Argus Digital Transformation in Chemicals

Marcos Abech is Head of Digital Change Management at Brazilian petrochemicals company Braskem, and leads the company’s digital transformation together with a global digital centre team that includes data scientists, developers and designers. It also embraces Braskem’s incubation arm, where new ventures are created to tackle key challenges globally. Marcos has more than 10 years of project and business management experience, most recently leading the performance management area for Braskem Europe’s business. Marcos began his career as a project manager working in many major projects and greenfields, including as an adviser. Marcos has an MBA from Fundacao Getulio Vargas, is a PMI-certified project management professional, and has a degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul/Ohio State University. Throughout his career, he has worked and lived in Brazil, Germany and the US. Read less

Bharat established Noahs Ark Chemicals in 2001 and has grown it into a successful trading and distribution firm operating globally. He developed an online portal — GoBuyChem.com — that takes traditional ways of transacting chemicals and commoditises the process, extending the reach for all sector participants — a sales solution that SMEs can implement rapidly and cost effectively. Read less

Ian started work in Univar in 2011 as a Supply Chain manager for the UK business and since then has supported SAP implementations, business integrations, acquisitions, digitalisation projects with suppliers and general Supply Chain performance. Ian enjoys learning and through his extensive supply chain career he has participated in Lean six sigma projects where he completed his green belt, a business studies degree and latterly completed his MBA in 2017. In 2018 Ian was promoted to Supply Chain Director for EMEA where he support countries deliver the strategy for Univar. Read less

In the position of Manager, Transport Systems, Univar, David Edge is managing the Transportation Management Systems (TMS) and its integration into Univar’s ERP systems and organization. Univar started with TMS early 2017 and David has rolled out the systems, processes and delivered training to all sites across Europe. He has 5 years’ experience with Univar and over 10 years of transport management experience. In his role, David will concentrate on delivering the digitalisation of the transport process, ensuring a wide range of benefits and the professionalization of transport management across EMEA. Read less

Mathew George is Head of Petrochemical Exports at Indian Oil Corporation in Mumbai. An Indian Oil veteran of 30 years, he is a mechanical engineer from the University of Kerala and has an MBA in finance from XLRI. He has a postgraduate diploma in brand management from Ashridge Business School in the UK. He is an alumnus of the Calvert School Baltimore in the US and India’s Lawrence School, and is a fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India) and a member of the Aeronautical Society of India. Mathew has held a number of key assignments at Indian Oil, including heading the polymer marketing group, heading the lubricants group at subsidiary company Lanka IOC in Colombo, and assignments spread across many locations in the lubricants and aviation departments. In the field of petrochemicals he has handled polymers, PX, PTA, benzene, LAB, glycols and butadiene business. A well-known supply chain and ERP/CRM expert and analyst, he also has core experience in ship chartering for chemicals and petroleum. Mathew has been a regular speaker at international conferences in the areas of petrochemical feedstocks, polymers, ERP, CRM, detergents and benzene. He has also been a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, taking the course Business in a World Without Borders – Bridging the Cultural and Linguistic Divide. Read less

Claus-Peter Hälsig holds the position of Vice President Process & Technology for Fluor in Europe, Russia/CIS, Middle East and Africa and is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has over 35 years of experience in all aspects of hydrocarbon processing in the refining and petrochemical industries, covering catalysis, new process developments, clean fuels and heavy fuel oil upgrading up to bio-fuels, energy efficiency and sustainability / renewable aspects as well as alternative energy resources. His most recent area of interest is the impact of Industry 4.0 / Digitalization on enhancing operation, reducing life cycle costs and its impact on the work processes, enhanced cooperation. Before he joined Fluor in 1993 he worked for nearly 15 years with BP in the UK and Germany, where he started his career in the R&D organization, providing technical service to the refineries and refining-petrochemical complexes worldwide. Mr Hälsig holds a Dr.-Ing. degree of the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK and has been awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Read less

Frank has a PhD and MSc in chemical process engineering. His areas of expertise include value chain management, supply chain transformation and strategic enterprise architecture. Frank was founder and Chief Executive of J&M Management Consulting, which focused on supply chain and value chain consulting in Europe. Frank is globally leading the chemical industry sector. As a former leader of strategy & operations in the region Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Frank has over 20 years of extensive expertise in supply chain process modeling & design, organisational change management, business improvement Initiatives and transformational excellence. He has the ability to execute, bringing strategies alive, delivering on the completeness of vision. Frank was founder and CEO of J&M Management Consulting AG, a hidden champion in supply chain and value chain consulting in Europe. Read less

