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Killer Quote: "Don't over plan. The road will get you there. Love what you do, given the long hours. If you love the work, the people, and want to do it again tomorrow, that's my advice. Don't take a path you can't make your own." - Jennifer Holmgren
Looking to lead, grow, and stay ahead in the trillion-dollar global chemical industry? The Chemical Show - the #1 business podcast for the chemical industry - is your go-to resource for leadership insights, business strategies, and real-world lessons from the executives shaping the future of chemicals. Grow your knowledge, your network, and your impact.
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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.
Victoria: Welcome back
to the Chemical Show.
As we enter the month of April,
things are getting green and we
are focusing on sustainability and
innovation throughout the month.
So you're gonna be hearing
from a lot of great innovative
guests, including today's guest.
So before we get started, just a reminder,
if you are new to the Chemical Show.
Make sure you follow and subscribe
on your favorite podcast player.
Also, visit the chemical show.com
to get onto our email list.
You can search for past episodes,
read our interviews as a blog
post and a whole lot more.
We're really glad to have you here.
So now onto today's episode.
I'm really excited to be speaking
with Jennifer Holmgren, who is
the CEO of Lonza Tech, a very.
Innovative company focused on
commercial carbon recycling with
biology, and I'm sure Jennifer's gonna
explain a little bit more about that.
Throughout its 20 year history.
Lanza Tech has developed some great
products, including Sustainable Aviation
Fuel, which is now within Lonza Jet.
They have gone public, and they've
done a number of great things.
So, uh, longtime listeners of
the Chemical Show will know that
Jennifer was featured on episode 60.
We'll link to that in the show notes so
you can find that episode and hear a
bit of the earlier part of the journey.
I'm really excited to have this
updated conversation as the company
continues to grow and progress.
And Jennifer, of course,
is leading the way.
So Jennifer, thank you for
joining me on The Chemical Show.
Jennifer: Thank you, Victoria.
It's a real pleasure.
Victoria: Absolutely.
Let's start a little bit
with your origin story.
How did you get here?
Jennifer: In a very circuitous way.
Right?
I was born in Columbia in a
Barilla, uh, the home of Shakira.
So I just want you to know that's
the history for what it's worth.
from there I had the opportunity
to move to the United States when
I was nine because my father, his
company of Bianca, the Colombian
airline, had a, base there and they
wanted him to, to be part of that.
And it gave us the opportunity to
come to the US, learn English and.
That's how I ended up here.
The ability to grow in the public
school systems to get it, the degrees
I have, the education I've gotten
is, is an amazing opportunity.
And my parents.
Home.
us that by, by making sacrifices and
leaving their home, I became a scientist,
in part because I loved the space program.
The United Space Program was
the highlight of my young life.
You know, I followed the NASA program
and just loved the idea of going to
space of solving big problems and.
It made me wanna be a scientist,
and I was really encouraged to do
that my high school education here,
and, and that's how I ended up here.
Victoria: Yeah.
And that, I mean, that's
quite a journey, right?
And then you started Lonza Tech.
Tell us, tell us a little bit,
you didn't, so tell me about the,
tell me the Lonza Tech story.
Jennifer: yeah, yeah.
So, I, I'm not the founder of Lantech.
I'm, its first CEO.
Victoria: Okay.
Jennifer: And, so Lantech was founded by
Sean Simpson and, co-founder Forrester,
who together decided they didn't wanna
use biological feed stocks sugar, et
cetera, to make pro, to make ethanol.
Okay, so they had, um, so
they started the company.
They knew there was something called
gas fermentation and they thought
they'd give it a whirl, see if
they could make ethanol from that.
And when they were ready to pilot,
that's when I came to the company.
When it was ready to scale, the lead
investor was Vinod ksa, and K one
W one felt it was time to bring on
Victoria: Yeah.
S So when was that?
Jennifer?
What year was that?
Jennifer: 2010.
Victoria: Okay, so it,
Jennifer: years.
Victoria: yeah.
You've been on it.
So you've been at Bon Tech
for 15 years at this point.
Jennifer: Exactly.
Victoria: Wow.
Jennifer: And I had a great.
I was the founding vice president of UOP
Honeywell's, renewable Energy business.
I think, you know, I made the first
drops of drop in aviation fuel
and we got at a STM certified.
We did all the flight demos.
That was 2009 and 2010,
showing the world that you.
Could fly on a hydrocarbon, a drop
in aviation fuel made from a feed
stock that was not fossil carbon.
Victoria: Wow.
Jennifer: that, that work
actually got me very excited
about alternative feed stocks.
But that work also showed me if you
really think about the petroleum industry.
