Andreas Fischer has been named Evonik's new chief innovation officer, effective from 1 July 2020. He succeeds Ulrich Küsthardt, who has held this position since 2015 and is now taking early retirement.

Covestro CEO Dr. Markus Steilemann is the new President of PlasticsEurope, the association of plastics manufacturers in Europe. Steilemann was appointed to the position on 24 June 2020 for three years. He succeeds Javier Constante of Dow Chemical, who oversaw a fundamental reorganisation of PlasticsEurope.

On 17 June 2020 the Society of Plastics Engineers SPE has announced recently elected Executive Board members as well as a newly appointed President.

European Bioplastics, the association, representing the bioplastics industry in Europe, has announced the appointment of Joanna Dupont-Inglis as Head of European Public Affairs. She assumed her position on 1 June 2020 and will be based in Brussels.

With great sadness, the International Institute of Synthetic Rubber Producers (IISRP) has announced that James McGraw, former Managing Director and CEO of the IISRP, passed away on 8 June 2020 in Houston, Texas.

Borealis has appointed Erik van Praet as Vice President Innovation & Technology effective 1 April 2020. Erik van Praet succeeds Maurits van Tol, who decided to pursue his career outside of Borealis in October 2019.

Dr. Tammo Boinowitz (53) will become managing director of BYK-Chemie GmbH based in Wesel as of 1 January 2021. After a two-month training and transitional phase, he will also become the President of BYK, the largest division of the specialty chemicals group Altana. He succeeds Dr. Christoph Schlünken, who has headed the division on an interim basis since October of last year in parallel with his responsibilities on Altana’s Management Board.

Since 1 March 2020, Hendrik Fleßner has taken over the global sales and marketing management role for the Velvetol business at the WeylChem Group. This was announced by the company in a press release issued on 11 May 2020.

Dr. Matthias Gutweiler, President of Kuraray Europe GmbH, has been appointed with immediate effect to the Board of Directors of Kuraray Co., Ltd., which has its head office in Tokyo, Japan. This was announced by the company on 26 March 2020. Gutweiler is the first person from outside Japan to be appointed to the twelve-member Board of Directors, which is headed by Masaaki Ito, President of the Kuraray Group.

The Plastics Industry Association (Plastics) announced three new executive appointments: Glenn Anderson, vice president, industry relations and member engagement as of 6 April 2020, Matt Seaholm, vice president of government affairs, and Brendan Thomas, vice president of advocacy and voice. Both Seaholm's and Thomas' roles took effect on 15 April 2020.