Patrick Popp has been appointed as Faurecia Interiors Executive Vice-President. Effective from 2 January 2020, he will succeed Jean-Michel Renaudie.

Tracy Garrison, President Hexpol Compounding Americas and Hexpol TP Compounding, has decided to leave the company for a position outside the group. He will leave end of December 2019 and thereafter CEO Mikael Fryklund will be acting President Hexpol Compounding Americas and Hexpol TP Compounding until a successor has been appointed. According to Fryklund, Garrison has been instrumental in the successful growth strategy to considerably expand the Rubber Compounding business in Americas.

Effective 1 October 2019 Shruti Singhal is new President of DSM Engineering Plastics. He succeeds Roeland Polet, who will retire mid-2020. Shruti, a US national, joined DSM in July 2018.

Michael J. Whitens, retired former Global Director for Ford’s Vehicle and Enterprise Sciences at Ford’s Research and Innovation Center, has been named the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award winner by the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).

As of June 2019 Patrick Zimmermann became a member of the bioplastics specialist FKuR Kunststoff GmbH’s management team with responsibility for sales, marketing and market development. Zimmermann has contributed significantly to FKuR’s global market as he was responsible for setting up the US subsidiary. Since August 2015, he has also been Managing Director of FKuR Polymers GmbH, a manufacturer of customised polyolefin and TPE compounds.

Teknor Apex has appointed Suresh Swaminathan as its new president. He succeeds William J. Murray, who is retiring after 41 years with the company. Swaminathan will be responsible for the worldwide custom compounding business.

Effective from 1 January 2020, Dr. Haakan Jonsson, current president of Covestro LLC, will also take over as chairman of the board of directors. In this role, he will succeed Jerry MacCleary, who announced his plans to retire at the end of 2019.

Prof. Dr. Norbert Vennemann has retired from his active time in elastomer research and education on 1 September 2019. Since 1992, Vennemann held the professorship for plastics technology and testing at the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences.

On 7 August 2019, Lawrence J. Johnson has been appointed new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Saargummi Group. Johnson will take over from Michael Lorig, who has decided to pursue new opportunities outside the group. Lorig has been working for the group since 2007, where he held various positions, notably Chief Operations Officer and, since September 2014, Chief Executive Officer.

Songwon Industrial Group announced the unexpected death of Maurizio Butti on 7 September 2019. Butti was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Executive Board Member of the company, a position he held since March 2016. Prior to this role, he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Songwon and a member of the group’s Executive Committee.