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Following a period of 14 months as President of HMC Polymers, Khun Chawalit Tippawanich transitioned to a new role as Chairman of the HMC Executive Committee. The new HMC President is Mr. Martyn Tickner. Khun Martyn is a British national and graduate of Cambridge University in Chemical Engineering with over 35 years experience across a broad range of responsibilities with joint venture associate company LyondellBasell and its predecessor companies Shell, Montell, and Basell.

His career responsibilities have been in areas as diverse as technology, production and plant management, capital projects, marketing, IT, organization projects, business management, strategy and mergers and acquisitions.

In his message to HMC employees Khun Martyn commented: "Great results are made only possible by great people, and I am particularly impressed with the enthusiasm, pride and competence of our staff at HMC. This is also recognized in the recent customer satisfaction survey, in which the engagement of HMC’s customer facing staff is clearly differentiating us from our competitors."

With respect to his outlook for the company Khun Martyn said: "My vision for HMC is that we will be a most admired company in our industry through setting world class performance standards - as we are already doing with safety (6 million work hours without incident), reliability and in the introduction of benchmark products."

Meeting with customers is a key priority for Khun Martyn to learn more about where HMC Polymers is doing well from the customer's perspective and where we can improve or add services or products in response to market dynamics. All employees and stakeholders at HMC Polymers wish him well in his new role.

HMC Connect interviewed Khun Martyn for this enlightening Q&A session.

GETTING TO KNOW HMC's NEW PRESIDENT, MARTYN TICKNER

Q1. Please tell us about the qualities and experiences that will be essential for your role as President of HMC

A: In terms of qualities, I believe firstly in a good work ethic and self-assessment. In a role like this, there is no substitute for commitment and hard work. I also believe in constantly analyzing my own performance and look for how I can improve. I encourage the same approach for my staff; this is the starting point for world class performance.

Second is adaptability, creativity and a desire to learn. I encourage flexibility as a key attribute for individuals and for the company. We should pride ourselves on being agile, able to respond rapidly to recognize and take opportunities, creative and flexible to do the right thing. This way we are able to continuously drive to new highs of performance.

Influencing and coaching

I prefer to bring change through bottom-up engagement. I always find it gratifying to see new concepts or approaches expanded and realized by my colleagues. Creating a climate in which employees can grow and fulfill their potential is very rewarding. One of my interests is in coaching sports – building the skills and confidence of individuals and teams. I do the same at work.

Experience

I have been 36 years in our industry in different functions, across different regions and with different corporate and national cultures. During this time, I have been exposed to many situations and been able to learn from things that went well and things that have been very challenging. Along with that experience comes a certain trust that whatever challenges may arise, I have the ability to work with colleagues to find the best way forward. Leadership does not mean having all the answers. To me it means motivating and aligning our people to do their jobs at the highest level and to take the company forward to achieve the best we can. And success should be owned by the team.

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Q2. What keeps you awake at night and what gets you out of bed every morning, ready to go?

A: Actually, I sleep well! But my main concern is always the risk of a serious accident. We strive to make our working environment as safe as possible but one oversight, one small mistake and the potential exists for serious injuries to employees or even fatalities. We must continue to work hard on safety – process safety and individual occupational safety. And we cannot afford a lapse in attention for one nano-second - it's so important. Our vision is GoalZero - nobody will get seriously injured working for us, ever. HMC employees and contractors have worked more than 6 million man-hours without injury, which is a world class achievement. But here we want to be perfect and I dread the phone call telling me that somebody has been involved in an accident.

I also worry about issues which affect our financial performance – major issues with plant reliability, market deterioration or competition catching up. And from these worries come my motivation. I have an opportunity to do something each day that will make a positive difference for individuals and for the company. In planning my day, I try and identify one thing that I can achieve that is important but not urgent. The urgent things we always get done because we have to. But we all need to balance our time to make sure we are also working on the most important things. And for my people, I ask lots of questions and I challenge them. But I love to see them respond and be more successful as result; that puts a smile on my face that I hope people will notice.

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Q3. What are your interests outside of work?

A: I love winter and water sports, and in particular enjoy teaching people sports they may have never tried before. Teaching beginners to ski, for example, and seeing their pride in ultimately being able to competently ski down a mountain for the first time is a wonderful experience. Developing new horizons and achieving potential – whether in sports or business, the feeling is the same.

I also like to challenge myself with new things, so here in Thailand I am learning golf and kite-surfing. And to counter the effect of the good Thai food, I am going to the gym as often as I can, sadly not often enough!

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Q4. When your period with HMC is over, how would you like to be remembered?

A: I hope I will be remembered favourably, as one of the best leaders HMC has had – quite a challenge given the achievements of my predecessors. I’d like to leave a legacy of a really world class company with outstanding results, strong people and culture, and hence prospects for continued growth. Several times in my career I have had the satisfaction of being told “you are the best boss we ever had”. While praise is certainly not the objective, for me it doesn’t get any better than hearing that.

A FIRST VIEW OF HMC – Impressions from another perspective

Q1. What has surprised you at HMC so far?

