WSJ.com - ADM Chooses An Energy-Savvy Outsider As Its New CEO
WSJ.com - ADM Chooses An Energy-Savvy Outsider As Its New CEO: "ADM Chooses
An Energy-Savvy Outsider
As Its New CEO
By SCOTT KILMAN and JOANN S. LUBLIN
April 28, 2006; Page B1
DECATUR, Ill. -- Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., placing a big bet on the business of turning farm crops into fuel and chemicals, shattered company tradition by appointing a woman and energy-savvy outsider as its new CEO.
[Patricia Woertz]
After a seven-month search, directors of the grain-processing giant here named 53-year-old Patricia A. Woertz, a former executive vice president at Chevron Corp., as chief executive officer, president and a director. She succeeds G. Allen Andreas, 62, who will remain chairman.
The move makes ADM, a commodity powerhouse with about $36 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year, the largest publicly traded U.S. company headed by a woman. It also ends the lock of the storied Andreas family on the CEO post at ADM. That lock stretches back to 1970, when Mr. Andreas's uncle began turning an obscure soybean crusher into a commodity empire that moves crops and food ingredients across hemispheres."
This is huge. As in, enormous. ADM is a monster (meaning really, really, really BIG) and if they're putting an energy person in charge of their crop-producing concern, it bodes well for the alternative fuel scene.
Think about it -- someone who knows how to turn raw materials into fuel, is taking over a company that consolidates tons and tons of raw material in the form of crops... just at a time when this country is desperately in need of alternative energy sources.
"In picking Ms. Woertz, who has done business in such far-flung places as Kazakhstan and Venezuela, ADM is luring someone who knows how to turn a raw commodity into hundreds of products and can talk about it with Wall Street analysts as well as foreign dignitaries. ADM, which does business in 60 countries, generates nearly half of its sales outside the U.S. and is involved in everything from crushing soybeans in China to processing cocoa beans in Africa."
Seems like it could be a match made in heaven. I'll be watching to see what happens.
An Energy-Savvy Outsider
As Its New CEO
By SCOTT KILMAN and JOANN S. LUBLIN
April 28, 2006; Page B1
DECATUR, Ill. -- Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., placing a big bet on the business of turning farm crops into fuel and chemicals, shattered company tradition by appointing a woman and energy-savvy outsider as its new CEO.
[Patricia Woertz]
After a seven-month search, directors of the grain-processing giant here named 53-year-old Patricia A. Woertz, a former executive vice president at Chevron Corp., as chief executive officer, president and a director. She succeeds G. Allen Andreas, 62, who will remain chairman.
The move makes ADM, a commodity powerhouse with about $36 billion in revenue in its latest fiscal year, the largest publicly traded U.S. company headed by a woman. It also ends the lock of the storied Andreas family on the CEO post at ADM. That lock stretches back to 1970, when Mr. Andreas's uncle began turning an obscure soybean crusher into a commodity empire that moves crops and food ingredients across hemispheres."
This is huge. As in, enormous. ADM is a monster (meaning really, really, really BIG) and if they're putting an energy person in charge of their crop-producing concern, it bodes well for the alternative fuel scene.
Think about it -- someone who knows how to turn raw materials into fuel, is taking over a company that consolidates tons and tons of raw material in the form of crops... just at a time when this country is desperately in need of alternative energy sources.
"In picking Ms. Woertz, who has done business in such far-flung places as Kazakhstan and Venezuela, ADM is luring someone who knows how to turn a raw commodity into hundreds of products and can talk about it with Wall Street analysts as well as foreign dignitaries. ADM, which does business in 60 countries, generates nearly half of its sales outside the U.S. and is involved in everything from crushing soybeans in China to processing cocoa beans in Africa."
Seems like it could be a match made in heaven. I'll be watching to see what happens.
posted by Kay Stoner at 7:30 AM
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