Jim Fitterling

In 1984, Fitterling was hired by The Dow Chemical Company.[1] In 1998, he became CEO of Filmtec Corporation, a subsidiary of Dow.[9] Also in 1998, he became global business director of Dow's liquid separations unit.[7] He was named both general manager of Dow Thailand and managing director of the SCC - Dow Group of joint venture companies in 2000.[9] In 2002, Fitterling became CEO of The OPTIMAL Group, an affiliate company of both Dow and Petroliam Nasional Berhad. He began overseeing OPTIMAL's regions in Southeast Asia and Australia in 2004.[9]

He left OPTIMAL Group in 2005 to become business vice president of polyethylene at Dow Chemical Corporation. He then served as Dow's president of basic plastics from 2007 until 2009.[9] Soon, Fitterling was also a member of several committees at Dow, including the Executive Leadership Committee, the Management Committee and the Strategy Board.[9]

In 2012, Fitterling was given "executive oversight of feedstocks, performance plastics in Asia and Latin America." While still an executive vice president, in November 2012, Fitterling was appointed a member of Dow's newly formed executive committee.[8] In 2014, Fitterling became vice chairman of business operations for Dow.[7] In October 2015, he was named chief operating officer of Dow, which announced its merger with DuPont in December 2015.[10] Fitterling then worked with Dow's CEO on reforming the new company into three separate entities,[11] and to later be COO of the new Dow company.[12]

On February 2, 2016, Dow Chemical announced that Fitterling would be replacing Andrew Liveris as Dow president upon Liveris' retirement in 2017.[13] In 2016, he was named Dow's president and chief operating officer,[14] positions he still held into 2017.[15] From September 2017 to March 2019, Fitterling also served as COO of the materials science division of DowDuPont.[16]

On March 12, 2018, he was named the CEO of the new Dow Inc.,[17][18][19][20][21][22] which was split, on April 1, 2019, from DowDuPont, as the new parent company of The Dow Chemical Company.[23] In 2019, he became the first openly gay CEO of a large industrial company[1] and the first board-appointed out CEO of a Fortune 100 company.[3]