And the scale of the petroleum
industry and the fact that everything
in our daily lives comes from
fossil carbon, you realize that.
While biological feedstocks,
as we know them, sugar, corn,
et cetera, can contribute.
You're not gonna get to a hundred
million barrels of capacity per day.
Victoria: No.
Jennifer: it just, you
can't get there from here.
so Lance Tech, to me, was an
opportunity to use feed stocks
that were widely available Right.
Recycled carbon emissions so that you
could aggregate to a hundred million.
But what I really loved about it
that it's an efficiency play because
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: more of a feed stock
if you are using emissions at
a petrochemical company, right?
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: are saying is, I
wanna use as much of the carbon
that comes in to make product.
So you are just making
more from the same amount.
And so that to me is displacing
always, constantly taking carbon
outta the ground, using it and
throwing it away either in the sky,
in the ocean, or in a trash sheep.
It's just so exciting to
think about making more.
Victoria: Yeah.
And yet I don't know your numbers,
but it's still small scale compared to
Jennifer: Yeah.
Victoria: across everything, right?
We're, people are excited about
the opportunity for sustainability
and it really seemed like in the
early part of the 2020s, right?
Everybody was deep on the sustainability
bandwagon, making promises, making
commitments, et cetera, and then
figuring out how hard it really, I.
Is, and how challenging it is to
scale with new technologies to meet
technologies that have been, you
know, when you talk about refining
products or chemical products, they've
been around for a hundred years.
It's, and so this, there's this certain
view of it's not so easy to scale.
Jennifer: Yeah, it's not so easy to scale.
You have the background that tells you
just how hard it is to scale, even a known
process or even an incremental improvement
to a known process, a small modification.
And when you're trying to do
something disruptive, it is
a bigger, much bigger deal.
However, we have done this.
We have done this as
a company, Lanza Tech.
The world has done it.
With solar and wind, right.
10 years ago, everybody was like,
oh, solar is still 10 years out.
It'll
Victoria: Yeah,
Jennifer: years out.
Now you can't even turn around
without seeing a solar installation.
Right.
Victoria: true.
Jennifer: and I really, right.
So, so to me it is possible to
change, it is possible to disrupt and.
We just have to be committed to being
on a journey that takes the right steps
and doesn't get distracted by promises.
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: what scares me the most right,
is, everybody wants to see a home run.
We
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: that really easy thing
because you know that holy grail,
we know it's there and we're gonna
get there, and then we'll be done.
Then we'll be done.
It's
Victoria: Right.
Jennifer: right?
We love magic.
We
Victoria: We love magic.
Jennifer: Exactly.
And I just think that those are a
distraction in a mission of creating.
different trajectory for carbon.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: you know, if we fall in
love with notions, we actually stop
ourselves from making progress.
Victoria: So I, I think
that's such a great point.
many of the big oil companies,
shell and bp, made these great
commitments, you know, started
selling off their traditional assets.
And then I know just recently, the
CEO of BP at, Sierra Week, which
happened in the early part of March, was
talking about how they've gone back to
away from renewable, and green energy
and back to traditional oil and gas.
It's hard.
How does this affect you and Lanza
Tech and what you guys are doing?
How do you balance this?
What do you, what strikes you with that?
Jennifer: I, I do believe
the pendulum swing is very
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: For us because we
need people to be committed to
what I would call a transition.
And I, I think of a transition not
simply as carbon abatement, but at
a different way of making products
where we actually think of carbon.
Whether it comes from fossil or trash or
emissions as something that's precious
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: need to properly utilize
and take as much advantage of,
I think it's nearsighted to
consider it a massive opportunity,
right, because just like energy
efficiency is a massive opportunity.
You reduce costs, you pay less, but
you get the same output or even more.
That's energy efficiency, right?
What's carbon efficiency?
It's the same thing.
You make more from less, you know,
you make more money because the feed
stock is what drives economics, right?
What you put in is what
drives the economics.
So if you can get more from
the same input, that's a big.
and
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: more profitable.
But people are missing the point, and
me it's about local manufacturing.
From local feed stocks.
It's about making more
profit from the same input.
It's about jobs and it's about security
of supply because if you make products
that you don't always have to import.
There's more security.
And so all these things are
important, and I think to just
swing back kinda misses the point.
Victoria: Yeah.
How does this change what, how you
guys are approaching both customers
and business partners, because you've
partnered with many big companies
to help get your technology in place
and commercialized and utilized.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
And I think the way I think about it is
there's always been the ones that you're
not gonna be able to get across the line.
Okay?
When you're doing something new,
you've got to accept when you are
going to be successful, right?
