Supply Chain Resilience in Specialty Chemicals: What Leaders Must Build Before Disruption Arrives

Marc Block, Global VP Performance Chemicals, Wanhua Chemical Group

For specialty chemicals companies operating across multiple regions and trade environments, supply chain resilience is no longer an operational consideration — it is a strategic design choice. Ahead of CIEX North America 2026 — September 9–10 in Indianapolis — we sit down with Marc Block, Global VP Performance Chemicals at Wanhua Chemical Group. He brings over two decades of experience building and scaling specialty chemical platforms across Asia, Europe, and North America.

In this interview, he shares how he is approaching the priorities shaping the industry’s next cycle: from building supply chain resilience and repositioning specialty portfolios to evaluating where AI is actually moving business metrics. The conversation also sets the stage for meaningful peer exchange at the event.

CIEX: Without giving too much away – what is the core message of your session and what would you like delegates to remember?

Marc: Supply chain resilience is a design choice that has to be made before disruption arrives. Companies become exposed when their networks are optimized around a single trade-flow assumption, feedstock basis, or asset footprint. The winners will be those that build optionality into chemistry, production, sourcing, and the commercial model, even when that creates some cost and complexity in normal times. The cost of resilience is paid gradually; the cost of fragility arrives all at once when a route closes, a feedstock spikes, or a tariff lands.

CIEX: What motivates you to join CIEX this year – and where are you most looking to learn from peers at this event?

Marc: I have commercial responsibility for a global specialty platform within a Chinese parent company, with assets and activities across Europe, Korea, and North America. That gives me a useful perspective on how the industry is being reshaped by energy costs, China’s cycle, changing trade flows, and tariff uncertainty. At CIEX, I am especially interested in how peers are repositioning specialty portfolios: where they are defending the core, where they are still investing in R&D, and where AI is actually improving business performance rather than just appearing in strategy presentations.

CIEX: How has your approach to balancing volume growth and value creation evolved in recent years – and what’s one decision you’ve made here that would’ve been unthinkable three years ago?

Marc: Three years ago, the default answer in many parts of chemicals was still scale: integrate vertically, run assets hard, and capture share. Our view has become more selective. In recent European portfolio decisions, we have prioritized customer proximity, conversion flexibility, and optionality over scale for its own sake. That would have been harder to justify a few years ago. Today, in a world of tariffs, volatile feedstocks, and regionalized supply chains, flexibility can create more value than pure volume.

CIEX: Where is AI-enabled innovation already moving a hard business metric, and where is it still not delivering?

Marc: The clearest AI impact is in the operational backbone: demand-supply matching, inventory positioning, production optimization, maintenance decision support, and targeted product development. The impact varies by process maturity, but these are areas where the business case is increasingly tangible. Where AI is still less mature is true commercial excellence. Better targeting and lead scoring are useful, but they are not the same as understanding a customer’s application deeply enough to create a better solution. That still depends heavily on human judgment, technical context, and trust.

CIEX: Have we over-optimized for speed at the expense of resilience — or the other way around?

Marc: For a long time, the industry optimized for simplicity and speed. One primary production location, long production runs, narrow sourcing models, and efficient global trade flows were rational choices in a stable environment. The conditions changed. Flexibility now carries a premium: feedstock optionality, conversion redundancy, regional supply capability, and commercial models that can reroute without breaking customer commitments. The lesson is not that speed was wrong. It is that speed and resilience are portfolio choices, and the balance has to be reviewed much more often than before.

CIEX: Looking ahead, what factors and capabilities will define competitive advantage in the chemical industry over the next few years?

Marc: Competitive advantage will come from integrated value-chain control, efficient innovation, commercial excellence at scale, regulatory and trade fluency, capital discipline, and people who can operate across cultures. The companies that win will not be the ones trying to be everywhere. They will be the ones that know where they have the right to win, allocate capital accordingly, and execute faster than the market changes.

Is Your Supply Chain Built to Withstand the Next Disruption?

If your organization is still optimizing around a single feedstock assumption or trade flow, the window to act is narrowing.

At CIEX North America 2026, Marc Block joins senior leaders from SOCMA, Univar, and UPM Adhesive Materials in the panel discussion “Designing for Disruption: How R&D Is Re-Engineering Processes for Feedstock Flexibility and Supply Chain Resilience” to share how leading specialty chemical companies are redesigning chemistry, processes, and supply models for a fragmented world.

This is the conversation. And it is only happening in Indianapolis, September 9–10.

AI Adoption in R&D: A Corporate Scientist Perspective from 3M

AI adoption in R&D is reshaping how scientific organizations work — but few voices in that conversation come from someone who has spent over 30 years at the bench. Jayshree Seth leads generative AI use cases across 3M’s research organization, holds 80 patents, and brings to CIEX North America 2026 a practitioner’s perspective that is rare in the current AI debate.

Her position is clear: successful AI adoption in R&D does not start with the technology. It starts with something most organizations overlook — and the implications for how R&D teams adopt, scale, and ultimately benefit from generative AI are far more significant than most transformation agendas currently reflect.

CIEX: What is the key message of your session and what should delegates take away for their own R&D organizations?

Jayshree: My key message is simple: don’t start with the technology, start with the pain points – go with the workflow.

Jayshree Seth, Corporate Scientist and Chief Science Advocate, 3M

Map where the pain is and then let AI address it specifically. What happens when you do this is that people naturally begin reorganizing around AI, not because they were told to, but because they experience its benefits firsthand.

We are seeing that AI fluency within familiar workflows can intuitively spark two things simultaneously – one is meaningful discussions about incremental improvements, and the second is organic conversations about potential AI-first workflow redesign.

The other key takeaway is that driving adoption requires more than mere deployment. Change management is key – communicating benefits with real examples, improving modalities through feedback, and influencing through testimonials from lead users – all backed by visible commitment from leadership. The organizations that do all of this together will not only get adoption but can also build AI fluency as an organizational capability. And that can become a real competitive advantage.

CIEX: What brought you to the conference this year, and what are you most interested in learning from other R&D leaders?

Jayshree: I have been in the Corporate R&D ‘trenches’ for over 30 years, and what brings me to any R&D gathering is curiosity about how others are solving problems we all think about every day. As I lead the effort for use cases of generative AI in R&D, I know that mine is one lens in one organization. Forums like CIEX give us access to a community of practitioners across the chemical and specialty materials industry who are navigating similar transformation – and I look forward to learning and sharing.

Specifically, I’m interested in how organizations are handling the human dimension of this transition. That is a people and culture question as much as it is a technology question. I am also curious regarding measurable impact, where it is emerging and where there are still large gaps between the promise and the reality.

With Generative AI, almost everyone, regardless of expertise or seniority, is like an immigrant navigating genuinely unfamiliar territory. Given that, I believe leaders have a specific role in cultivating each element of the mindset needed: modeling iteration, rewarding experimentation, normalizing change, building navigational judgment, and elevating the voices of those who have crossed the territory the hard way.

CIEX: How has your thinking on AI in R&D evolved, and what is the one shift in how R&D work gets done that would have seemed unlikely three years ago?

Jayshree: As the models and their capabilities have evolved, a fundamental shift in the front end of the innovation process has become possible. This is particularly significant for R&D organizations where literature synthesis, patent landscaping, and competitive intelligence can consume enormous amounts of expert time. I prefer to call AI as I see it – “artificial diligence” – the tireless, unsaturable capacity to process volume that no human can match.

A technical expert can read ten papers before their thinking gets saturated. AI reads a thousand without tiring – and keeps going. It is a diligent partner for our intelligence. So, the shift that would have seemed most unlikely three years ago is this: the bottleneck in R&D is no longer access to information – it’s judgment about what to do with it. It’s no longer about who has the best data, the deepest literature review, the broadest patent landscape.

Generative AI has democratized access to all of that. What it cannot democratize is the wisdom to know which signal matters, which assumption is untested, and which confident-sounding answer is wrong. That wisdom still lives in people. And protecting it, cultivating it rather than assuming AI has replaced it, that is important for R&D leaders.

CIEX: Where is AI already delivering measurable impact in R&D, and where is it still not meeting expectations?

Jayshree: Generative AI is brilliant at breadth – pulling together large bodies of literature, patent landscapes, competitive intelligence, and regulatory frameworks – and presenting a coherent picture and usable taxonomy faster than any team could. That acceleration at the front end of the innovation process is real and can be measured – helping R&D teams move from data to insight faster and with broader context. It can free scientists to spend more time on the work that requires human thinking and judgment and less time on the work that requires human diligence or endurance.

But where AI is brilliant at breadth, it is well known that it can be brittle at precision. In R&D, precision is everything. So, I think there is what I call a “Show Me the Money, Show Me the Source” divide. On the business side, leaders are increasingly using AI-generated insights to demand big outcomes. While technical teams are asking – show me the source. That tension is real, it is growing, and it is where I see the most unmet expectations. This is not a fundamental disagreement – it’s just that the two groups are operating from different professional obligations and standards of evidence, and the gaps need to be bridged.

CIEX: Are we at risk of optimizing R&D for speed at the expense of creativity and long-term innovation?

