Welcome to The Chemical Show, the podcast where Chemical means business.
I'm your host, Victoria Meyer, bringing you stories and insights
from leaders driving innovation and growth across the chemical industry.
Each week we explore key trends, real world challenges, and the
strategies that make an impact.
Let's get started.
Welcome back to the Chemical Show where Leaders Talk Business.
This is a special remix of the Chemical Show.
You may have seen the news recently that Jennifer a Abril.
Currently president and CEO of SOCMA was named the new president and CEO
of the American Cleaning Institute.
I am super excited for Jennifer and for ACI.
In fact, when Melissa Stead the prior leader of ACI announced her departure and
that she was moving over to the Consumer Brands Association, I thought, oh my
gosh, Jennifer's gonna be a great fit.
And as it turns out, the ACI Board think so as well.
So, yay.
I'm super excited for Jennifer and for ACI, both SOCMA and ACI
are near and dear to my heart.
And I know that SOCMA's gonna have some big shoes to fill with
Jennifer departing the organization.
But I also know that she's gonna be a great fit for ACI and it's
exciting to see this happening.
So, side note, she's taken over for Melissa Hockstad, who is another
amazing leader and one whom I've interviewed twice for the podcast.
I'll link to those episodes here.
She's now at the Consumer Brands Association and doing amazing.
So good for Melissa.
Good for Jennifer Abril.
Good for ACI Great all the way around.
so this is a classic remix.
I've had the opportunity to gen interview Jennifer twice for the chemical show
and I am bringing you five questions to help you get to know Jennifer.
This is based on prior interviews that I've done with her, that are
gonna shine a light on her leadership.
Introduce you to her and maybe give you a glimpse of why she's heading over to
ACI, again, I have no insider knowledge.
Let me just, state that for the record.
And actually once Jennifer's in seat at ACI, I know that she's,
gonna be back on the podcast.
We're making some plans for end of this year, early next year to bring a fresh
podcast, fresh point of view, et cetera.
But for now, five questions with Jennifer Abril.
question number one.
Who is Jennifer Abril?
You guys know that I like to start every episode with an origin
story, and Jennifer's first episode in particular was no different.
So here we go.
Tell us a bit about you.
What's your origin story?
How did you come to be working in the chemical industry and
specifically at trade associations?
great question.
Thanks for asking.
And it's funny because I no expectation that I would be working either for
chemical or for trade associations.
It happened to be one of these, stories where you start networking
with people and you fall into a role and life takes you on your journey.
So, many years ago, early in my career, I was working for a, a lobbyist here
in Washington, DC I was in charge of coalition building and, the
American Chemistry Council was a big part of several of the coalitions
that I ran, and they expanded their international department and that's
when I had an opportunity to join them.
And I focused on, product stewardship and public health issues internationally.
In some of the, global activities on the regulatory and public
health side for a while.
So I was there for eight years and then came over to for three, had
an opportunity to run the fragrance association, here in North America.
And I spent eight years doing that.
And then I had an opportunity to come back to SOCMA and uh, it's
been a great, homecoming for me.
I bet that's neat.
In fact, the, the whole being able to come back into an
organization doesn't always happen.
So it's nice sometimes to be able to do it, go off, get experience, and then come
back and bring those new insights back in.
Question number two.
next we talk about working with diverse groups as you know.
The role of an industry association president and CEO is complex.
They are navigating not just the organization itself, the industry group
and its teams of people and the work that it's doing, but also balancing the needs
of its various members, companies big and SOCMAll, who may not always have the same.
Alignment and expectations.
Right.
So I find that the industry groups that I've seen across the, the chemical
industry do a pretty good job of that.
And Jennifer has done a great job of that with SOCMA.
I think we'll see that coming over to ACI as well, which is frankly already
a very well aligned organization.
But I think it's complex.
And so I've, I talked with Jennifer just about that topic, about how
do you balance those various needs.
Listen in.
Victoria: So I'm gonna turn the conversation here a little bit
and let's talk about leadership.
