AdresArkema in the Americas is actively seeking a Sustainable Development Officer, based out of King of Prussia, PA. This role is heavily involved in Arkema’s global CSR commitment and its ambitious decarbonization plan which offers true value to Arkema’s stakeholders. This role is critical to build the story, help target the audience, so we capture this value. This position will also play a critical role in preventing greenwashing, thus protecting the Arkema brand.
Overall, this position will be focused on Arkema’s sustainability offer in relation to the megatrends, in alignment with the Group strategy. The Sustainable Development Officer is responsible for the regional CSR strategy and the consolidation/evolution of a prioritized multi-year cross-BU commercial roadmap in alignment with the corporate CSR strategy. This position will help drive excellence in the regional implementation of the CSR strategy and commercial roadmap.
The Sustainable Development Officer will be guided by our local CSR steerco with Tony O’Donovan as the Executive Sponsor. The position will report to Chris Glover, SVP NA Group Manufacturing, with a dotted line to Emmanuelle Bromet, VP, Sustainable Development, who is based out of France. There is a designated mentor for this position, Kevin Hanrahan, Chief Marketing Officer for High Performance Polymers. One VIE will report to this position.
The role represents the entire enterprise within the Americas (USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Southern Cone), supporting the multiple BUs. This role spans 3 segments, 14 Business Units, and 5,000+ employees.
The preferred candidate has a business management background in manufacturing, experienced in marketing and/or business development, and has future career interest in a BU GM role. The Sustainability Officer will leverage existing collaboration and negotiation skills as well diverse stakeholder management and the ability to navigate a complex BU landscape, among other skills and capabilities, which will be amplified for application in a future Business Unit leadership role.
Up to 10% travel
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Subject Matter Expert 25%
- Co-ordinate the prioritization and sharing of Life-cycle assessment (LCA) and CSR information to internal and external stakeholders.
- Benchmark and evaluate the activities of our peer competitors
- Ensure regional trends and applications are correctly interpreted by BU CSR leads
- Handle internal or external (ACC, DOE, etc.) consolidated reporting requests or inquiries
Educator 25%
- Drive LCA and sustainability fluency within the BU’s (Sustainability 101, 102, Climate Fresk etc.)
- Steer the winning team from Arkema Americas flagship Leadership Development Program with Cornell (ALDP) to implement their initiative around sustainability
Marketer 25%
- Adapt customer messaging for Arkema BUs’ sustainable offer with a special focus on
- Cradle to gate LCA and product carbon footprint.
- Promoting a holistic approach and/or potential joint opportunities across BUs
- Support BUs/Purchasing in trade associations (such as ACC) and government agencies where an holistic perspective on sustainability is necessary or can be a differentiator
- Enable Business Units to extract the maximum value by translating our CSR impacts into profitable growth
Business Developer 25%
- Create and execute a commercial development multi-year roadmap to bring commercial value to customers based upon our sustainable offer.
- As much as possible, the roadmap(s) should be “One Arkema” across BUs focusing on key Arkema markets
Minimum Qualifications and Education Required
Min Years of Experience:
- 10 Year+ proven track record in the chemical industry
- Experience with managing North American customers
- Previous experience in a market management or business leadership role
- Project leadership experience, leading directly or indirectly teams across BU/functions and with global team members
- Experience with financial KPIs and purchasing impact on P/L, budget
- Ability to multitask is essential
Education and area of focus:
- Bachelor’s Degree required with technical program area
- MBA strongly preferred
Competencies:
- Ability to learn and navigate Arkema products and BUs
- Strong strategic and strong execution skills
- Strong interpersonal and presentation skills. Open, objective and transparent communication style, with active listening, proactive
- Passionate and enthusiastic about CSR and sustainability
- Track record of acting as a change agent
- Deep understanding of the sustainable topic and its relevance in the circular economy
- Keen on using digital tools to simplify and optimize
- Ability to navigate a complex BU landscape – operational and commercial.
- Ability to foster a collaborative partnership with the various business functions
- Ability to influence and negotiate with parts of the organization where formal authority is not held
- Demonstrated experience in leading high-performing project teams
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Possesses unquestioned integrity and strong business ethics and leads by example. Demonstrates a firm commitment to the company’s values (Solidarity, Performance, Simplicity, Empowerment and Inclusion) and culture.
