Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (“MCHC”) announced that as of April 1, 2021, Jean-Marc Gilson will be the new President and Chief Executive Officer.
MCHC converted to a company with a nominating committee, etc. in June 2015. Since then, the Nominating Committee has carried out preparations to properly conduct nominations, taking into account the period covered by the medium-term management plan and other factors. Representative Corporate Executive Officer, President and CEO, Hitoshi Ochi, has recently expressed his intent to retire at the end of the current fiscal year that coincides with the conclusion of the current medium-term management plan, where the fortification of its business infrastructure has been achieved to a meaningful degree. Therefore, the Nominating Committee explored and selected specific candidates of his successor.
The Nominating Committee set the following criteria for the next Representative Corporate Executive Officer, President and CEO. The individual had to be able to execute the following initiatives reflecting our Group Philosophy, KAITEKI.
(1) Able to build a strategic vision and branding strategy, foreseeing the post-COVID 19 world, that integrates the healthcare business, including biochemicals and life science, with the high-value added chemicals business based on the high-performance products.
(2) Capable of improving corporate value particularly from the perspective of shareholders and investors
(3) Able to decisively implement portfolio transformation through strong leadership
The Nominating Committee searched globally for suitable candidates, both inside and outside the company. It conducted multifaceted evaluations, including interviews with candidates and gathered references from related parties on the past performance of potential candidates. The Nominating Committee ultimately nominated Jean-Marc Gilson based on which MCHC, at the meeting of Board of Directors today, adopted the resolution to select him as the next Representative Corporate Executive Officer, President and CEO.
Jean-Marc Gilson has demonstrated leadership in the positions of president or chief executive in charge of business operations at various US and European chemical companies. This includes Executive Vice President, Specialty Chemicals Business at Dow Corning. Then he served as CEO at Avantor Performance Materials, which was selected by New Mountain Capital, a private equity fund, as their first investment in the chemicals sector. After this, at the request of New Mountain Capital, he served as COO at NuSil Technology. At present, he serves as CEO of Roquette, headquartered in France.
Jean-Marc Gilson possesses a global outlook in the fields of specialty chemicals and life science. In his previous experiences he worked at, Gilson built a proven track record for decisively executing portfolio transformation. In addition, he fully understands how correctly establishing strategies and clearly disseminating these strategies to all stakeholders contributes to the improvement of corporate value.
Given his performance, competencies and enthusiasm to lead the company, we determined that Jean-Marc Gilson is the optimal choice to lead MCHC realizing our vision of sustainable growth by accelerating our portfolio transformation and globally undertaking initiatives to solve social issues based on the Group Philosophy, KAITEKI.