Rich has been with Elemica for over 16 years in roles as President, Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice-President of Product Management, and Vice-President of Research and Development. Rich is responsible for setting the overall direction of Elemica’s technology roadmap and market positioning, and he oversees corporate and product marketing. Rich is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class chief intelligence officers, chief technology officers and technology executives. This network shares thought leadership and best practice with each other and the industry. Read less

Richard has worked at Argus Media for five years as head of development and senior vice-president of technology. He focuses on technology innovation and strategy, in particular looking at how technology is transforming commodity trading and operations. Before joining Argus, Richard worked for 10 years at commodity trading companies implementing solutions to support analysis, trading and operations across all commodity sectors globally. Read less

Wolfgang has a successful 22 year long track record in several industries as well as in the consulting firm McKinsey. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering and has been awarded from different institutions e.g. Young Elite member top 40 under 40 Germany from the Magazine ‘Capital’, earned a Leadership award from Avery Dennison where he worked for almost 10 years and was nominated to the top 38 Supply Chain Leaders in 2016 from Supply Chain Movement. Wolfgang started his career with Procter & Gamble in the consumer goods industry as process engineer. Right now Wolfgang is leading the global Supply Chain organization of Perstorp which includes Planning, Logistics, Procurement and Customer Service. In that function he reports directly to the CEO Jan Secher. Wolfgang's greatest successes recently were the implementation of a global Procurement Category organization with a spend of 1bn US $ and the transformation towards an Integrated Business Planning coming from a traditional S&OP style. Read less

Naïk Londono is an entrepreneur with a computational neurosciences engineering background who has promoted industrial digital transformation in Europe, Asia and America. His company AELER, which he co-founded with David Baur, is currently bringing automatisation to the containerised freight industry by combining AI and IoT into a powerful cloud-based tool. AELER recently built the world's most efficient and smartest intermodal container, cutting the cost of flexitank transportation by more than 15pc. Read less

Since 2013 Anna Navarro is working for the Port of Tarragona Port Authority as IT Project Manager and PCS analyst. Since she is 2017 also involved in the digital transformation of the port. Ana is a Telecom Engineer by training and has an MSc in Technology Management and Master in Supply Chain Management and Technology. Read less

Marc is General Project Manager Industrial Customer Solutions at international utility Uniper. Marc strives to shape the energy system of the future. With an academic background in engineering and business administration, he started his career at Babcock-Borsig in the engineering, procurement and construction of power plants for international customers. Marc then developed his core competencies in project and contract management at Siemens’ power generation arm, aiming to bridge the gap between technical specifications and commercial contract terms. With decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitalisation the drivers of today’s energy sector, Marc worked for Eon at the Arkona Offshore Windpark project. He is currently supporting the launch of Uniper’s new industrial customer solutions business line at, providing customised power and steam supply to sites. Uniper has developed the Enerlytics digital platform, enabling maintenance optimisation, asset performance and risk management. Read less

In his position as Director Bulk Cargo & Shipping at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Sander Rijsdijk (44) manages the commercial department which is responsible for all customers within the port of Rotterdam dealing with chemicals, dry and liquid bulk, including refineries. On an annual basis this amounts up to 300 million tonnes of seagoing cargo throughput. Prior to this Sander Rijsdijk held several commercial positions in which he was responsible for commercial tank storage companies, power generation and utilities. Sander holds a bachelor of Maritime Management at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. Read less

Having joined Sumitomo Chemical Europe with regional responsibility for Europe, Turkey and Africa in 2007, one major task was the set-up of the Sumitomo Chemical and Aramco Joint Venture in Saudi Arabia, Petro Rabigh Company together with Sumitomo Chemical Asia, Singapore. He heads up the Supply Chain and Logistics flows of the entire products coming from the Sumitomo Chemical group. He has a distinguished and varied career of 20 years with BP Chemicals International with experience covering Supply Chain Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Business Development and Sales & Marketing. In these functions, he gained working experience in various places across Europe and Asia. Henning also lectures „International Supply Chain Management“at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences. A German citizen, he is married with one child. Read less

Peter Struckmann is Director of Asset Risk at Uniper responsible for developing and managing a consistent and effective asset management system for the European generation portfolio consisting of combined-cycle gas turbine, steam and biomass and hydropower assets. Focus areas include organisational compliance, permitting operational risk management including plant and process safety and risk-based prioritising of operational spend, O&M strategies and driving asset performance. Within Uniper Peter is responsible for driving the digitalisation of generation. Peter has nearly 20 years of experience in the energy sector. Before joining Uniper (E.ON) in 2001 he worked in research and technical services for different companies. Within Uniper and E.ON he had a number of roles in technical, strategic and commercial areas. Peter has a PhD in engineering from Germany’s Ruhr-University of Bochum. Read less