You can't always assume you'll
always be successful, and you go
after the people that have the same.
Views of the world.
As you do.
So we have projects in India.
If you listen to the Minister of Petroleum
there and even the Prime Minister
speak, what are they trying to do?
They wanna use local resources.
'cause every time they import something,
their money goes out of the country.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: as they're growing the economy.
cannot afford to grow it quickly if all
the money that that growth brings goes
out of the country to buy feedstock.
So they get it.
They get that.
What they wanna do is use
more of their local resources.
Using more local
resources means one thing.
Find different feed stocks, find every
carbon wherever it is, and use it.
And so.
While some folks are going in a
direction that is different than the
direction we wanna go in, others are not.
So for a company that's small, you
go to where the opportunity is.
That's the only choice you have.
Victoria: Yeah, absolutely.
And I love your point about localization,
and I hadn't fully appreciated that as
part of, Lonza tech's value proposition
and what you're, you're doing.
'cause certainly in the business
environment that we're in today,
there's, you know, with tariffs and
geopolitical tensions, there does
seem to be this whole trend towards
regionalization and localization and,
the simplest part of me says,
well, yes, if you can ship
anything less, that's better.
Although the economics may not
always tie together in other places.
So I just think that's really an
interesting, part of your value, uh, is
creating the, the local opportunities with
local feedstocks for local supply points.
Jennifer: Yep, yep.
And I would add one more thing
that is quite interesting.
If you stop and think about it,
the further down the value chain
you get in manufacturing, the
higher value that product is.
Victoria: Yes.
Jennifer: if you think about it, if
you can use local feed stocks and
not just export them, but make local
feed stocks into more value add
products, you are actually exporting
something that has more value so that
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: component and the local jobs
component and the capturing value at
a community level is important too.
Victoria: Yeah, really critical.
So let's dial it back a little bit.
So, success for Lonza Tech has
been 20 years in the making.
, which, you know, it's, it's funny
because everybody assumes, uh, oh, you
know, I just heard about Lonza Tech.
That's an overnight success story.
And it's like, eh, no,
there was a lot of work.
Going on, in the background that
people didn't see, obviously,
the company started small as
all innovative companies do.
You're still relatively small today.
Um, and yet you are.
LensTech Global is listed on the nasdaq.
You've got several businesses
that are their own entities.
And I know that recently I've seen
some news that you've received
your first shipments of Carbon
Smart ethanol, which is exciting.
Is this part of your vision when
you started, what was Lonza Tech
trying to do and could you imagine,
uh, the company that it is today?
Jennifer: I don't know that it
was clear that this is where
Victoria: I.
Jennifer: headed, but, but you know,
it got started as a company to take,
waste gas to, to ethanol, right?
And we've now really been able to
understand the power of the platform,
not just to take, waste steel mill
emissions, but municipal solid waste
and biomass and CO2, that that's all
the value of the platform as an input.
And then I think there is a transition
to ethanol, not as the product.
But an intermediate ethanol as a way to
make the feedstock for making sustainable
aviation fuel ethanol as the way to get to
ethylene so that you can make polyester.
So really is saying, look, this
waste is very hard to move.
I'm not gonna move trash
around all over the world
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: to use it as a
feedstock, but if I can take that
trash and turn it into ethanol.
I can move the ethanol around
and make all the other products.
So it's almost like a way to create
a movable intermediate, and you
know this from the oil sector, right?
Petroleum is the densest
liquid known to man.
And so it's easy to move
around and that's what we do.
But this time maybe we have to
take the plants to the feedstock,
and it's the product ethanol.
That we move around?
Victoria: Hmm.
Makes sense.
And, and I think you're right.
I mean, I think we've often across
the chemical industry called,
polyethylene, for instance, solid
ethylene, nobody's moving ethylene.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Victoria: now they are like that,
that's a whole different story.
Um, but you know, historically you,
you move the products because it's
the most efficient way to do it.
So I think that's.
You know, and the ethanol piece is
absolutely the same because an ethanol
becomes a feedstock to other things.
Your role today, I would imagine.
Is very different, right?
You've got, the company
itself is very different.
You're a public company.
you've got investors, public,
private, what have you.
You've got an, a variety of
entities inside of the Lonza tech
umbrella that you are running.
How do you ready yourself to be
ready for that, um, such a different
company than where you started?
Jennifer: I think it's really important
to commit to change at the team level
as well, you know, and, and how do you
transition from the very entrepreneurial
engineering team, right to the, I'm
going to be replicating and reducing cost
engineering team, you have to accept
that there is a dynamic inside the company
talent and a progression of talent that is
different than, than what you start with.