Because I think it's unique, to be in a role such as you are as leader of an
industry organization where I know you have your staff, but your constituents
and your members cover a wide range of companies, very different agendas, and yet
you need to create alignment and you've, as you've obviously created alignment,
for instance, with your strategic plan.
How do you do that?
How do you get alignment across such a diverse organization,
of member companies?
Jennifer: It is not easy.
It takes a lot of listening.
It takes a lot of pulling themes.
I think I was fortunate to have had the position early in my career.
To, be in charge of coalition building because I think I, I
honed those skills early and I didn't realize I was building them.
What is I think unique about SOCMA is that each company is similarly
situated, but we don't have that much direct competition with each other.
Right.
Because even when you get down to.
You might have somebody who has, a reactor that's the size you need
or, but somebody else doesn't.
Right.
So there's oftentimes just nuances that, make, for very few
direct competitors, competitors.
as an industry group, we SOCMA staff have to be really, really aware of the themes.
So it's our job to listen between the lines and to figure out what is it that
we can be doing to support the specialty and chemical manufacturing sector.
Specifically know how to ask us for that.
So our job is really to listen, interpret, validate, and then be SOCMArt
enough to give it back to the industry.
as a, we heard you say this, we've acted, and now we're providing you
that solution that you didn't even know how to ask us for, but we heard you.
Victoria: That's interesting, fascinating.
It's good consulting skills as well.
So you've, you've got it in spades.
Question three, we talk about transformation.
So I think what's been really fascinating is the transformation that Jennifer
has led SOCMA through, to help it become more effective for its members.
The story that we're, we talk about that she's sharing is how SOCMA
actually went back and acquired.
A trade show, acquired a conference because they had stepped away from
that and then they realized under her direction what a huge gap that was.
So we talk about the importance of strategy and transformation and this
continual evolution, and frankly, the underlying theme of This is also
staying in tune with member needs.
Here you go.
so I know that you've been, you know, since you've been back at SOCMA you've
driven some major transformations, including acquiring some other, another
trade show, which I don't often hear that happening with trade associations.
So what prompted that and what does that do for you?
Yeah, another great question.
So one of the things that I think, , I didn't appreciate the first time that I
worked at SOCMA was how vital, SOCMA's role was to being that connector for the
industry so that contract manufacturers and especially chemical manufacturers
could really be able to find clients.
We were not really aware at the time as a staff of how vital our contribution was.
For 20 years, we ran a massive trade show called Informex, and
honestly, it got to be all consuming as a project for the association.
And we had an opportunity to sell it, and for a number of
reasons it made sense at the time.
But what we found was that that left a very big hole in our value proposition and
also how we interacted with the industry.
Took us a long time to realize that because.
The, the group we sold it to, which is a conference organizer, had turned
the, the focus of the show into more of a pharmaceutical type lifecycle.
They, they put together some different, smaller trade shows that they
bought and kind of formed it into what is now CPHI, north America.
But that really changed the focus of Informex and.
Still a loose affiliation with it.
It really wasn't satisfying the primary, membership of the association.
So there were a number of different opportunities, but really what we realized
was that we were standing on the sidelines where the industry was asking us to be
part again, of the commercial lifeblood of helping people find each other.
Once we did some research and validated that as.
A primary value proposition.
It changed everything.
Once we started bringing back the idea of how we could help make
matches industry, that's where I think we've found our stride again.
We've always been very strong on advocacy, as I mentioned.
You know, that's, that was the reason that we started was government
affairs or government interaction.
that's always been a strength for us.
But there's nobody else in the industry that really holds the place
that SOCMA has held in facilitating commercial connectivity in such a way
where we can be objectively helpful.
But you know, we can really lean into the trust that the industry has with us
and try to make sure that we, we help.
Find that business partner, that's the needle in the haystack
that's gonna make the projects.
All right.
Question number four.
I tied around supply chain and strategy and listening.
and Jennifer talks about the theme for the SOCMA show that
occurred earlier this year.
And how that came about, but also how they've identified the key priorities
for the organization and its members.
