NEWS

Personnel changes at BASF
Effective November 1st, 2009, Saori Dubourg (38) will be appointed new head of BASF's division Regional Functions & Country Management Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong. The current division president, Dr. Tilman Krauch (47), will assume responsibility for BASF's Construction Chemicals division as of the same date. Dr. Bernhard Hofmann (57), who was previously responsible for this division, will retire at the end of 2009.
Dubourg was born in Augsburg and studied business management and Japanese studies in Trier. After joining BASF in 1996, she worked in strategic marketing in the Dispersions & Pigments division before gathering international experience in a variety of functions in the United States, Japan, and Singapore and heading the European business for acrylic monomers and super­absorbents. Since the end of 2007, Dubourg has been responsible for BASF's global Diversity & Inclusion project as senior vice president.
Krauch was born in Mühlheim an der Ruhr and studied chemistry in Freiburg and Zürich. Following post-doc positions in Russia and Japan, he joined BASF's Polymer Laboratory in 1990. After working as staff to the Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, Krauch gained further international experience at BASF Corporation in the United States before heading the global business unit Polyamides & Intermediates from 2004 until 2006. Since 2006, he has been responsible for the division Regional Functions & Country Management Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong.
Hofmann was born in Wöllershof and studied chemistry in Gießen. His career started at Hoechst AG. As managing director, he was based in Mumbai from 1996 until 1997, where he was responsible for all of Hoechst's operations in South Asia. In 2001, Hofmann was appointed head of the Construction Chemicals division at Degussa, before being appointed to Degussa's Board of Management at the beginning of 2006. Following BASF's acquisition of Degussa's construction chemicals business, Hofmann was appointed head of the Construction Chemicals division in 2006.

Cefic - New Climate change information
Cefic is now launching a new information campaign on the everyday life solutions European chemistry provides for improved climate protection. Based on new data, these practical tools are being promoted to answer fears of failure of the next climate change negotiations in Copenhagen and scientists who claim we must change our way of living. Collect the first of the climate change postcards created by Cefic for Cop 15 at www.cefic.be/Templates/

Next December, a United Nations conference (COP 15) will try to reach an agreement in Copenhagen on how to manage climate change issues and to limit our greenhouse gas emissions for the period starting in 2012. Different criticisms have been heard in the media about the G8 leaders' very timid commitments at their summit in l'Aquila (last July). In the meantime, several scientists have expressed fears that the target of limiting global temperature increases to 2 °C would be hard to reach and even if that were the case you could not be sure it would be enough to manage climate change issues.
It is not up to the European Chemical industry to question such scientific concerns. It is however up to this industry to provide solutions based on sound data to meet the needs of society facing the demand for a more sustainable future.
This is why Cefic is now launching a new information campaign on the reduction of greenhouse gases. It follows the data-based approach set out in the recently published Innovations for Greenhouse Gas Reductions report - a report made on behalf of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) with the support of McKinsey & Company and scientifically validated by the independent German scientific NGO Öko Institut.
Watch the video at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BspklmsW-bU

Henderson named Dow Automotive Systems President
Dow Automotive Systems announced in October that Steve Henderson has been appointed president, replacing Peter Sykes who assumes the role of President, Dow Greater China. Henderson will be responsible for the global profit and loss, business strategy and organizational health of Dow Automotive Systems. Henderson most recently served as President of the Americas. Additionally, in his role as Vice President, Diversified Products, he was responsible for a variety of strategic growth products including AERIFY^TM particulate filters, IMPAXX^TM structural foam inserts and BETAMATE^TM structural adhesives.
He has held a variety of leadership positions at Dow Automotive Systems, including Vice President, New Business Development and Strategic Marketing, and Vice President of Glass and Plastic Bonding. Henderson, who will be based in Tokyo, Japan, joined Dow Automotive Systems from General Motors in 1987 as an associate engineer. He has a B.S. degree in Organizational Administration and a Master's of Business Administration. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Sales and Marketing Executives (SME), Adhesives Sealants Council (ASC) and Beta Gamma Sigma.


Peter Sykes named President of Dow Greater China
Dow announced in October that Peter Sykes has been named President, Dow Greater China. Peter previously served as President, Dow Automotive Systems, a role which will now be assumed by Steve Henderson. In addition to his duties as President, Dow Automotive Systems, Sykes also served as President, Dow Japan & Korea based in Tokyo, Japan. He will relinquish this responsibility to focus fully on Dow's business and organizational growth in Greater China.
Sykes, who will be located in Shanghai, China, joined The Dow Chemical Company in 1981 in London, England. He has held a number of senior financial, operations and regional management positions around the globe, including the company's global headquarters in Midland, Michigan. In total Sykes has spent over 18 years working in Asia for Dow spanning Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and Japan.
Sykes is a member of the board of directors of Sumitomo Dow Ltd. He holds a banking diploma from the Chartered Institute of Bankers, U.K. He is a graduate of the financial management program of the Stanford University School of Business and the executive program of the University of Michigan.

Changeover in the management of FluidSystems
FluidSystems GmbH & Co. KG notifies a change in the company management. Mr. Peter Sander has been the executive director of the company for 10 years and now passes the position over into other hands. He will remain in the company and fill in the vacancy of the engineering manager. The successors are his co-partners which are already aboard. All three are managing partners and responsible for the following scopes: Mr. Rauh initials for the sales and marketing Mr. Schramm for engineering with projecting, design and assembly Mr. Wiegard for purchasing and finances. All four have founded FluidSystems GmbH & Co. KG more then 10 years ago. The company originated from the Graco-Systems-Engineering and all 4 partners together have a background of 120 years of experience in the surface technology.

Expansion of Strategic Product Development
Beginning September 1st, Volkhart Meyder (56 - Dipl. Ing) took over the position "Strategic Product Development - Automotive and Seating Systems" at GRAMMER AG. In this role, which has been established as a new central function for both company divisions, Mr. Meyder will be responsible for developing a group-wide innovation strategy across all product lines. Meyder reports directly to the GRAMMER AG Executive Board. "By bringing aboard a long-time and experienced employee of GRAMMER Group to strengthen the area of Strategic Product Development, we are making targeted use of our personnel resources for a successful future. In this way, we are working well in advance to lay the groundwork for further reinforcement of our position as technology and innovation leader during the crisis," comments Hartmut Müller, member of the GRAMMER AG Executive Board.
With the expansion of Strategic Product Development, GRAMMER is pursuing the objective of ensuring innovation and market leadership in the Offroad segment and strengthening its position in the Automotive market. Volkhart Meyder is an engineer, who has been with GRAMMER Group since 2001, where he was heading the international development of "Seats". In 2005, he took over as the head of the Offroad unit.

Changes in the management of Klöckner polyPUR
Jürgen H. Stahl (64), who has been the Managing Director of Duisburg (Germany) based Klöckner polyPUR Chemie GmbH during the nine years since the formation of the Company, will retire from his position at the end of September. He will, however, remain a shareholder of the Company.
The shareholders of Klöckner polyPUR Chemie GmbH appointed Mr. Jörg Teschner (44) as new Managing Director as from October 1st, 2009.
Mr. Teschner, who has worked in the polyurethanes industry for more than 20 years, will have the very able assistance of Klöckner polyPUR Chemie's longstanding vice-president Mrs. Elke Heckhoff to ensure the continuing high level of support given to the Company's customers in the field of distribution. 
Joerg Teschner