Senior Product Manager EO & Bayport EODs

Company:
INEOS Oxide

Interested in joining a winning team? A team whose employees share in the ownership of the business and are empowered to make a difference?

Organizational context
and job purpose

INEOS Organization:

INEOS is a global manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products. It comprises 15 businesses each with a major chemical company heritage. Its production network spans 65 manufacturing facilities in 16 countries throughout the world. INEOS products make a significant contribution to saving life, improving health and enhancing standards of living for people around the world. Its businesses produce the raw materials that are essential in the manufacture of a wide variety of goods: from paints to plastics, textiles to technology, and medicines to mobile phones - chemicals manufactured by INEOS enhance almost every aspect of modern life.

Business Context:

INEOS Oxide is one of the most diverse, dynamic and successful businesses within INEOS. We operate 5 manufacturing sites in Europe and North America (Antwerp BE, Kln DE, Lavra FR, Plaquemine US, Bayport, US). We produce a broad range of 200+ products which spread across five key value chains (Ethylene Oxide, Propylene Oxide, Oxoalcohols, Acetic Acid, and ENB), and on many of our products we are the European market leader. Our total manufacturing capacity is above 3 million tonnes per annum generating an annual EBITDA of ~300 M. INEOS Oxide is an energetic business which is growing actively on a global level, with projects to extend our production base to new sites in North America and Asia in addition to continued investment on our existing platforms. We are committed to resourcing the Procurement team accordingly to deliver on this ambitious growth agenda.

Purpose of the Job:

The Senior Product Manager for the Bayport EO & EOD business will be a key member of the INEOS Oxide US Business Team and will be required to communicate on a regular basis with the INEOS Oxide Board and with a number of internal counterparts across the global business.

Senior Product Manager will support the Business Manager for EO and EODs across the full extent of the remit, with a focus on maximizing the EBITDA and cash delivery. Short term optimization in addition to delivering longer term, strategic value uplift for the business.

Senior Product Manager will drive and co-ordinate a large cross functional team across Sales, Procurement, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Customer Service. Post holder will have a deep understanding of production asset capabilities and economics, market dynamics, customer requirements and associated cost-to-serve. Senior Product Manager performs a key role in monitoring and responding to changing market demand for each individual product group, and managing challenges arising from feedstock supply and production reliability issues.

This role is also key within the global INEOS Oxide business, given the synergy value with Europe and with Plaquemine. Management of co-producer relationships within the US market is another key feature.

This is a Senior Leadership role within the INEOS Oxide US team with Senior Product Manager providing leadership for the Customer Service Team and being a key part of the overall order to cash process.

Internal Factors:

• INEOS Oxide Board - regular reporting of EBITDA, margins, sales volumes, medium to longer term strategy.
• Business Manager (EO & Bayport EODs) - alignment on short, medium and long term strategy for the business.
• Lead Sales Manager and Regional Sales Managers - informing and aligning on sales pricing and volume targets; medium term contracting strategies.
• Customer Service Manager - providing guidance, leadership & direction.
• Raw Material Procurement Team - to set volume nominations and guidance on affordability levels for incremental feedstock purchases.
• Manufacturing Team - to understand plant limits, constraints, maintenance plans and to influence the manufacturing team positively; setting plant operating rates to optimise overall Business value.
• Finance Team - understanding actual financial performance of the business; forecasting future business performance.
• Business Manager (EOAs) - to unlock synergy value for the Plaquemine Ethanolamines asset.
• European Business & Sales Team - this is a critical interface to ensure success within the role; global optimisation of the product port-folio, asset operating plans and global sales strategies to maximise EBITDA for the overall INEOS Oxide Business.
• Supply Chain - ensuring processes are in place to have smooth supply chains to service customers while maximising value for the business.

External Factors:

• Market drivers - gaining strong market connections to understand market changes in these dynamic, commodity petrochemical markets.
• Co-producers - regular dialogue to look for opportunities to execute swaps, purchases or sales.
• Feedstocks - understanding of feedstock pricing is key to manage margins for the business.
• Customers - for certain strategic customers, Senior Product Manager will be expected to be in regular dialogue to understand demand patterns, market dynamics.
• Consultants - regular dialogue with the Price Reporting Agencies to understand market trends and rumours from the market.
• Other INEOS businesses - to network and share industry knowledge, particularly upstream Olefins team.

