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The Impact of Geopolitical and Economic Disruptions on the Chemical Industry
Virtual Networking 12:30 - 1:00 PM ET, Virtual Webcast 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET
What are these disruptions and what are their drivers? What impact will they have on the chemical industry and on individual chemical players? What should each company do to survive these disruptions?
Although historically there have been many previous periods of disruption (Oil Crisis in 1974, Financial Crisis in 2008, Covid-19 health crisis in 2020, etc.), there have been very few times when the sheer number of significant disruptions have been this high.
Just a few of the geopolitical and economic disruptions include: Regional Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the threat of war in Asia, economic slowdowns in many regions such as China and Europe, election battles around the world that have significant potential consequences and pit far right and left and authoritarian groups against each other, major weather related calamities such the now regular droughts/hurricanes/massive fires, inflation, and periodic disruptions in supply chains, and tariff and other forms of economic warfare around the world.
In addition, the commodity chemical industry is facing an unusually harsh downturn that is combining the normal cyclical additions of capacity and weak demand with major increases in capacity in China and the Middle East that are driven by government policy objectives in China and a desire to diversify on the part of Middle East oil and petrochemical companies. These capacity increases are not entirely rationale from an economic point of view, i.e. from a cost position or feedstock competitiveness point of view.
We have an outstanding and diverse panel of experts who will give their view of what the disruptions are, their genesis, the impact that they are having and will have on the chemical industry, who the winners and losers will be, how companies can do the right self- assessment to determine how bad the situation will be for them and what their strategic and financial options are.
Peter Young, CEO of Young & Partners, will be both a speaker and the moderator for this event.
Panelists:
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Guillermo Novo
Chairman and CEO
Ashland Global Holdings Inc. |
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Robert Westervelt
Editor in Chief
Chemical Week |
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Peter Young
CEO
Young & Partners
(MODERATOR)
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Meet the Panelists:
Guillermo Novo joined Ashland’s Board of Directors in May 2019 and he became Chief Executive Officer of Ashland December 31, 2019. Previously he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Versum Materials and a member of its Board of Directors.
Novo also served as Executive Vice President, Materials Technologies of Air Products. He joined Air Products in 2012 as Senior Vice President Electronics, Performance Materials, Strategy and Technology. Prior to Air Products, he was employed by Dow Chemical Company where he most recently served as group vice president, Dow Coating Materials.
Novo began his career in 1986 with Rohm and Haas Company (which merged with Dow in 2009) and over the next 24 years progressed through a variety of commercial, marketing, and general management positions, living in South America, the U.S. and Asia. In 1998, he was named a vice president at Rohm and Haas, and in 2006 he became a corporate officer and one of five group executives on the corporate leadership team.
He holds an industrial engineering degree from the University of Central Florida and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Novo also serves on the advisory board for the College of Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Central Florida.
Robert Westervelt is editor in chief of Chemical Week by S&P Global and has covered the global chemical industry for more than 25 years. He was named editor of Chemical Week in December 2006. His team is responsible for coverage and analysis of news and trends affecting the global chemical industry.
Westervelt joined the magazine in 1994 as a reporter and editorial assistant. Prior to being named editor-in-chief, he was senior editor/news, responsible for Americas’ news and markets coverage. He has a BA in political science with a minor in journalism from Queens College.
Peter Young is CEO and a Managing Director of Young & Partners, an international investment banking and corporate/financial strategy firm focused on the chemical and life sciences industries. Young & Partners serves the M&A, capital raising, bankruptcy and restructuring, strategy and financial advisory needs of large and medium sized companies in the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia. Prior to Young & Partners, he was global head of chemicals investment banking at Lehman Brothers and a Partner and global head of chemicals investment banking at Schroders. Before Schroders he was head of chemicals M&A at Salomon Brothers, a senior investment officer at J. H. Whitney, the private equity/venture capital firm, and a strategy consultant at Bain & Company.
He has a BA from Yale in Economics, an MS in Accounting from New York University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. He is a board member and head of programs at Societe de Chimie Industrial, a Board Member of the Committee of 100, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive.