Built around the evolving needs of wood panel manufacturers, Hexion’s latest investments strengthen its ability to create measurable, customer-specific value at scale. Following the introduction of its Chemistry-as-a-Service™ (CaaS) model at the World Petrochemicals Conference in Houston, the company today highlights a series of leadership appointments designed to accelerate an AI-first, performance-based model that helps customers improve output, reduce variability, and unlock stronger economics. These appointments reflect the next phase of Hexion’s transformation, as experienced industry leaders join the company to help reshape how value is created across wood panel manufacturing.
Hexion is sharpening its focus on wood panel engineering and performance, an emphasis further underscored by the divestiture of its commodity formalin business in late 2025. In wood panel manufacturing, variability in production and raw material usage creates a meaningful opportunity to improve throughput, quality, and cost performance. Across the industry, performance remains constrained by variability, disconnected systems, and reactive decision-making, which are conditions where small inefficiencies quickly compound and limit overall results.
Hexion’s CaaS model is designed to close this gap. By embedding our deep expertise in cellulose materials together with wood panel process data, environmental inputs, and AI-driven models directly into plant operations, we create a closed-loop system that continuously learns and improves. Instead of relying on static formulations and periodic, or seasonal, adjustments, customers benefit from ongoing optimization across resin usage, tree consumption, throughput, uptime, quality stability, and energy efficiency. The results are tangible: more than a 10% reduction in resin usage, over 5% improvement in uptime, and more than a 10% reduction in energy consumption and waste.
“Selling chemicals is no longer enough. Customers are buying performance,” said Michael Lefenfeld, President and CEO. “We introduced our new performance-driven model at WPC and we have built the leadership team to execute it. This is a different way of operating, working alongside customers to continuously improve their operational performance and, in turn, strengthen ours.”
To execute this shift, Hexion has recently appointed the following leaders:
Pedro Lopes, Chief Commercial Officer – Lopes leads Hexion’s global commercial organization, aligning customer needs, product development, and go-to-market execution to drive growth and adoption of performance-based solutions. He joins from Kraton Corporation, where he held senior leadership roles advancing commercial performance across global specialty materials businesses. Before that, he held leadership roles at Arizona Chemical.
Gaël De Martelaere, Chief Procurement Officer – De Martelaere oversees Procurement and Supply Chain, strengthening coordination across Hexion’s global network to improve reliability, cost performance, and speed. He joins from Dow, where he spent more than 23 years in procurement and supply chain leadership, most recently as Vice President of Direct Procurement and previously across other procurement and supply chain roles.
Sambit Dutta, Senior Vice President, AI Transformation – Dutta leads the development of Hexion’s AI and data platform, which underpins its ability to deliver continuous, real-time optimization across customer operations. He brings more than 27 years of experience leading AI and digital programs, recently at Nestlé, and before that, Ecolab, where he delivered measurable impact across multiple business functions. He began his career at Deloitte in technology consulting.
Chandradev Mehta, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development – Mehta leads enterprise strategy, M&A, and strategic partnerships, with a focus on scaling growth platforms in Building and Construction and adjacent markets. He joins from Honeywell, where he led corporate development efforts totaling more than $5 billion in acquisitions. Before that, he was at LyondellBasell, leading global strategy and development.
Ann Lindsey, Head of Enterprise Operational Integrity & EHS – Lindsey leads Hexion’s global Environmental, Health and Safety strategy, advancing enterprise-wide programs that reinforce operational integrity, strengthen consistent safety fundamentals, and drive accountability across every site and role. Most recently, she served as Managing Director, U.S., at HSE Global, where she advised boards, CEOs, and site leaders. She brings more than two decades of experience in risk management, compliance, and safety culture transformation, and has also held leadership roles at Decision Point Associations and her own firm, Lindsey Consulting.
Arash Nejad, Vice President, Commercial Leader, SmartSystems – Nejad leads global commercial strategy for Hexion’s SmartSystems business, advancing the deployment of automation and digital technologies into customer operations. He brings experience from leadership roles at Novarc Technologies, Weir Motion Metrics, Rockwell Automation, and GE.
Following 18% year-over-year EBITDA growth in the face of significant headwinds, Hexion continues to invest in capabilities and products that strengthen execution, accelerate decision-making, and support long-term performance across its core markets. These appointments position Hexion to scale a more connected, performance-driven model, one that reduces variability, improves consistency, and delivers measurable results for customers.
