Dr. David Hill Dr. Koji Oe |
Both Mr. Tsuji and Mr. Kudo have long and distinguished careers at DIC. Mr. Tsuji’s current position is president, DIC Logistics, and Mr. Kudo’s current position is general manager, corporate strategic planning.
As a result, Wes Lucas decided to resign from his position of president and CEO of Sun Chemical effective Dec. 31, 2005, but remained as chairman of the board of Sun Chemical. During Mr. Lucas’ tenure as president and CEO, Sun Chemical experienced significant success, and DIC and Sun Chemical are grateful for Mr. Lucas' leadership and positive impact during his tenure.
DIC has appointed Dr. David Hill as CEO and president of Sun Chemical Corporation effective Jan. 1, 2006, succeeding Mr. Lucas. Dr. Hill will join the board of Sun Chemical Corporation.
“I hold a firm conviction that we need to focus on our technology and manufacturing processes if we are to meet the many challenges facing our business globally,” said Dr. Koji Oe, president of DIC. “Dr. Hill is a leading expert and is uniquely qualified for this task. DIC and Sun Chemical will gain significant synergies from closer management of technology and operations. This will create significant benefits in customer service and operational efficiency.”
New Leadership
Dr. Hill has 36 years of experience in the chemical industry, the last four with Sun Chemical Corporation. Dr. Hill received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. During his career he has held many positions of senior responsibility with Fortune 100 companies.
His longest tenure was with Allied Signal Corporation, where he was chief technology officer for their chemical and materials businesses as well as president of their fibers and specialty chemicals units.
Dr. Hill spoke of the many challenges facing Sun Chemical, and how the company will work together with DIC to achieve its goals.
“The greatest challenges to Sun Chemical are globalization of the ink and printing industries, technological change in print and media delivery and declining profitability of our customer base,” Dr. Hill said. “Sun Chemical will continue to focus on improving customer satisfaction through new product innovation and excellent quality and service . “Customers can expect improvements as the DIC Group works together to offer new technology and service, especially to multinational customers,” Dr. Hill added.
Dr. Hill said that Sun Chemical will remain largely unaffected by the new strategy.
“Sun Chemical employees will experience minimal change, as the primary adjustments will take place at a strategic level, which will allow the company to optimize business opportunities wherever they exist,” he said. “The company plans to aggressively pursue business opportunities in any locale to ensure its continuing and long-term success.”
Dr. Oe stressed in his remarks that technology and operations are going to be pillars of Sun Chemical's future success. With Dr. Hill's significant experience in technology and operations, these are natural areas of interest for Sun Chemical’s new CEO.
In his new role, however, Dr. Hill said he will take a “Big Picture” point of view, with further involvement in the financial, marketing and sales aspects of the business. Dr. Hill pointed out that he will work with DIC leadership to speed up the development cycle, including areas such as electronic and digital.
Dr. Hill expects that one result of this increased collaboration will be that the DIC Group will achieve even greater penetration in worldwide markets.
The key to this strategy is developing synergies, whether it is with international customers, coordinating manufacturing and R&D or investing in new opportunities.
“By working together, the entire DIC Group can leverage Sun Chemical’s established relationships with Western multinational corporations expanding in Asia,” Dr. Hill said.
“The changes will allow the DIC Group to coordinate operations more closely to ensure high productivity and quality, competitive manufacturing cost structure and local service with a global perspective. Research and development will be more closely coordinated to speed the group’s technology introductions, especially in the electronics and digital arena, an area with great promise for the future.
“Acting as a group, DIC and Sun Chemical will plan future investment in fast-growing areas, such as the Far East, to take advantage of emerging business opportunities,” Dr. Hill concluded.