Arkema CEO Thierry Le Henaff is the 2024 Icis CEO of the Year

Icis announced Thierry Le Henaff, chairman and CEO of France-based Arkema, as the winner of the 2024 Icis CEO of the Year Award for outstanding achievement. The Icis CEO of the Year Award is unique in the chemical industry as the winner is selected based on a vote among industry CEOs in the Icis Top 40 Power Players - a global ranking of leaders driving the greatest positive impact on their companies and the chemical industry, published in Icis Chemical Business.

“It is a great honor to receive this prestigious award. It is all the more invaluable for me as it reflects the choice of my peers, the CEOs of other chemical groups around the world. I share it with the Arkema teams. This award is first and foremost theirs. Through their unwavering commitment, professionalism and spirit of conquest, they have enabled Arkema’s transformation towards specialty materials. This award recognizes our strategy focused on innovative and high-performance materials that help deliver solutions developed with and by our customers for a more sustainable world,” said Le Henaff.

“Arkema’s Thierry Le Henaff is engineering one of the most ambitious transformations in the chemical industry through meergers and acquisitions and innovation, positioning the company as a leader in higher margin and growth specialty chemicals and materials”, said Jeff Skelton, CEO of Icis.

Thierry Le Henaff has been chairman and CEO of Arkema since the company’s stock market listing in 2006 when it was spun off from Total. Since then, he has made key acquisitions to boost the company’s growth profile, including US-based Dow’s flexible packaging laminating adhesives business (2024, close pending) and a majority stake in South Korea-based PI Advanced Materials serving advanced electronics and e-mobility. Arkema is also investing in start-ups with potentially disruptive technology. In April, the company agreed to acquire a majority stake in Austria-based Proionic, which is developing ionic liquids to enable the next generation of solid lithium-ion batteries.