Jayshree: Yes – it can be a real risk. The pressure to demonstrate AI-driven productivity gains is real, and speed is the easiest thing to measure. But in R&D, the things that are easiest to measure are seldom the most important.

In many ways, it is the classic dilemma of exploration versus exploitation, and generative AI can be an extraordinary exploitation engine. It refines, optimizes, synthesizes, and accelerates faster than we ever could. But breakthrough innovation largely lives in exploration – in that uncommon connection, the failed experiment that reveals something new, the hypothesis that seemed wrong and turned out to be right for a different reason.

My concern is that organizations under pressure to show AI ROI may unconsciously tilt more toward exploitation – the fast, the measurable, the defensible. And so may be the case with competitors. And when everyone optimizes the same way, using the same AI, differentiation disappears.

So, I think it is important to protect the conditions under which creativity happens. Protect time for exploration, such as the 15% culture we have at 3M. And be patient with the non-linear, winding paths that build the kind of wisdom AI cannot replicate.

After all, the most important capabilities are still the ones that have always mattered – balancing creative freedom with business rigor, celebrating intelligent failure alongside successes, and encouraging collaboration and empowerment – these will continue to define competitive advantage even in the age of AI.

Hear Jayshree Seth at CIEX North America 2026

Her session — Gen AI for R&D: Go With the (Work)Flow — addresses how to move generative AI from isolated deployment into workflows that R&D teams actually trust and build on.

September 9–10, 2026 | Indianapolis | Senior leaders from 3M, Dow, Eastman Chemical, Honeywell, Huntsman, Albemarle, Momentive, and Cabot.

What you will leave with:

Frameworks for mapping AI to high-impact R&D workflows
Adoption models that build lasting AI fluency across the research organization
Direct exchange with CTOs, CDOs, and VPs of Innovation

Chemical R&D Infrastructure as Competitive Strategy | Momentive | CIEX 2026

Chemical R&D Infrastructure as Competitive Strategy: How Momentive Is Building the Backbone for a Divided World

Thanos Yiagopoulos, CTO, Momentive

Thanos Yiagopoulos leads the global technology organization at Momentive Performance Materials — a network of more than 500 R&D professionals operating across multiple geographies, regulatory environments, and increasingly complex market conditions. With prior leadership roles at LyondellBasell and SABIC, he brings a perspective shaped by the full arc of what it takes to build R&D capability that actually scales.

That experience informs a sharp point of view on one of the industry’s most pressing infrastructure challenges. At CIEX North America 2026, Yiagopoulos will address how chemical companies can integrate lab automation, electronic lab notebooks, pilot systems, IP, and documentation workflows into a single, coherent digital backbone — one that holds together across a divided world, not as an IT initiative, but as a strategic foundation for faster collaboration, sharper decisions, and measurable innovation performance.

CIEX: Without giving too much away – what is the core message of your session and what would you like delegates to remember?

Thanos: The core message of my session is that the chemical industry is reaching an inflection point. We are operating in a world shaped by geopolitical fragmentation, cost pressure, supply chain volatility, and increasingly uneven regional dynamics. In that environment, digital transformation can no longer be treated as a series of disconnected tools or isolated IT projects. It has to be approached as a strategic redesign of how innovation happens across R&D, operations, and the broader enterprise. For me, that means rethinking digital infrastructure in relation to collaboration, governance, knowledge flow, and competitiveness in a more multipolar world.

What I would like delegates to remember is that digital infrastructure is a source of competitive advantage. The rapid emergence of more accessible AI and digital capabilities now gives chemical companies an opportunity to be much more deliberate and differentiated. The key question is no longer whether we digitize, but how we build the right digital backbone to accelerate innovation, strengthen collaboration, and create value in a way that fits our business model and strategic ambition.

CIEX: What motivates you to join CIEX this year – and where are you most looking to learn from peers at this event?

Thanos: CIEX is one of the few forums where chemical industry leaders come together to discuss innovation not only as a scientific or technical topic, but as a business, organizational, and strategic challenge. That is especially important today, because many of the questions we face are no longer about whether change is needed, but about how to make the right trade-offs under real-world constraints. I am expecting an environment where those conversations can happen openly and constructively among peers who understand the complexity of the industry.

What I am most looking to learn from others is how they are translating ambition into execution. I am interested in how peers are prioritizing capital, modernizing aging infrastructure, using AI beyond small pilots, and rethinking operating models in a more fragmented global environment. I am also keen to hear how others are balancing regional resilience with global collaboration, because that is one of the defining tensions of our time. These are very real leadership challenges, and I value forums like CIEX because they allow us to benchmark, challenge assumptions, and sharpen our own thinking.