Responsibilities AND Accountabilities

Accountabilities:

Accountability 1: Accountability 1 - maximizing contribution margin from the assets (short term)

• Develop and maintain rolling 3-month operational and financial forecast, in line with agreed pricing policy and aligned with Business Manager.
• Together with the planner, define and optimize production plan based on demand, inventory and raw material availability, to maximize business EBITDA and cash generation.
• Review and optimize the product terminal planning to ensure maximum business profitability.
• Manage product inventory to maximize EBITDA while maintaining cash and working capital targets.
• In conjunction with Business Manager, define the monthly and quarterly pricing policy and sales volume targets, driven by market dynamics and agreed business strategy.
• Implement and manage supply chain solutions in accordance with defined business strategy to ensure appropriate levels of delivery service to domestic and export customers for both bulk and packed products.
• Develop and gather market intelligence to understand dynamics, price trends and competitor strategies.
• Proactively report key market information across the Business team to ensure maximum value for INEOS Oxide.
• Co-ordinate response to customer complaints related to product quality.
• Ensure that asset maintenance plans are set in co-ordination with business commercial strategy, ensuring EBITDA, cash and working capital outcomes are optimized.
• Monitor customer contract compliance and track contract renewal dates to ensure timely renegotiation of contract agreements.
• Identify, in collaboration with sales, potential new customers based on the developed contract strategy.
• Support the Business Manager and Sales Team in preparing for tender and annual contract renegotiations.

Accountability 2: Maximizing value of the product / assets on medium to long term basis

• Support the Business Manager in defining long term commercial and asset growth strategies.
• Identify and appraise production and supply chain cost reduction opportunities.
• Seek business development opportunities for the site via customer co-location.
• Identify and appraise production and supply chain infrastructure investment opportunities to enhance capability.

Accountability 3: Overall INEOS Oxide optimization, including European Business and Plaquemine EOAs

• For EODs from the Bayport site (Glycol Ethers; Glycol Ether Acetates; Ethylene Glycols), optimization of production planning on a global basis with European EO & EOD Business Team. Lavera, Antwerp, Bayport & Koln assets to be optimized.
• Co-ordinate with EU Business/Product Managers to optimize arbitrage of EODs (Glycol Ethers; Glycol Ether Acetates; Ethylene Glycols).
• Work with EOAs Business Manager to extract synergy value from downstream EO integration to the existing INEOS Oxide Plaquemine EOA asset.

Accountability 4: Co-producer relationships within the US

• Lead co-producer relationships in the US for EO & EODs to extract additional value for the business, via logistics swaps, time swaps or purchase/sale agreements.

Accountability 5: Communications of Business Performance

• Communications of business financial forecast and actual financial performance to key stakeholders within the INEOS Oxide business, including the Board.
• Communicate profitability by product/product line/key customer to Business Manager and Board.
• Develop and manage monthly Dashboard for communication to Board, including explanation of optimization plan for the Bayport assets.

Accountability 6: Safety, Health, and Environmental

• Commitment to learning, following and practicing the INEOS 20 Principles of Process & Behavioral Safety as applicable to the position. Commitment also to following the INEOS Life Saving rules on a daily basis.

Skills/Competencies:

Level of Education & Experience in general

• Degree or commercial/business qualifications acquired through experience
• 5+ years in the Chemical industry; direct Sales or customer facing experience in that period
• Ideally, an understanding of Oxide products and chemistry
• Contract negotiation experience is a plus
• Fluency in English essential

Technical Skills

• Strong personal and communication skills are required
• Proven influencing and negotiation skills
• Commercial acumen; deep understanding of commercial contracts
• Strong analytical and economic analysis skills
• Basic understanding of chemical manufacturing processes, logistics and technical standards and regulations
• Knowledge of contract law and ABC regulations
• Knowledge of business accounting principles and practice

Behavioral Skills

• Decisive and tenacious in pursuit of objectives, demonstrating a proactive mentality and bias for action
• Ability to think innovatively and strategically
• Strong influencer
• Highly numerate with an analytical mind-set, and attentive to detail
• Calm under pressure, able to make quick, clear and reasoned decisions in a dynamic environment
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, natural relationship builder
• Proactively and positively manages conflict
• Adheres to INEOS commitment to Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) policies; maintains personal integrity and ethical behaviours.

ADA Physical requirements, visual acuity requirements and environmental conditions

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and perform tasks requiring repetitive use of hands. The employee must occasionally walk, stand and travel by car, airplane or other means. Exert up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects.

Employee must have the ability to see written documents, computer screens, and to adjust focus.

Hearing: Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction. Ability to receive detailed information through oral communication and to make discriminations in sound.

Work Environment: This job is performed mainly in a temperature-controlled office environment.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

• SHE - zero incidents & 100% compliance with INEOS safety standards across the Customer Service Team
• EBITDA and Cash performance as per plan and as per forecast
• Working Capital targets as per plan
• Fixed Cost targets for the team, including annual travel budget and travel costs on plan
• Success in delivering long term growth and cost optimisation
• Value delivery as per targets for the global optimization
• Value delivery as per targets for the optimization with Plaquemine EOAs
• Training goals achieved across the Customer Service Team
• 100% ISO compliance

Our culture is one of honesty and integrity with an emphasis on safety, health and environmental performance. On our team, people are acknowledged for embracing new practices that help create real value for customers.