And I think this just goes to show, the importance of this
connectivity of the leader of the group and its member companies.
MIC2: for the first time, we've actually, rallied around a theme for this year.
Victoria: Oh, okay.
MIC2: Usually trade shows don't carry themes, but we're trying to inject
a lot of what SOCMA does into this event as well, so that we can make
it more additive and value added.
And so, the theme that we chose, and it is, uh, appropriate, is adapting
supply chains for a changing world.
Victoria: Mmm.
MIC2: then we had three different sub themes underneath.
One was around trying to understand new innovations and how is AI driving those.
Another one is around policy changes.
A lot of those
Victoria: Yeah, a lot of those.
MIC2: And the third one is about regionalization, localization, what
are the changing dynamics there?
All of those things are top of mind and it turned out to be really on target.
Victoria: And I think that piece around localization is so critical.
And it ties to that chain story, because I think as across the chemical industry,
as supply chains have gotten more expensive, have gotten longer, we've
got all the uncertainties around what the tariff picture is, that creating
resilient local supply chains, business opportunities becomes really critical.
MIC2: Absolutely.
So one of the things that we have been tracking for the last few years is
asking what part of your new inquiries or existing inquiries do you believe have to
do with on shoring or reshoring efforts?
And it's been really interesting because we haven't had we've had anecdotal
data, but we just did a survey going into this conference and asked again.
The theme is very heavy on intentionality around localization.
I know the last time we asked about this, there were some anecdotes
that said, I think I'm getting new projects because of localization, but
it might be that they just aren't.
My customers aren't telling me that's the driver.
It might be a new project that in other years they might have shopped it to other
geographies, but maybe they're shopping it inside of North America now first.
But this year, when we asked again, we saw a jump in more purposeful localization.
And that has a lot to do with this changing supply chain and all the
global dynamics that are happening.
Victoria: Absolutely.
And I think what's been interesting as well is when you look at the
global chemical market, the U.
S.
continues to be a bright spot, in terms of innovation and growth.
But I think you know what you talk about this intentionality of on
shoring and reshoring and localization is a reflection of a global dynamic
shift in chemical manufacturing
MIC2: That's exactly right.
So we were looking at, you know, we're looking at a changing world, right?
question number five, which is around signposts for the future.
So I, I always love to look and see, so what should we be looking for?
This question comes from the interview we did in February, 2025.
And as you guys know.
Man, this has been a bit of a tumultuous year, right?
A lot of twists and turns.
Gosh, the whole play with Terrace was not yet visible.
But I think kind of thinking about what are those signposts for the
future, what we were looking at in February is not actually so
different from what we're looking at here in June and as we go forward.
So listen in.
Victoria: So Jennifer, this has been great.
If there were things that you would tell people to, you know, keep your
eye on, because these are signed posts for the year and signed posts
as we go forward, what would they be?
MIC2: Yeah, so I think we need to really understand the federal workforce, right?
Paying attention to what happens after this initial surge of activities
through executive orders, all of what Elon Musk has been, effectuating
right now, and some of the cabinet members are not in place yet.
So then how do you transition from the White House led,
initiatives into the agencies?
So I think there's a bumpy part that's going to happen there.
We're going to need to wait and see what happens, and then we're going to have
to do a lot of proactive, supportive messaging to the administration
on how we're going to help.
And we are going to help with these aims.
We are in a good
Victoria: Absolutely.
Well, that's it.
Five questions with Jennifer Abril.
I hope you've enjoyed today's episode.
And it's given you a glimpse of her.
If you're a long time listener, you've heard some of these
stories, but maybe not in this way.
And if you are new to the Chemical Show, well hit the subscribe button
'cause I want you to stick around and.
Stay and subscribe and follow.
Um, and I hope this gives you some insights to Jennifer
Abril, and her role at SOCMA.
And I guess we can only project how she's gonna take that forward to ACI.
But congrats, Jennifer.
Congrats ACI.
And to everyone here, thanks for listening.
Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will
talk with you again soon.