Leadership Spotlight: Volume to Value: Reshaping a Century-Old Business for the Next 100 Years - Charles Neal

Respect the Experience Around You

Kuraray turns 100 this year. When I think about what it takes to lead a business unit in a century-old company, I think of the 4.5 years I spent as an instructor at Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando, FL. My Navy experience taught me early in my career that ability to lead does not come with having stripes on your sleeve. An ensign straight out of college with less than two years in the military is trained to lead senior enlisted personnel who have served for 15 or 20 years. They learn quickly that rank provides only the authority to lead; it does not provide the knowledge needed to succeed.

Success as a leader depends on recognizing what their team brings to the table and putting their knowledge and abilities to best use.

That dynamic applies directly to the chemical industry. The officer-chief relationship mirrors the manager-shift supervisor relationship at a plant. Practical expertise resides at the operations level, not in management. Management’s role is to set direction and expectations and then to drive excellence.

My leadership philosophy is “firm yet fair,” grounded in open, honest conversations. I expect all my team members to work hard, to find joy in their work, and when necessary “to participate in their own rescue.”

Together we have built a strong collaborative culture within the business over the past decade.

A Core Business at a Crossroads

Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVOH) began as a specialty chemical, and over time the competitive landscape shifted as global producers entered the market. COVID accelerated that shift: about 20 percent of 2019 global consumption, concentrated in construction and commodity applications, moved permanently out of the market.

That disruption forced strategic clarity. Our response has been to reposition around value rather than volume. We earn our premium pricing every day by providing:

✅Products with consistent high quality

✅Responsive technical and customer service

✅A global manufacturing footprint few competitors can match

The Kuraray Group operates six PVOH sites worldwide and that equates to regional supply and guaranteed supply security. For a company marking its centennial, that resilience reflects a hundred years of deliberate investment.

The Biggest Chemical You’ve Never Heard Of

“For people and the planet” carries real weight in my business.

PVOH is probably the biggest chemical you’ve never heard of, yet you cannot live without it. PVOH enables critical sustainability outcomes, from oxygen barriers that extend food shelf life, to moisture and grease barriers in paper packaging, to dissolvable films.

Yes, this is a hydrocarbon-based industry, but we are reshaping the input side of that equation. With our ISCC PLUS certification, we are able to substitute fossil-fuel-derived ethylene with bio-circular ethylene produced from used cooking oil. Press release: https://www.kuraray.com/us-en/news/2025/0218/

The Kuraray Group is targeting a 63 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 (from 2021 baseline), with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. This transition is the first step in achieving that goal. More information available: https://www.kuraray.com/global-en/sustainability/environmental/

Investing in the Transition

What excites me is also what makes it challenging.

Bio-ethylene is chemically identical to conventional ethylene, but it costs eight to ten times more right now. There is a common misunderstanding that sustainable alternatives, because they represent the right thing to do, should also be cheaper. We have spent five or six generations building a chemical industry on petrochemicals. Any deviation from that foundation is naturally more expensive.

I think of it as a ladder. Some customers have sustainability mandates and pricing power strong enough that the premium is acceptable today. They are at the top of the ladder and their early demand signal is what we need for economies of scale to begin to take hold. As sustainable raw materials become more affordable, customers further down the ladder will be able to make the switch.

We also see growing interest from the newest generation of consumers who prioritize environmental impact alongside product cost. As that awareness builds, we are going to see real traction.

Think in Data, Decide by Data

As Kuraray enters its second century, we are investing in how we operate, not just what we make.

Plant reliability has always been one of the most important levers for cost control and for ensuring safe, efficient production. Our partnership with Pinnacle through Project KuralytiX represents a generational shift in how we approach reliability and mechanical integrity.

From Reactive to Predictive and Preventative

Pinnacle is a disruptor in the mechanical integrity and reliability field. Their Newton™ AI platform pulls in all our existing plant, maintenance, and inspection data. It then uses that data to instantly and continuously update equipment reliability calculations that would have tied up maintenance engineers for days.

Our plants have always generated the data needed to understand performance outcomes. The opportunity is to unlock that data to prevent equipment failure rather than just explain it later. KuralytiX gives us real-time clarity into where attention is needed, enabling proactive, data-driven decision-making.

Every Action, Every Moment

An empowered workforce is a bit of a catchphrase, but there is truth behind it. Safety is everyone’s responsibility and that belief is woven into Kuraray’s company culture.

KuraSafe is the mindset that drives our individual decision-making, backed by 10 non-negotiable safety rules. It is not just a slogan, “Safety is the cornerstone of everything we do.” It is how we operate.

Learn more about the safety awards earned by our Kuraray America, Inc. PVOH Plants

When severe weather is forecasted, we proactively transition our La Porte and Bayport facilities into a controlled shutdown. Running through extreme conditions introduces unnecessary risks. A planned pause in production protects our people and positions the plant for a safe, efficient restart. 

That same calculus applies to every operational decision we make. A century of operating these facilities has taught us that safety is not a separate line item. It is embedded in everything we do.

Punching Above Our Weight

I came to Kuraray America, Inc. from DuPont, and the contrast was striking. The big-company experience was valuable. However, working for a smaller company opened my eyes to what is possible when an organization punches above its weight in the community.

That commitment is visible at San Jacinto College’s LyondellBasell Center for Petrochemical, Energy & Technology whose chemistry laboratory bears Kuraray’s name.

Our investment reflects a core belief: if we want a skilled workforce for the next century, we have to help build it.

Kuraray is at the same table as some of the biggest names in the industry, and we make that happen deliberately. We encourage our employees to be active in the community and we set the same expectation for our leaders: divide and conquer, stay visible, and keep Kuraray America’s name out there through personal participation. I currently serve as Chairman of the Executive Board of the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region, an organization that brings together government, industry, and civic resources to attract investment and growth along the Houston Ship Channel corridor.

The Houston Port region is one of the most influential industrial and logistic hubs in the world. Roughly 50 percent of the U.S. petrochemical industry as well as the nation’s busiest port are right here and account for about one in five dollars of Texas GDP.

Being part of that work is meaningful to me and reflects what I think matters as we mark 100 years: Kuraray America’s future depends not just on what we make inside the fence line, but also on the strength of the Houston-area communities and the STEM-educated workforce we help to develop.

The Next Hundred Years

Our adaptability gives me confidence in the next century. We have:

🌟foundational chemistry with a hundred years of proven applications,

🌟a workforce that knows the plants better than any model ever will,

🌟a sustainability strategy that is honest about both its ambition and its economic reality,

🌟 an AI-platform to assist with the proactive data-driven decisions needed to safely maintain our operations at peak performance.

My job is to honor our heritage, earn the premium paid by our customers, and never stop climbing up the value chain. The next hundred years start now.

Charles Neal, General Manager, PVOH Business Unit, Kuraray America, Inc.