CIEX: How do you see the boundary conditions of innovation shifting in the specialty chemical industry and what are you doing to ensure you stay relevant?

Thanos: The boundary conditions of innovation in specialty chemicals are becoming much broader and more demanding than they were even a few years ago. In the future, the most attractive opportunities will increasingly sit at the intersection of regulatory compliance, sustainability, differentiated performance, and a much deeper understanding of evolving customer and market needs. Innovation can no longer be driven only by technical possibility; it must also be aligned with speed, cost competitiveness, application relevance, and the ability to scale. At the same time, infrastructure in many mature economies is aging, and that puts additional pressure on companies to modernize while continuing to deliver reliably in the present.

To stay relevant, we are focusing on two dimensions. First, we benefit from a globally distributed operating model, which gives us the ability to place capability, talent, and decision-making closer to where growth, customers, and technical opportunities are emerging. Second, we are investing in digital infrastructure and AI not as stand-alone initiatives, but as enablers of faster collaboration, better foresight, and more effective product and process development across our technology organization. In my view, relevance in this industry will increasingly come from the ability to combine technical depth with organizational agility, regional responsiveness, and a more connected digital foundation.

CIEX: Where is AI enabled innovation already moving a hard business metric, and where is it still not delivering?

Thanos: We are already seeing positive impact from AI in areas such as formulation development, new space exploration, and intellectual property scouting. These are use cases where the link to value creation is becoming increasingly tangible, because they support faster identification of opportunities, more effective screening of solution spaces, and stronger guidance for material development. In addition, AI is beginning to improve individual productivity across the organization as it becomes more democratized, even if that is sometimes harder to measure directly. Over time, I expect the greatest value to come from its integration into development cycles, design of experiments, and increasingly agentic workflows that reduce transactional effort and help technical teams spend more time on higher-value work.

Where AI is still not delivering consistently is in manufacturing and broader operational environments, where data fragmentation, legacy systems, and aging physical infrastructure create significant barriers. In these areas, the problem is rarely the algorithm alone; it is the surrounding operating context. Human adoption and trust are also critical factors, particularly in environments where people need to see reliability, interpretability, and practical value before changing established ways of working. So while AI is already showing promise, the lesson for me is clear: sustainable impact will come only when digital tools are connected to the realities of process, infrastructure, and people.

CIEX: How are you approaching sustainability priorities alongside broader economic and commercial considerations? OR where have you had to draw the line on sustainability because the economics didn’t hold?

Thanos: Our decarbonization agenda remains in place, and our commitment to sustainability has not changed. What has evolved is our level of focus and discipline in how we pursue it. We have become more deliberate about identifying the areas where sustainability can create clear value for both us and our customers, rather than treating it as a broad-based effort with equal intensity everywhere. In practice, that means aligning sustainability priorities more tightly to market segments, product lines, and applications where the value proposition is strong enough to support adoption and where customers recognize and are willing to pay for the benefit being created.

That shift has made our approach more pragmatic and, in my view, more effective. It allows us to concentrate resources where sustainability and commercial value reinforce each other, which increases the likelihood of scale and impact. There are of course areas where the aspiration is strong but the economics are not yet mature enough to justify broad deployment, and in those cases discipline is important. For me, sustainability in specialty chemicals has to be both principled and commercially grounded. It is not about stepping back from ambition, but about ensuring that ambition is translated into durable business outcomes rather than symbolic activity.

CIEX: Looking ahead, what factors and capabilities will define competitive advantage in the chemical industry over the next few years?

Thanos: One of the clearest sources of competitive advantage will be the ability to modernize physical and digital infrastructure in an integrated way. Companies that successfully connect manufacturing, R&D, quality, supply chain, and commercial processes through a digital backbone — while using AI in a targeted and business-relevant manner — will have a significant advantage. That said, this will not be a one-size-fits-all journey. The right model will depend on each company’s scale, portfolio, regional footprint, and strategic priorities. I also believe AI will play an increasingly important role in knowledge retention, particularly as a large amount of tacit industrial expertise begins to retire over the coming years.

Beyond that, I see five defining capabilities. First, differentiated technical depth linked to real customer problems and faster commercialization. Second, globally connected but regionally effective operating models. Third, talent — not only attracting new capabilities, but also renewing and transferring deep industrial know-how. Fourth, capital discipline and the ability to invest selectively in the capabilities that truly matter. And finally, leadership that can redefine the role of chemistry itself as digital fluency becomes part of the profession. The companies that win will not be the ones with the most initiatives, but the ones with the clearest strategic choices, the strongest execution, and the courage to evolve before external pressure forces them to.

Hear Thanos Yiagopoulos at CIEX North America 2026

His session — “Connecting Innovation in a Divided World: Building the Digital Backbone for Global Chemical R&D” — goes directly at the question senior R&D and technology leaders are sitting with: how do you unify fragmented systems, data, and teams into a digital infrastructure that actually accelerates innovation when your operations span multiple geographies and your world is pulling in different directions.

September 9–10, 2026 | Indianapolis

That question sits at the centre of CIEX North America — a two-day executive exchange where senior leaders from 3M, Dow, Eastman Chemical, Honeywell, Huntsman, Albemarle, Momentive, Cabot, and AmSty, work through the strategic and operational realities shaping the industry’s next cycle.

What you will leave with:

A framework for integrating R&D systems — lab automation, ELN, pilot, IP, and documentation — into one connected backbone
Practical models for improving data quality and cross-disciplinary collaboration across geopolitical and regulatory constraints
Direct exchange with CTOs, CDOs, and VPs of Innovation navigating the same pressures

No sales pitch. No theory. Just the conversations that move the needle.

[Secure Your Place →]

Shaping the Future of Chemical Innovation with Syensqo

CIEX is a leading forum for chemical R&D, innovation, and sustainability leadership, bringing together senior executives and technical experts from companies such as Dow, Sumitomo Chemical America, Cabot, DuPont, 3M, Arkema, LanzaTech, Hexion, Schneider Electric, and many others shaping the future of the industry.

Among the standout sessions, Syensqo offered a rare look at how a forward-thinking materials organization is reengineering polymer discovery — transforming multi-million-molecule design spaces into commercial breakthroughs in months instead of years.

For chemical leaders focused on accelerating innovation, reducing R&D risk, and rethinking discovery pipelines, this session delivers a forward-looking perspective.

You can explore the full executive summary or watch the complete presentation recording via the link below.

📹 Watch the full Syensqo presentation: [link]

From Search to Design: How Syensqo Is Reframing the Economics of Polymer Discovery

For decades, polymer innovation followed a familiar logic: generate candidates, test them, iterate, and hope feasibility emerges before budgets collapse or timelines break. That model—rooted in experimental search—was expensive, slow, and fundamentally constrained by human bandwidth.

Syensqo presented a case that signals a structural departure from that paradigm. Their team demonstrated how AI-driven molecular screening, combined with physics-based simulation, is no longer just accelerating discovery—it is redefining what discovery means.

The Core Shift: From Experimental Search to Computational Design

Traditional polymer R&D operates as a narrowing funnel: chemists begin with a manageable subset of molecules, test experimentally, and progressively eliminate failures. This approach is inherently conservative—not by choice, but by necessity.

Syensqo reversed that logic.

Instead of starting small, their team began with four million molecular candidates. Using AI-based screening, they rapidly compressed that design space into a few hundred viable structures. Physics-based simulation then filtered those further—before any material was synthesized.

This matters because it fundamentally changes what R&D can explore.

Design space is no longer limited by laboratory throughput. It is limited only by how well the organization can define performance constraints and encode them into models.

This marks a shift from:

Trial-and-error → Constraint-driven design
Experimental filtering → Computational filtering
Iteration → Pre-validation

The 18-Month Result—and What It Actually Proves

Syensqo’s team moved from four million molecular candidates to a polymer meeting strict performance requirements in 18 months—including thermal stability, UV resistance, hydrolytic resistance, and optical clarity.

Without AI, they estimate this would have required five to six years—if it were pursued at all.

But the most important insight is not speed.

The project would likely not have been launched without these advanced AI modelling tools, which made the technical risk manageable.

This signals a deeper transformation: AI is not just compressing timelines—it is expanding what organizations are willing to attempt.

The New Bottleneck: Organizational Readiness, Not Technology

As computational tools mature, the critical constraint is no longer technical. It is structural.

They highlighted three realities chemical leaders must confront:

AI expands design space by orders of magnitude
But most R&D organizations are still structured to explore narrow, incremental territory.
Simulation now filters candidates before synthesis
Yet many workflows still privilege wet-lab validation over digital pre-screening.
Data is no longer scarce—structure is
Legacy datasets, unstructured notebooks, and disconnected systems prevent AI from learning effectively.

This creates a paradox in which the technology is ready, but most organizations are not.

Why This Is a Leadership Problem—Not a Technical One

The implications of this shift extend far beyond tools.

AI-driven discovery demands changes in:

Portfolio logic (what gets funded)
Risk models (what is considered viable)
Talent profiles (what skills matter)
Governance (how decisions are made)

If leadership continues to treat AI as a productivity layer rather than an operating model shift, the value will remain marginal.

The 2026 Reality: Feasibility Becomes the Differentiator

For years, speed was the primary competitive advantage in innovation.

That era is ending.

When everyone can move faster, speed becomes table stakes. What differentiates leaders is no longer how quickly they can execute—but what they can make feasible.

This example makes this visible.

Closing: The Strategic Question Leaders Must Now Ask

The real question for chemical executives is no longer:

How do we digitize our R&D?

It is:

What discoveries are we currently not even attempting—because our operating model makes them impossible?

Syensqo’s case suggests a new answer:
Many of those barriers are no longer technical, but they are organizational.

⚗️⚡Breakthrough innovation is harder. Budgets aren’t bigger. Expectations are.

Chemical leaders are under pressure to deliver faster commercialization, measurable sustainability gains, and smarter R&D execution — without increasing risk or cost.

CIEX 2026 is built for exactly that challenge.

Two focused days with senior leaders in R&D, innovation, and sustainability across the consumer, industrial, and specialty chemical sectors — tackling:

• Scaling new technologies beyond the pilot phase
• Embedding AI and digital tools into real R&D workflows
• De-risking innovation through the right partnerships
• Turning sustainability targets into profitable product pipelines

Expect practical insight, peer exchange, and high-value connections with the leaders solving the same problems you are.

📍 CIEX North America | September 9–10, 2026

If you influence innovation strategy, R&D direction, or technology investment — this is where you need to be.

Staying Ahead: How the Chemical Industry Can Remain Competitive Beyond 2030

In this article, industry leaders from LanzaTech, BASF, Evonik, Dow, DuPont, Syensqo, Arkema, PPG, Cabot and more share what it takes to lead in a decarbonized, digital future.

The chemical industry is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in its history. To remain competitive beyond 2030, companies must fundamentally rethink how they operate, innovate, and deliver value in a rapidly evolving global economy.

Sustainability, circularity, digitalization, and talent development are no longer optional—they are the engines of growth and resilience. We asked thought leaders from across the industry who will participate in CIEX 2025 to share the critical capabilities that will define tomorrow’s winners.

Their responses make one thing clear: future competitiveness requires bold reinvention, not cautious optimization.

Circularity Is the New Value Driver

For decades, the industry has focused on linear models of production—extract, produce, dispose. This model is no longer viable in a world demanding sustainability and accountability.

“One of the most critical capabilities chemical companies must develop to remain competitive is the integration of circular supply chain principles,” says Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. LanzaTech’s technology turns waste carbon into raw material, effectively giving emissions a second life. This isn’t just a climate solution—it’s a business opportunity. “This isn’t circularity for circularity’s sake,” Holmgren continues. “There is profit to be made in using our waste to create more product. Companies that invest early can capture more of the value chain, gaining a strategic edge and driving higher margins in a premium segment of the energy market.”

Jean Vincent, Head of RD&I Americas at Evonik, agrees: “The world is changing at a drastic pace. Companies must fully embrace not just the concept of sustainability, but also ways to bring it to reality while maintaining competitiveness.”

Peter Votruba-Drzal, VP Global Sustainability at PPG, reinforces this view: “We don’t have a sustainability strategy—we have a business strategy rooted in sustainability and operational excellence. Collaboration with customers and suppliers is essential to create value through sustainability.”

Sustainability Must Be Embedded in Strategy

To thrive in a low-carbon economy, companies need to embed sustainability into every level of their operations—from raw materials sourcing to manufacturing and product development. “Mastering a circular economy, sustainable renewable sourcing of raw materials, and low-carbon emission processes—along with digital and AI-driven innovation—are imperatives,” says Arthur Martin, VP R&D North America at Arkema. Peter Votruba-Drzal illustrates how this plays out in practice: “We define sustainably advantaged products through a rigorous methodology aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This approach transforms value creation and is embedded throughout the product development process.”

This approach goes far beyond compliance. Forward-thinking companies are treating sustainability as a competitive advantage, unlocking growth in new markets while aligning with the evolving expectations of regulators, customers, and investors.

A New Mindset for a New Era

For global chemical companies like BASF, the key to navigating future challenges lies in entrepreneurial thinking. “We need to sense how the world is changing and adapt quickly,” says Dr. Amit Gokhale, Director of Process and Chemical Engineering R&D at BASF. “That means adopting new technologies, building new business models, and increasing our tolerance for risk.” He emphasizes that collaboration—between companies, suppliers, customers, and even competitors—will be essential for reducing investment risk and accelerating the scale-up of next-gen solutions.

