Sustainability? Innovation spirit? Diversity? Cultural richness? - Variety of topics during my lunch conversation with Han Hendriks, CTO at TRINSEO

“What should we be talking about? - about sustainability? About the spirit of innovation? About the exciting and yet diffuse topic of leadership, because it can mean so much?”

These were my thoughts as I set off to speak to Han Hendriks , CTO of Trinseo , live once again - directly at Trinseo in Pf?ffikon, Switzerland. ‘Once again’ is an exaggeration, because until then we had only seen each other live once. In 2021 on stage at the Green Auto Summit, in a panel that I moderated. Han was the CTO at Yanfeng at that time. I always do short briefings with my guests before the panel takes place and at least once I want all the panelists to have met each other in a call or preferably live. This is good for building trust and for the general atmosphere during the discussion. So there should be a digital get-together.

On this particular date, instead of Han, two nice ladies sat in front of me on a video call, perhaps even looking skeptical. One was the Head of Communication and the other Head of PR. Han was of course extremely protected as CTO. Understandably, of course. Can we now say that our first meeting was a 'failure'? It depends on how you look at it ?? Because I've taken both ladies to my heart over the years of working together and wouldn't want to miss them in my network. Andrea Odendahl and Astrid Schafmeister - a huge round of applause for both of you at this point for always combining a high level of professional expertise with human warmth? ??????

And so the panel itself became my first meeting with Han. I can still remember the first question perfectly, because Han was the only one (!) of the whole panel who understood and answered this question correctly by proclaiming his special professional background. Now ‘special’ is of course relative and always refers to a standard, to a general expectation, to the average in the prevailing round. The audience at the Green Auto Summit had mostly engineering background and worked mostly in the automotive industry. Not so with Han's story.

Han studied Architectural Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht and then completed a post-graduate program in Industrial Design at the Università Internazionale dell'Arte in Florence on top. If anyone thinks that the job of a CTO must be easy, think again. When I look at his professional life, there was and still is a lot of learning, a lot of curiosity, a lot of collecting the needed experience, a lot of challenges along the way. And yet the first question is quite clear: does it actually help if you are the CTO of a global company in the chemical industry and don't have a background in chemistry? Yes, it helps not to be a chemist. It makes it easier for Han to see and understand the consumer side better.

I go on to ask where he gets his inspiration from. "Basically from everywhere. It's never just about one person, you develop ideas as a team." He also likes the new challenge of not only focusing on the automotive industry but also knowing the requirements of the consumer electronics sector. Would you like to see a clear comparison?

In the automotive sector, a chemical component is developed 4 years in advance. In consumer electronics, it is six months. The speed of innovation is completely different, as are the expectations of your own performance and your own team.

What about sustainability? Well, Han clarifies a few things before we go any further. Sustainability can't cost extra, no one is willing to pay for it. In addition, sustainability is all the more important for plastic. Humanity consumes an immense amount of plastic. It doesn't seem to be decreasing. It doesn't seem that we can change our consumer behavior just like that. So, it is all the more important to introduce circularity into the processes and to increasingly use recycled and recyclable materials.

Would you like to have another practical example? There are of course regulations that set the requirements that a certain amount of the materials used in cars should be recycled and circular. This figure should rise up to 25% by 2031. What we currently have is more like 10-12%. “It's a long way to go” as Han also knows.

I also ask whether the products are currently being developed from in-house R&D projects or from customer requests. At the moment it's more customer-driven, Han confirms, in the past a lot came from in-house R&D projects.

Our conversation also moved on to other topics such as diversity and it wasn't just about the usual ‘women in tech’ topic, but about the complexity of the word “diversity". After all, there were four of us sitting at lunch and each of us had a completely different original cultural background. But in the end, four people were sitting together who could probably all describe themselves as citizens of the world and who would probably never want to give up this wonderful feeling of being completely at ease in so many cultures. Yes, cultural richness is a big topic in international companies and this topic alone could also fill an entire interview.

Another topic we touched on was the exciting constellation in the labor market, where so many generations are now coming together. Admittedly, I personally am not a big fan of broad observations and don't like generalisations, but of course I understand the challenges a company faces when it comes to this topic. I found ‘reverse mentoring’ a great concept that was mentioned by Kaija K. , where younger colleagues mentor older colleagues. I am convinced that we can learn a lot from each other and perhaps we will also realize that there is more that unites us than divides us. Of course, I'm writing this as a 40-year-old millennial who is somewhere in the middle of the horizon when it comes to current generations and fulfils the biggest cliché about millennials: seeking and finding purpose in my work and in life in general ??

Yes, I love my work and how could I not? Because I get to constantly ask the smartest and most exciting people in the tech world plenty of questions and learn from them.

Dear Han, thank you very much for your time, for the nice discussion and for a little insight into the inner workings of Trinseo. It was a great pleasure to see you live again, you are probably the coolest ‘architectural design graduate’ working in the technical world ?????? I'm really looking forward to continuing this conversation live at Trinseo in the Netherlands and to seeing the production plant with my own eyes.

Yes, my dear community, you read it right, there will be a continuation. So if you have more questions for Han and for the Trinseo team, please send them to me. I'm looking forward to the most exciting questions from you.

Have a great start to the new week everyone,

Ludmilla

#DERRtobedifferent

#trinseo #sustainability #innovation #engineering #leadership #diversity #AutomotiveIndustry

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