Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The Chemical Show™, where chemicals mean business. If you're looking for insights from business leaders of mid-market to Fortune 50 companies, this is the place to be.
Featuring interviews with industry executives, you’ll hear about the key trends impacting chemicals and plastics today: growth, sustainability, innovation, business transformation, digitalization, supply chain, talent, strategic marketing, customer experience and much more.
Episodes are published every Tuesday.
Host Victoria Meyer gained her industry experience at leading companies, including Shell, LyondellBasell and Clariant. Before taking those insights and experiences to launch a strategy & marketing consultancy, Progressio Global, and The Chemical Show podcast. Victoria brings a informed and engaging perspective, making this podcast not just about the chemical business, but about people, leadership, business challenges and opportunities, and so much more.
The Chemical Show brings you the latest insights into trillion-dollar chemical industry. You will hear from leading industry executives as they discuss their companies, business, markets, and leadership. You’ll learn how chemical, specialty chemical, petrochemical, material science and plastics companies are making an impact, responding to the changing business environment, and discussing best practices and approaches you can apply in your business.
This podcast is a must-listen for executives and business leader everywhere, leading B2B process businesses and industries, driving strategy, harnessing customers and suppliers, and driving business innovation.
VictoriaM: Hi, this is Victoria Meyer.
Welcome back to The Chemical Show
where Chemicals Means Business.
Today, I am bringing you a short episode
that includes five key leadership lessons
learned on day one of The Chemical Summit.
So as you guys know, The Chemical
Summit was held on October 8th and 9th.
The feedback was, and this is
just a snapshot: Outstanding!
Enlightening!
Insightful!
So lots of great things.
If you missed it and you're feeling
sad or a little bit FOMO, you know,
fear of missing out, don't worry,
head on over to thechemicalsummit.Com
and get your Virtual Ticket.
We are making available to you.
Um, the ability to access recordings
of our speakers and panelists,
plus any slides or contents that
they shared as well as some of
the snippets of conversation
that happened during the event.
You're going to have the ability to
connect with other leaders in our
exclusive Chemical Summit Community.
And the opportunity to gain actionable
insights to move your personal
leadership and your business forward.
Day One of the Summit
covered a lot of ground.
We started with Leon DeBruyn, CEO
of Lummus Technology, talking about
Lummus's transformation journey and we
ended with Bonnie Tully, Chief Operating
Officer of Evonik North America, talking
about culture, leadership, and more.
In between, we had some great
speakers on Digitization, AI,
Marine Supply Chain and Sustainability,
and even more importantly, and this
is the thing that I can't bring to
you in a podcast episode is the buzz
of conversation and connections that
were taking place across the attendees.
What people have said is it was one
of the best chemical conferences
that they've ever attended,
that they love the connections.
And that it was friendly.
And frankly, that's what The
Chemical Summit is all about.
Thought Leadership,
Connections, and Insights.
So today I'm bringing you some
nuggets from Day One of the Summit.
Again, you can go back and you can,
um, get access to a Virtual Ticket
and get some of the recordings
and downloads from our speakers.
And.
Sign up for next year.
We've got our early pass
already available, so you
definitely don't want to miss it.
Here we go.
Five key leadership lessons that,
um, attendees gained, not just me,
I asked for some feedback from other
attendees of The Chemical Summit that
they gained from our speakers and
from the conversations in the room.
So first of all, In times
of major challenge and
transformation, create a war room.
Um, and when your back's against the
wall, there is no time for indecisiveness.
Trust your gut and keep moving.
We heard this from Leon DeBruyn.
And in fact, um, Leon shared a lot of
the story of the transformation that,
um, Uh, Lummus has gone through when
it went private in 2020 in the midst of
COVID to where it is today and turning it
into a dynamic, innovative organization.
I'm going to give you a clip of
some of Leon's speech right here.
Leon: And suddenly we had to
sell our company with conditions.
So the moment I was able to get past
that initial shock, I started to plan.
Wartime leadership.
If you're, if you have your back
against the wall, there is no time for
efficiency and making everything perfect.
You want to be direct.
Efficacy matters in that situation.
So what, what we did immediately was
we combined a team, five, six head team
of people that I knew they would take
a task and it would just run forward.
And I also knew that the rest of the
company would continue to operate because
if you're selling your company and you're
having, you're having to meet with banks
and tell your story a hundred times,
literally a hundred times to acquirers,
you still have to run your company.
You still have to make
money because if you don't.
You sell a company that suddenly
has completely deflated.
So that was the situation we were in.
We did that.
We formed this war team in the war room.
And we got help.
There was an investment bank
that run this process, etc.
What I did not realize, and this may
be my boring engineering background,
is people started to leave the company.
And of course that makes sense,
but we didn't think of it.
So we suddenly had to face, how
do we retain the top talent?
How do we retain the tenant that's
going to take the company forward?
So all of a sudden, it was not just
two tasks, now there was a third task.
And this is again where I think
wartime leadership matters.
You gotta meet with the people, you
gotta talk with them, you gotta hear
from them what motivates them to stay
and what's the longer term story.
It forced us to think about what's
the longer term story for us, get
past that problem of selling in
the company, but what's our future?
VictoriaM: The other nugget of advice
that came out of this was don't swim in
the data, swim where you want to succeed.
So we've heard that actually from Leon,
but also in our Digitization and AI panel.
And I'm going to give you a
snapshot of that panel right here.
And then lastly, is that sort
of high frequency monitoring.
And that you can apply that to, think of
market sentiment, but you can think of
it as, you know, running your operations
where you've got like inventory tolerance.
So you can apply it right across
the So you start there and say,
that's what I'm trying to achieve,
that's why AI deserves to win.
Then you go back and say,
right, what the hell do I need?
And if you tie that all the way
back to data, then you start
saying, right, what data do I need?
What type of data processing
capability do I require?
What type of data modeling do I require?
And then you start getting back to those
definitions that I was confused with
earlier of, right, now I understand what
data I need, what data products I need,
what data models I need, because I'm
trying to stitch to something at the end.
So that's.
You know, from my lens, that's how
I've looked at that question is,
to make sure we harness the data
and make sure that it's productive,
is don't swim in the data.
Swim where you're trying to succeed.
Our third leadership lesson comes from
our marine supply chain panel, which
talked about navigating Uncertainties
and if any of you are following what's
going on in the maritime shipping world
and how it affects Chemical supply
chains, you know, and if you're not
paying attention You need to start.
So the lesson that came out of this
was the importance of partnering inside
your firm and across your stakeholders
and value chains to find solutions.
And in fact, as you know, when we talk
about marine supply chain, This is a
globally connected business and what's
happening in other regions dramatically
affects what's happening in North
America, in Asia, in Europe, elsewhere.
We're connected and you need
to know what's happening.
And the way you know what's happening
is to connect, connect, engage,
and partner across the value chain.
Here, I'm going to snip it from
Eric Carrero, who is the president
of the Greater Houston Port Bureau.
Eric Carrero: And we learned that actually
Texas is very important to Panama because
of the trade that they have with us.
So when this delegation, we engaged
and we went to Panama for a few
days, they were able to talk to us
and explain to us what happened.
Last year was El Nino event.
Uh, the first time they were using
the new locks on their El Nino event.
So they had less rain.
So these locks, they
were taking more water.
For the vessel when they were transiting.
So because of that, then they had
an issue with the water, right?
This year is La Nina event, which
means that more rain, more water,
no issues, but they mentioned to
us, we want to be prepared for the
next El Nino event in five years.
So what are they doing?
They're investing 1.
7 billion in the next four years
to take water from a reserve
that they already identify.
And they're going to be bringing
that water into the Panama canal.
Because they know transits
are going to increase.
Uh, we're not going to slow down.
We need to get our vessels
all the way out to Asia.
Because the market,
like I said, is growing.
So they are prepared.
Once again, it's the
importance of being proactive.
The importance of being engaged.
Uh, it was an issue for us.
Engaged with my members.
We went.
We conquered.
And I'm proud to say that.
We are, we cannot remain, just
wait to see what's going to happen.
While the rest of the nation was
waiting to see what's going to
happen with the Panama Canal.
50 of us.
We went and we had a great time.
We actually met with the U.
S.
Ambassador in Panama.
We went to the residents.
We had a great evening.
And that's something that we want
to continue to do every year.
Once again, we want to
start knocking that door.
We don't want them to forget about us.
The importance is we need to be proactive.
VictoriaM: Our fourth leadership
lesson comes from our sustainability
panel chaired by Karen Krchnak of
the American Chemistry Council.
In that panel, we talked about the
importance of being good stewards
and building community partnerships.
Your best community engagement strategy is
to engage and partner with your fence line
and surrounding communities around you.
Build goodwill, build strong
relationships such that if, and we
hope this never happens, but if there
is an incident that occurs, that that
goodwill is there, that they are there.
Your partners across the fence line
in your community are there to support
you in good times and bad times.
And when not so good.
So, you know, ultimately we're focused
in on sustainability and building
good sustainable relationships
and good safe practices in our
facilities and with our communities.
And one of the keys with this is building
a strong community engagement early.
Our fifth leadership lessons
is comes from Bonnie Tully.
And I heard so many great things from
people about the conversation, the
Fireside Chat that Bonnie Tully and I had.
And one of the biggest takeaways that
people had was around conflict resolution.
And.
Um, basically Bonnie was talking
about an inflection point that the
facility in Singapore was having it.
She was out there starting up.
It'd gone through construction
and startup, and then it was
moving into steady state, which
is a huge inflection point.
In the message that Bonnie shared
with us was when your organization
is at an inflection point,
expect some conflict, right?
It's a very natural thing, but
you have to solve that conflict.
And she had a really great
suggestion that worked and she
has applied it several times to
solve the largest group conflicts.
Focus on the small one to one conflicts.
And in fact, they brought in a
mediator and had a series of one on
one engagements, which completely turn
the organization around when you move
from the biggest to the smallest and
focus on frankly, controllable things,
the rest will shake out and that allows
for success and opportunity and more.
So those are the 5 leadership
lessons that we've got today from
Day 1 of The Chemical Summit.
I hope you've enjoyed this.
Stay tuned next week.
We're bringing you some leadership
lessons from day 2 of The Chemical Summit.
And if you're interested in hearing
these speeches and hearing what these
leaders talked about, head on over
to thechemicalsummit.Com where you
can buy a Virtual Ticket and get
access to the recordings and more.
So thank you for listening today.
Keep listening, keep following,
keep sharing, and we will
talk with you again soon.