MOSCOW (MRC) -- Katja Wodjereck, who is responsible for the business area in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India at Dow Industrial Solutions, will also assume the position of President of Dow Germany, Austria and Switzerland from February, said the company.
Wodjereck will also become CEO of Dow in Germany. She succeeds Ralf Brinkmann, who will leave the company at the end of March after 30 years with the company to pursue new tasks.
For Dow, Germany plays a central political and economic role in the implementation of the company's strategic sustainability goals. “In recent years, Ralf Brinkmann has successfully set the course for the future development of Dow in Germany. We are pleased to have Katja Wodjereck as a successor who brings extensive experience from different business areas to best support the goals of the Green Deal and our sustainability strategy," said Neil Carr, Executive Vice President and President Dow EMEAI.
Katja Wodjereck began her career at Dow in 2001 in sales at the then German headquarters in Schwalbach. During her 20+ year career, she has held various leadership positions in Sales, Marketing and Product/Asset Management for different business areas and market segments in Europe and Latin America, including Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Energy and Microbial, Gas & Mining and most recently Industrial Solutions. She has also managed the Group's sustainability activities for the EMEAI region for the last two years. Wodjereck holds a degree in International Business Management from the Trier University of Applied Sciences and the Universidad Vina del Mar Chile as well as an MBA from the Northwood University Executive MBA program. Born in Augsburg, she represents Dow on the board of the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA).
Ralf Brinkmann has worked at Dow since 1992 in various managerial positions in the chemicals and plastics business in Europe and the USA. From 2010 to 2014, the business graduate was President of Dow in Germany for the first time, then moved to the head of the Dow Consumer Care division and then managed the global business for Dow Building & Construction. Since 2018 he has served as President D/A/CH, Eastern Europe, Russia, Italy and CEO of Dow in Germany and was instrumental in coordinating the spin-off of Dow's specialty chemicals business in Europe following the merger between Dow and DuPont.
As per MRC, Dow Chemical, one of the largest US petrochemical companies, has begun bringing operations back online "as third-party utility balances and raw materials availability allow". Dow said its Taft operations were "making progress" toward restarting, and the company expected to have a clearer timeline for resumption of production in the coming days based on repairs and as access to power and raw materials allow.
As MRC wrote earlier, Dow Chemical began the process of restarting operations at its cracker No.7 in Freeport (Freeport, TX, USA) on 19 July, 2021, after a technological disruption on 4 July, 2021.
Dow Chemical is an American diversified chemical company headquartered in Midland, Michigan. It is a major manufacturer of polymer products, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene and synthetic rubbers. The company produces more than five thousand products at 188 production facilities in 37 countries.
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