Celebrating Women at HEM, International Women’s Day

The United Nations declared March 8th as the UN Day for Women’s Rights and World Peace in 1975, now commonly referred to as International Women’s Day. The day serves as an occasion to celebrate the women’s rights movement and highlight common issues women face (such as gender equality and reproductive rights) as well as strides taken to overcome these challenges.  

At Huber, we believe that different cultures, ethnicities, faiths, ages, sexual orientations and genders make us stronger. As part of our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) strategy, we focus on the talent that we hire and how to help them develop. We recognize that diverse teams drive innovation and growth.  

We asked women across our global organization what they believed were their contributions to our success. We’re excited to share what they had to say:  

Domenica R?sing 

Domenica has been with HEM since October of 2019 and is the manager of finance, based out of our Huber Advanced Materials plant in Bergheim, Germany. Throughout her time at HEM, Domenica has been working towards developing the Finance Accounting team, “to become a world class organization, using my leadership capabilities paired with flexibility and creative freedom.” 

Maggie Coates Cross

Maggie is the Senior Territory Manager for Miller Chemical, part of HEM’s Huber AgroSolutions business. She has been with the company since December of 2019. Her role is to represent the Miller portfolio and communicate with customers across North Carolina, South Carolina, and southeast Virginia. “On a daily basis, I contribute to HEM's success by representing Miller/Huber to our customer base and growing sales in my region,” she explains. “Internally, I have had opportunities to train my colleagues on our CRM software, Salesforce and participate in the onboarding of new employees”, Maggie states. 

Daphne Schmitz

Daphne is a Lead Business Consultant at our Bergheim plant and has been with HEM since November of 2022. Although Daphne joined HEM recently, she still has made an impact in the organization. “I am bridging the gap between technical and functional teams in Oracle Finance, as well as between European business requests and global technical requirements.” 

Ashley Moore

Ashley is the Operations Continuous Improvement Manager at our Huber Specialty Minerals plant in Marble Hill, Georgia. Her key responsibilities include leading improvement projects around increasing productivity, as well as improving safety and quality. Ashely helps develop robust systems at the site to become more efficient and effective in how we conduct business, which translates to higher customer satisfaction and keeps us as a top supplier. She proudly states her contributions to the organization has been, “unifying our team and working collaboratively with all stakeholders to identify solutions and try new things that can help drive improvement.” She says, “Capturing lessons learned through root cause analysis, implementing better processes, and sharing best practices/standardizing across our other sites are keys to helping HEM be successful!” 

Louisa Hey

Louisa has been with Magnifin since June 2010, and HEM acquired full ownership of Magnifin in 2021 as part of the Huber Advanced Materials business. Louisa is the Commerical Manager and Head of Controlling with cascading responsibilities over finance, accounting, administration and logistics. She shares gratitude for her team saying, “I lead a fantastic team of five ladies who coordinate and support across departments.” After 13 years with the company, she still enjoys the variety and challenges that her position brings and being able to contribute to our corporate goals by, “managing several key projects, which includes planning, analyzing and sharing information related to these projects.” 

Helen Lu

Helen has been with HEM for 16 years and is the HR Manager for North Asia. She was the first HR representative in Asia and has accomplished many accolades such as Gold, Silver, and Bronze Mike Huber Awards—Huber’s highest form of employee recognition. She has published a book on education and was named the “Best Human Resources Director” in the Qingdao HR community. 

Janet Klueppel Dean 

Janet has been at Huber since 2016, starting off as the EHS&S Manager at our Huber Advanced Materials location in Marblehead, Illinois, before being promoted to Plant Manager in 2019. She describes the plant team as “a very committed team, with a strong culture that ensures a safe work environment and high-quality performance for our customers.” She states that accomplishing this is not an easy task. “We do this consistently through engaging and empowering our Team Members at all levels through our continuous improvement efforts.” She explains, “I am very focused on leading others and giving them an opportunity to grow and develop their skills to attain their personal goals. Another Plant Manager and I have worked diligently to kick off our ‘Women in Operations are Thriving at Huber’ (WORTH) Employee Resource Group, with a focus on leadership and development, networking, and community outreach.” 

Sharon Noble 

Sharon is HEM’s Global Vice President of Human Resources and has been with the organization for nearly 27 years. She says, “In my time Huber, there are two things that have remained constant: change and the Huber Principles. There are many things I have been proud of over the years, including Acquisitions and Divestitures, developing our Leadership Accelerator Program, and establishing the Talent Acquisition function at HEM. I’m proud to have been part of many initiatives that led to where we are today as an organization, including our evolving commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion—fostering a company culture that makes everyone feel fulfilled and included in our collective success.” Sharon explains the key to success is, “Being able to adapt to many different styles, being authentic and using empathy even when there are difficult decisions to be made.” She says, “I have had the privilege to work with a great HEM Leadership Team, a fantastic HR group and an organization with talented, dedicated and caring individuals.”