DuPont has selected Ellen Kullman (E '78) to become its president and chief executive officer (CEO), making her the first woman to lead a major U.S. chemical company, the corporation announced last Tuesday.
Kullman, a Tufts trustee, will become the third board member actively serving as CEO of a Fortune 100 company when she assumes the executive's chair on Jan. 1. She will take over as company president tomorrow.
"She's just a gifted leader," DuPont spokesperson Anthony Farina told the Daily. "Some people have this capability and some people don't. Ellen has this capability where you really want to be a part of her team, you really want to be a part of what she is doing."
University President Lawrence Bacow said Kullman's appointment is an indication of the worth that a Tufts education carries. "Ellen Kullman is everything a great CEO should be — smart, strategic, thoughtful, experienced and, of course, well educated. DuPont is fortunate to be getting the benefit of her leadership," he said in a statement to the Daily. "[Her] success and [that] of many others speaks well of the value of a Tufts education."
Bacow noted the spate of prominent business leaders that graduated from Tufts in Kullman's class. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Peter Dolan, the former CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, are also members of the Class of 1978. Jeff Kindler, the CEO of Pfizer, is a 1977 Tufts alum.
Kullman has served as executive vice president and a member of the office of the chief executive since 2006. During that time, she has led four of the five DuPont business segments.
Farina said Kullman's superb performance as an executive qualified her to become CEO. "Ellen led our fastest-growing business segment — that's our Safety and Protection business segment — and she grew that from a $3.5 billion business to a $5.5 billion business in just a [couple of] years."
Kullman said she is excited to assume her new titles. "Certainly it's a great honor to lead this company. I've been here 20 years and just continue to be impressed by our science and how we connect that in the marketplace," she said during a conference call with reporters
Over the past decade, DuPont, which operates in more than 70 countries, has transformed into a top "science-based products and services company," according to a press release issued by the company. A DuPont employee since 1988, Kullman will bring her knack for integrating the corporation's role as a scientific innovator with its business endeavors, Farina said.
"[Kullman] has demonstrated a unique capability to connect our science to the needs in the marketplace," she said. "That means meeting with customers, understanding their needs — what they're looking for — and then being able to connect our capabilities back at our global [research and development] headquarters."
Farina said Kullman pioneered an initiative to bring DuPont scientists to meetings with customers so that the researchers could better understand the products that clients wanted them to engineer.
As an example, the spokesman mentioned a project in China in which energy transformers in wind turbines were overheating. DuPont scientists met with companies that build the transformers to get a handle on the problem. The scientists ended up crafting a new type of the fireproofing, protective product Nomex that was specifically engineered for wind turbine transformers. "Now we're working with other countries around the world to help them address this issue as well," Farina added.
When asked during the conference call about her views on taking over the corporation during such a troubling time for U.S. businesses, Kullman emphasized DuPont's role as both a producer and a dealmaker.
"I think that across our company, [it is] that real depth of science and the culture of delivering innovation that really does shine through and allows us to continue to grow and create opportunities … in many markets — in agriculture, in thermal protection, in oil and gas," she said. "And so I think we have tremendous opportunities ahead of us and a tremendous trajectory."
