New York, December 19, 2024 – The Chemists’ Club 2025 Kavaler Award, sponsored by Piper Sandler, will be awarded to Ilham Kadri, Chief Executive Officer of Syensqo, by the vote of her peers in the global chemical industry. This prestigious award honors the exceptional performance of innovators and disruptors of the status quo in the sector.
The 2025 Kavaler Award will be presented to Dr. Kadri at a black tie dinner ceremony on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the historic Metropolitan Club of New York, in New York City.
"I am deeply honored to receive this prestigious recognition from my esteemed industry peers," said Ilham Kadri, CEO of Syensqo. “I was blessed to develop an early passion for science, thanks to Marie Curie, my childhood role model. I followed this passion across four different continents and numerous roles, including serving as the CEO of Diversey in the United States, Solvay in Belgium and now Syensqo. My journey has been inspiring and fulfilling. I am grateful for my mentors and for the opportunity to work with some of the best teams in the industry to serve our customers, our shareholders, and drive breakthroughs that improve lives and advance humanity.”
To select the winner, the 126-year-old Chemists' Club invited a large and diverse array of chemical industry leaders around the world to vote from a ballot of 12 CEOs. These nominees were chosen based on a wide range of criteria, including organic growth, innovation, diversity and inclusivity, and safety and health, as well as operational excellence, share price performance, and M&A activity. There was a special focus on ESG actions meaningful both to the industry and, more broadly, to society. Ilham Kadri was nominated and then selected by her peers for excelling against this impressive set of criteria.
Dr. Kadri launched and leads Syensqo, whose 13,000 employees recently celebrated its first-year anniversary. Despite its youth, Syensqo is leading the way in groundbreaking innovation with unique capabilities to create value for its global customer base, leveraging megatrends such as lightweighting, connectivity and circularity to drive sustainable, profitable growth and increased returns.
“We are very proud to honor Dr. Kadri with the 2025 Kavaler Award,” said Dr. Roland Stefandl, President of The Chemists’ Club. “With relentless determination and strategic vision, she has transformed challenges into opportunities to achieve exceptional business performance. She exemplifies that no matter how humble one's beginnings, dreams can be boundless.”
“Ilham Kadri’s bold strategy to spin off Syensqo has created two global leaders in their respective markets,” noted Kirk McIntosh, Global Co-Head of Piper Sandler Chemicals Investment Banking. “In addition to the long-term value creation opportunity that Syensqo and Solvay will respectively enjoy through becoming more focused platforms, under Dr. Kadri’s leadership Syensqo has recently undertaken targeted acquisitions to align the portfolio with positive megatrends and deliver against Syensqo’s growth priorities. She has also presided over substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions and expects to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. Her focus on sustainability and profitability also includes new product development with more than 80% of R&D projects geared towards delivering sustainable solutions. Dr. Kadri has been commended for her role in advancing science, advocating women’s leadership in STEM fields, and for her commitment to Europe’s climate neutrality and circularity goals. Additionally, Ilham Kadri’s leadership has earned her a spot on the 2024 Leaders50 list, which showcases 50 inspiring leaders from around the world, and she was ranked 21st in Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International in 2019. She is an exemplary role model for our industry and we congratulate her on receiving this award.”
With the award, Ilham Kadri joins an illustrious group of CEOs who are recent Kavaler honorees: Jim Fitterling, Dow; Matthias Zachert, LANXESS; Lori Ryerkerk, Celanese; Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco; Bob Patel, LyondellBasell; Kurt Bock, BASF; Jim Ratcliffe, INEOS; and Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical.
For more information on the Kavaler Award and Gala, please contact Dr. Roland Stefandl, President, The Chemists’ Club, at RolandStefandl@thechemistsclub.org, +1 (201) 888-0440.
The Chemists' Club Kavaler Award, sponsored by Piper Sandler, is a revival of the Kavaler Award presented by Chemical Market Reporter to leading chemical CEOs from 1990-1999. The award was revived in 2013 with the first Kavaler Award of the new era going to Charles Bunch, CEO of PPG.
The Kavaler Award is granted in memory of Arthur Kavaler, who for 46 years served as reporter, editor, and eventually publisher and editor-in-chief of Chemical Market Reporter. As Andrew Liveris of Dow said, "he was a probing reporter and editor with unwavering conviction," who had a major positive impact on chemical industry journalism for many decades. Kavaler passed away at the age of 91 in 2012.
https://www.thechemistsclub.org/kavaler_award.php
Founded in 1898, The Chemists' Club is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization whose membership is open to anyone with an interest in the chemical sciences, including: chemists and chemical engineers, chemical industry management, consultants, financial analysts, attorneys, academics, and students (dues-free). It provides networking opportunities for members to mix and meet with others in the chemical process sector, such as biotech, chemical, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paper, and similar industries. The Club also supports the growth of the chemical industry by working with college students and introducing them to the range of career opportunities available in the chemical industry today.
www.thechemistsclub.org
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Syensqo is a science company developing groundbreaking solutions that enhance the way we live, work, travel and play. Inspired by the scientific councils which Ernest Solvay initiated in 1911, we bring great minds together to push the limits of science and innovation for the benefit of our customers, with a diverse, global team of more than 13,000 associates.
Our solutions contribute to safer, cleaner, and more sustainable products found in homes, food and consumer goods, planes, cars, batteries, smart devices and health care applications. Our innovation power enables us to deliver on the ambition of a circular economy and explore breakthrough technologies that advance humanity.
The Chemists’ Club
Michelle Stefandl
michellest@thechemistsclub.org
Syensqo
Perrine Marchal
Head of Media relations
media.relations@syensqo.com
For further information:
Dr. Roland Stefandl, President, The Chemists’ Club
RolandStefandl@thechemistsclub.org
+1 (201) 888-0440
To attend The Chemists’ Club Kavaler Award Gala, sponsored by Piper Sandler: