PRNewswire-FirstCall/ In an effort to further strengthen its geographic presence and connectionwith key markets and customers, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) announced today that Geoffery E.Merszei, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will move to a new role as Presidentof Dow Europe, Middle East and Africa, while also serving as Chairman of Dow Europe, and ExecutiveVice President of The Dow Chemical Company, reporting to Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and ChiefExecutive Officer. Merszei has served as the Company's Chief Financial Officer for the past fiveyears. He will relocate to the Company's European Headquarters in Horgen, Switzerland.
Merszeiwill also assume additional responsibility as chair of the Company's newly established GeographicLeadership Council. The Council's function is to ensure Dow builds upon its robust global franchiseby building strong relationships with partners and customers and continuing its track-record ofmaking growth investments throughout world. Membership of this Council will be announcedshortly.
Managing the Company's global footprint is becoming even more important and this newrole will help ensure Dow is better able to capture growth opportunities in important markets aroundthe world. Reporting to Merszei will be Henry Roth, President of Middle East Region, Earl ShippPresident of Africa Region, Kostas Katsoglou, President of Eastern Europe /Russia Region, and JohnDearborn, President of the Ras Tanura Integrated Project in Saudi Arabia as well as the Europeanleadership team.
William H. Weideman, Vice President and Controller, will assume the role ofinterim CFO while the Company conducts a global search for a replacement for Merszei.
Merszeifirst joined Dow in 1977, and spent two-thirds of his career in locations outside the United States,including multiple assignments in Europe and Asia. He returned to the Company in July 2005 asExecutive Vice President and CFO after serving four years as Executive Vice President and ChiefFinancial Officer of Alcan, Inc.
"Dow has a long and storied history of growing successfully inmany parts of the world with more than two thirds of our business transacted outside of the UnitedStates, but as we focused more on global businesses and functions over the last decade, ourgeographic emphasis changed," said Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We arefortunate to have someone of Geoffery's knowledge and experience available to step up and take onthese new responsibilities. In addition, Geoffery has also played a very strong role working with meand the rest of the senior management team to ensure that we delivered on our commitments in severalkey areas, exceeding our financial goals and surpassing key milestones on all fronts."
Weidemanhas more than 30 years of Finance experience with the Company, and has held a variety of accountingand controller roles for various Dow businesses.
"We are also fortunate to have someone of Bill'scaliber to step into the role of interim CFO while we conduct the global search for Geoffery'sreplacement," said Liveris. "Bill knows and understands the Company extremely well and has theconfidence of everyone in the organization having performed extremely well as Vice President andController working directly alongside Geoffery for the past number of years."
These appointments are effective immediately.