Patricia Hubbard, SVP and CTO at Cabot, agrees and stresses the importance of adaptability: “Companies must actively seek new information and design systems to evolve under uncertainty to stay competitive.” The CIEX 2025 conference will provide a great opporunity to hear successful case studies, find collaborators and develop new ideas.

The Digital Leap: AI as a Strategic Capability

In the race to stay ahead, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies are emerging as transformative tools—not just for productivity but for discovery, decision-making, and engagement. “Chemical companies need to adopt AI and build an AI culture,” says Mike Finelli, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at Syensqo. “This includes leveraging AI for process optimization, accelerated discovery, and customer engagement. It’s imperative to remain competitive in an increasingly digital market.” AI allows R&D teams to reduce trial-and-error in labs, optimize supply chains, and customize products faster and more precisely than ever before.

“The tools available for understanding the science and evaluating the impact of materials are advancing at an unprecedented pace,” adds A.N. Sreeram, CTO and SVP of R&D at Dow. “Companies must stay at the forefront of rigorous analysis while being as nimble and responsive as possible.”

Talent, Trade-Offs, and the Innovation Engine

Technology alone won’t deliver transformation—people will. That means building a workforce ready to lead across sustainability, science, digital, and systems thinking. “Innovators will need to balance often conflicting trade-offs—performance, sustainability, resilience—with an increasing focus on speed,” says Marty DeGroot, VP Technology at DuPont. He emphasizes that innovation must now consider the full value chain and how decisions reverberate across complex ecosystems. “This will require access to modern capabilities and a strong emphasis on talent development and upskilling to use these capabilities effectively.”

Patricia Hubbard adds a crucial lens on timing innovation: “Timing is the hardest aspect of scaling innovation. The best practice is to keep options open, build flexible assets, and invest when customers are ready to scale. This approach helps de-risk growth while aligning with business goals.”

Reinventing the Future—Now

What does it truly mean to be competitive beyond 2030? It means developing low-carbon technologies and circular models—not as side projects, but as core business strategies. It means using AI not just to automate, but to accelerate invention. And it means empowering people across the organization to lead with curiosity, courage, and collaboration. “Chemical companies that invest early,” says Jennifer Holmgren, “can capture more of the value chain from feedstock to final product.”

The challenge ahead is clear—but so is the opportunity. The companies that act boldly today will not just survive tomorrow. They will lead it.

Powering the Future of Chemical Industry at CIEX 2025 Summit

CIEX is the leading platform for senior-level R&D, innovation, and sustainability professionals from the consumer, industrial, and specialty chemical sectors. Now in its 11th edition, CIEX is focused on creating value by bringing together the right people, fostering synergies, and actively facilitating connections among potential partners.

Join us on September 17 & 18, 2025, in Indianapolis, U.S.A. and get exclusive access to the community powering the future of chemistry — digital, sustainable and collaborative!

🎟Register today to secure your spot!

Rethinking R&D in Specialty Chemicals: Insights from Arkema

R&D in Specialty Chemicals: How Arkema Is Driving Innovation

Editor’s Note: Arthur Martin is Vice President of R&D North America at Arkema, leading innovation in Advanced Materials, Specialty Adhesives, and Coatings. With over 25 years of experience and 22 U.S. patents, he brings deep expertise in specialty materials and product commercialization.

Arthur W. Martin, VP R&D North America, Arkema

Arthur will speak at CIEX 2025, held on September 17–18 in Indianapolis, U.S.A., alongside leaders from Dow, 3M, BASF, DuPont, and more. Below is a preview of the insights he’ll share at the summit.

CIEX: Without giving too much away – what is the core message of your talk and what would you like delegates to remember?

Arthur: There has been a continuous reduction in R&D spending as a percentage of revenue by most specialty companies over the last 20-30 years. Currently, most specialty companies spend approximately 2.7% on average across the three (3) horizons of innovation. This is a reduction from 10-15% previously spent in prior years. Therefore, it is incumbent for innovation leaders and executives to be creative in how they prioritize, select and valuate R&D technology programs in their innovation portfolio.

Elasticity in innovation gives an R&D organization the flexibility to adapt and respond quickly to changes in technology, market demand, and competitive pressure. Specifically, it enables the organization to shift resources dynamically to allocate talent, R&D investment, and tools more efficiently to high-potential projects or pivot when needed to scale innovation efforts by ramping up or scaling down R&D activities based on opportunities, risk, or performance feedback without major disruption.