A: Only pleasant surprises. I expected the professionalism, enthusiasm, engagement and alignment of our staff to be good, but this has really exceeded my expectations. I see some things in HMC that are done better than any other company I have worked in. HMC is achieving world class results in a number of key areas, particularly safety and reliability. Also, our cross-functional capabilities and excellent systems are enabling the company to achieve its high level goals. This is very encouraging. But that said, we are running a never ending marathon, and I see many areas where I can contribute to further improvement.

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Q2. Culture is what makes a company different from the competition. What cultural qualities should HMC have?

A: Pride in performance and a strong desire to do even better is already a strong part of the culture at HMC. That includes the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment and to drive changes in our internal processes. Continuous improvement is already there; I will push that further to try and be world class.

Equally important is a working environment where individuals can develop and grow to achieve their potential and aspirations at work and in life. We will do more here to encourage managers to transform from being great functional experts to becoming great coaches. Creating a successful and results oriented, yet inclusive and open culture is the task of our managers and our leaders. It is sometimes said that people "don’t leave a company, they leave their managers". I don’t want that to be the case at HMC.

And most important of all, everyone must be aligned in working on common goals, challenging themselves and others to achieve the best results possible, whilst being respectful and supportive towards their colleagues. We succeed together, with world class excellence, believing in ourselves. That can only be achieved based on our people. Professional, experienced, engaged, aligned – and confident knowing they are doing a good job in a great company and motivated to do even better, pushing for perfection.

HMC's EXTENDED VISION, MISSION AND COMMITMENT IN 2017

Q1. For HMC what does our success look like?

A: I have set the bar for us in our Vision “To be a Most Admired Company”. That means we are setting world class benchmark performances on every front. We are already there in safety, in reliability; outstanding performance which we must keep. Then building on that foundation, if we can be world class in those areas, we can be world class in other areas. Particularly important is product quality and service-as seen by our customers.

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Q2. How should HMC solve problems?

A: Firstly, by facing them. This is sometimes the hardest step, to acknowledge something is a problem and to face it rather than hoping it will just go away. Problems are solved by breaking them down into smaller elements, chipping away at them, and talking about them together. I believe there are no problems that are too big or too insoluble to be tackled. There are things that are beyond our control of course, but this is an important step, to establish a clear understanding of what is under our control and what is beyond our control. We work on improving things that are under our control and we develop a strategy to reduce exposure to what is beyond our control. Please remember, the word “problem” can be negative, whereas “opportunity” is positive. We should focus on the fact that solving a problem creates an improvement. That way we can start looking forward to working on problems – as I do!

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Q3. Our approach to change.

A: Regarding my approach to change – I am very receptive to change and always encourage flexibility as a key corporate attribute. That means being open to new ideas, whether incremental or radical in response to challenges. In our dynamic markets, simply managing the status quo usually means losing ground against the competition who are constantly moving forward. We should pride ourselves in being agile, rapid responders to recognize and take opportunities, driving new levels of performance and avoiding the “mediocrity trap” as I call it. Be proud of success – but then look to do even better. I will challenge and question continuously – but I do this to encourage us to examine whether the way we have always done something is still the right way.

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Q4. Your extended vision is for HMC is to be "A Most Admired Company and Asia's Preferred Partner for PP." How will this be achieved?

A: A Most Admired Company means that everyone – customers, suppliers, employees, competitors and shareholders admire who we are and what we achieve. That requires that we are world class, and that is achieved through our people.

Experienced people, who are engaged, aligned and focused on achieving the best results. Here HMC has something quite unique in my experience, with a balanced scorecard approach of “Wildly Important Goals” to bring alignment and focus on the short term actions which drive medium term results. This is the foundation. And built on that, we have three pillars of success – or mountains to climb depending on where we are in the journey - to progress towards the vision.

The First Pillar is World Class Operational Excellence.

Operational Excellence is relevant in every aspect of our operations – not only manufacturing, but in customer service and supply chain, and in the execution of all of our internal business processes. We are already doing well on many fronts. But next up is Quality as seen by our customers. Excellent products, lot-to-lot consistency, reliable supply, excellent order handling, reliable delivery, GoalZero for customer complaints.

The Second Pillar is Outstanding Customer Orientation.

When you buy something in the department store, you have a certain expectation for the quality and service that you paid for. Customer Orientation means that we understand what customers expect in return for their money, and that we fully meet or even better, exceed their expectation.

But Customer Orientation does not mean we will do everything a customer wants – it has to be a fit and make sense for us also. Our business is to make money. So where we choose not to do something, then we need to have to have excellent empathy with our customers to explain our reasoning and to maintain good relationships and their respect going forward.

The Third Pillar is Market Leading Innovation.

Product innovation is the cornerstone of our HMC strategy. This means we will continue to push the boundaries of our technology to create products that are differentiated from our competitors and enable PP to find new market applications. Products such as Adsyl 5, Pipe grades, our high C2 RACO’s.

But note that innovation is not only limited to products - we can also innovate in our services, how we do business with our customers; with suppliers; and the way we manage our internal processes. Each and every HMC staff member has the opportunity to invent a way to do something better. And the best result for the company sometimes comes not from major initiatives, but from the results of small incremental improvements made by every employee every day. Continuous improvement; enjoy successes, and then look to do even better.