Dow announces a new leadership structure

Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Company has announced a major reorganization of its senior leadership structure. While making the announcement to the company’s employees earlier this week, Dow’s chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris noted that the reorganization was part of Dow’s growth strategy.

“As we look toward our future, it is essential that we define a leadership organization and leadership teams that will swiftly take us to the next phase of our evolution,” said Liveris. “Over the past few months, this has been my key area of focus ensuring we have the right people, concentrating on the right tasks, with the right levels of empowerment.”

On the senior level, Dow now has an executive leadership committee consisting of Liveris, executive vice president and CFO Geoffery Merszei, Performance Businesses executive vice president Romeo Kreinberg, Strategic Development and New Ventures senior vice president Heinz Haller, and Basics Businesses executive vice president Mike Gambrell.

The five-person committee will help define Dow’s strategic direction, prioritize its investment agenda and establish enterprise-wide policy.

Liveris has also divided Dow’s global business portfolio into eight distinct groups, six of which are new. A business president will lead each group, and the groups have been identified as Basic Plastics, Basic Chemicals, Polyurethanes, Designed Polymers & Latex, Epoxy & Intermediates/Specialty Chemicals, Specialty Plastics, Dow Agrosciences, and Hydrocarbons & Energy.

“The business leadership framework we have put in place creates an environment of greater accountability and increased autonomy, in which these eight presidents will have the agility and the authority to model their businesses around the individual drivers of long-term success,” said Liveris.

Dow is a major chemical and resin supplier with customers in more than 175 countries. The company employs about 43,000 people worldwide, with Canadian headquarters located in Etobicoke, Ont.