solutions to world-scale challenges,” said Fitterling.