In Arkema, accelerating the time-to-market by responding faster to emerging trends or customer needs gives us a competitive advantage. Empowerment of our R&D scientists to experiment more freely and take innovative risk can provide unexpected results that provide significant value. Supporting a culture of rapid prototyping and learning allows multiple innovative pathways to be explored in parallel and finally resilience to failure to absorb setbacks and reallocate efforts without derailing the overall innovation agenda remains critical to the innovation process.

In short, elasticity empowers an R&D organization to remain agile, resilient, and competitive in a fast-changing environment.

CIEX: What motivates you to join CIEX this year?

Arthur: I’m motivated to join CIEX because they offer a unique space to collaborate with forward-thinking innovation leaders who are passionate about solving complex problems and shaping the future. CIEX is not just about generating new ideas and discussing new concepts in the innovation space, they’re about turning those ideas into real, scalable impact. I’m driven by the opportunity to learn from both other strategic and visionary leaders and contribute my own perspective to meaningful, future-focused initiatives. Being part of such a community helps me grow as a leader, stay ahead of trends, and continuously challenge myself to think creatively and lead with purpose.

CIEX: In what ways have emerging technologies most significantly transformed your R&D process over the past few years – and what impact has this had on speed to market?

Arthur: I have recently created an Emerging Technologies department over the past year. I am already experiencing a positive impact. I have developed a fail-fast mechanism and open innovation while having closer connection with the business units. The new technology platforms within Arkema utilize existing assets and are market and customer-focused, leading to faster time-to-market, better product-market fit, and smarter decision-making.

I have created technology enablers through digital transformation and open innovation to shift from the linear process of execution to a more agile approach, faster iteration loops between teams (R&D, product, commercial), parallel development and testing rather than sequential handoffs, more customer focused, and market need approach to technology development delivering more value to the businesses.

This approach has resulted in shortened development timelines and better alignment with changing business needs.

CIEX: What are the biggest challenges – and best practices- you´ve seen in scaling innovation from lab to market while staying aligned with business objectives?

Arthur: In my 25+ years of experience, I would not say I have seen it all, but I have experienced enough to view challenges from the landscape of opportunities. Here are some of my perspectives on the opportunities we have to create solutions: The gap between a promising prototype and a viable, scalable product often lacks funding, sponsorship, or a clear path forward, misalignment with core business goals: Innovations may be technically brilliant but not aligned with strategy, customer needs, or revenue models.

I have also experienced siloed operations in R&D, product, marketing, and commercial teams, often operating independently, leading to disconnects and delays.

Sometimes, technologists are overly optimistic to the challenges of scalability and not identifying risk and threats in the timely and intuitive manner they should, therefore, underestimating scale-up complexity where technical challenges, regulatory hurdles, supply chain issues, and customer adoption are often more complex than anticipated.

Let’s not forget the cultural impedance, resulting in Internal resistance to change or fear of cannibalizing existing products can kill innovation before it takes off.

Also, from company to company or business unit to business unit within one company, the lack of a repeatable process becomes the Achilles heel too often for organizations. They still rely on ad hoc innovation rather than a structured process for scaling from lab to market. The best practices such as stage gate process, agile innovation, design thinking and other innovation processes are often ignored.

CIEX: Open innovation, customer responsiveness, and integrated supply chains are gaining traction. What partnerships or collaborations have been most impactful in driving sustainable growth for your business?

Arthur: Open innovation, customer intimacy, and integrated supply chains are indeed critical to sustainable growth. In our business, the most impactful partnerships have been those that combined cross-industry collaboration with shared innovation goals. For example, we’ve worked closely with custom toll synthesis providers to develop novel material solutions that enhance supply chain agility. We’ve also partnered with key customers to co-create products tailored to adjacent and evolving market needs, allowing for faster feedback loops and improved customer satisfaction. Additionally, strategic alliances with sustainability-focused organizations have helped us reduce our environmental footprint while aligning with global ESG standards. These collaborations have not only strengthened our market position but also embedded long-term resilience into our business model.

CIEX: Looking ahead, what do you see as the most critical capability chemical companies must develop to remain competitive in the next decade?

Arthur: Looking toward the future, I think there are several critical capabilities that must be realized or exemplified to have a competitive edge. They are mastering a circular economy, sustainable, renewable sourcing of raw materials and low carbon emission processes, digital and AI-driven innovation and ecosystem collaboration are imperatives. These are essential parameters to remain on the competitive path.

CIEX: Thank you so much, Arthur! We look forward to hearing more from you at CIEX 2025!

Powering the Future of Chemical Industry at CIEX 2025 Summit

Join us on September 17 & 18, 2025, in Indianapolis, U.S.A. and get exclusive access to the community powering the future of chemistry — digital, sustainable and collaborative!

🎟Register today to secure your spot!