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: and, and you know that that
includes everybody from a scientist, an
engineer to a leader, to the CEO, right?
That you always gotta be thinking.
Am I in the right place at the right time?
And in some ways you can tell
by how happy you are, right?
If, if sometimes you, you, you are a
person who wants to start a company.
You're a person that wants to
do the first ever prototype.
And you always, if you
are mentally prepared for
transition, self-select right And
Victoria: Hmm.
Jennifer: Hmm.
This isn't what I wanna be doing
now, so you always have to be
dynamic and bringing in new people.
To me, about creating that
transition mental state.
Victoria: Yeah.
And that growth mindset where you started.
And I think, um, I've had the opportunity
to, to work with and advise a number
of, early stage startups as they move
into commercialization, et cetera.
And I think one of the hardest
piece, and you talked about how,
for instance, your engineering team
goes from creation to efficiency.
And, and I think that's one of
the hardest things for people not
working in a startup ecosystem to
understand and appreciate that.
It's skill-based and that part
of this is, you know, to a
traditional chemical company, right?
I worked for Shell for a very long time.
Many, many of my friends started
at Shell and retired from Shell.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Victoria: and so the idea of going into
an environment where you know that,
hey, my journey may only be five years.
Because that's the scope of work that's
interesting and exciting and fits me.
and then I have to move on to something
else because the company and the business
is in a different phase of its journey.
And I think, people that work with
mature companies don't always appreciate
the dynamic of an immature startup
company and, and startup ecosystem.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
I think that's right.
I think you have to think about the world
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: and I think it's
also quite tiring in some ways.
There's an exciting element, but
there's also the, I need to build better
infrastructure because I need to grow.
And, and to be honest, sometimes
that's why the large company, small
company partnerships work so well
because they each have to bring.
Different things.
They each bring different things.
And, have lots of large partners who
have brought a lot to what we do, whether
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: thinking or something else.
I just think that we
need to be open to that.
I think a lot of people say, oh,
I, I worry about working with a big
company, but I, I don't think that's
the right way to think about it.
I think the question is, what can I help?
That big company do, and
what can they help me do?
What can they teach me?
Because there is a lot to be
learned from people that have
been around for 200 years, right?
You say 20 years.
Oh my gosh.
That's a lot.
That's a drop in the bucket with
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: chemical companies, right?
Who, who have taught us how to make
all these things that we use today.
Victoria: Absolutely.
And I think you're right.
Those partnerships are critical, right?
Because, inside of a big company, the
innovations that a company like Lonza
Tech is bringing in, in some ways
they don't move the needle, right?
They get cut because they don't
fit the innovation profile.
When you say, well, we need
something that becomes a business of.
X billion dollars.
Well, we don't know when a new
innovation is gonna get to that point.
So the opportunity for, companies like
Lonza Tech to be innovating, bringing
solutions and products to market, and
then pairing with the big companies
who have the ability to standardize it,
to really take it to market, to take
it to customers, is really critical.
And I think we're seeing that.
The successful startups and partnerships
we're seeing that happen regularly,
I think, across the industry.
Jennifer: Yep.
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: I, I
Victoria: Yeah.
Jennifer: become more pervasive.
There's an understanding across
both sides of this aisle that it is
important to partner and that that
is how success will be created.
And I think people are very open
minded now to how to work together.
Victoria: Yeah, I love that.
So, Jennifer, you have had a really
successful career for many, many years.
. What advice do you have for businesses
and for young professionals, maybe
that are in the early stages of their
career that look at this and say, I
wanna be leading an innovative company.
I wanna be CEO, I wanna
achieve this kind of success.
What advice do you have for, for
people early in their careers?
Jennifer: I think that the only advice
that I think makes sense is to follow
your passions, follow what you love.
Don't, don't overplan it,
the road will get you there.
It's just that you have
to love what you do.
We work so many hours a day and you
know if you do it because you love what
you do, if you love it because you love
the people you work with, if you, if
you wanna get up in the morning and
do it again, that's my only advice.
Don't, don't go down a road that
isn't one that you can make your own.
That's what I would say.
Victoria: I love it.
That's great advice.
Well, Jennifer, thank you so much.
This has been a great conversation.
I, really appreciate you taking the
time to speak with me and to speak
with the Chemical show audience.
Jennifer: Thank you for having me.
It really is a pleasure and an
honor to see you again, Victoria.
Victoria: Thank you and thank you
everyone for joining us today.
Keep listening, keep following,
keep sharing, and we will
talk with you again soon.
Thanks for joining us
today on The Chemical Show.
If you enjoyed this episode, be
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For more insights, visit
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You can find me at Victoria King
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