PEOPLE
Abril leaves SOCMA
President and CEO Jennifer Abril will step down as president and CEO of SOCMA in August in order to take up a similar role at American Cleaning Institute. In nine years at the helm, she oversaw the relaunch of the SOCMA Show and the launch of Vision 2030 strategic framework, among others. SOCMA is now searching for her successor.
Succession at Alzchem
Germany’ s Alzchem Group has completed its long-term succession planning for the management board by naming Dr Jürgen Sans as its COO for a three-year term beginning on 1 January 2026, when Klaus Englmaier retires. Sans has been with Alzchem for over 27 years. Martina Spitzer will succeed Dr Georg Weichselbaumer as CSO at the same time.
Robert takes new role
EuroAPI has appointed Frédéric Robert, formerly with NAOS Bioderma, Fareva and Aptar, to the newly created role of chief commercial officer, overseeing API Solutions and CDMO activities and creating commercial and organisational synergies between them. This forms part of the company’ s ongoing Focus-27 transformation plan.
New Brenntag CEO
The supervisory board of Brenntag has named Jens Birgersson as its new CEO from 1 September. Birgersson has held various management positions in different industries, most recently as president and CEO of Denmark’ s Rockwool Group. He will succeed Dr Christian Kohlpaintner, who decided not to renew his contract after six years in the role.
Kurihara takes over Roquette names leader
Jun Kurihara, hitherto EVP, became the new CEO of AGC Pharma Chemicals on 1 June, in place of Akihiro Kadokura who will assume the role of senior executive advisor at AGC Life Science. The firm said that Kurihara“ has played a pivotal role in the company’ s transformation and growth” since arriving from AstraZeneca, including leading strategic projects that enabled the plant to reach nearmaximum operational capacity.
Thierry Fournier will become the new CEO of Roquette on 18 July. A former civil servant in France, Fournier had held different leadership positions with Saint-Gobain, in France, Russia, and Brazil, becoming CEO in the Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa region in 2021. Pierre Courduroux, CEO since December 2020, will retire on the same day.
Borowski is back
Craig Borkowski has returned to Momentive as CEO after six years away. In a previous stint with the firm, he had served in multiple roles in the US and South Korea, rising to head of the Electronics Materials business worldwide and chief strategy officer.
Stietz to lead Heraeus
Dr Frank Stietz is to be the new CEO and chairman of the board of managing directors of the Heraeus Group, replacing Jan Rinnert who is stepping down. Stietz joined as president of Heraeus Electronics in 2015, rising to the group management committee in 2018 and the board of managing directors in March 2020.
58 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981