The Société de Chimie Industrielle–American Section will award the 2015 International Palladium Medal to DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman for her contributions to the chemical industry and thereby to the enhancement of the international aims and objectives of the Société de Chimie Industrielle. She will receive the award at a dinner in her honor on Tuesday, May 7, 2015, in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York.
The award was established in 1958 and the first Palladium Medal was presented to Ernest-John Solvay of Belgium. Twenty-seven awards have been made to American, French, British, and German recipients.
Kullman is the fourth DuPont leader to receive this award. Past DuPont recipients include Edward R. Kane in 1979, Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. in 1995 and Charles O. Holliday, Jr. in 2008. Kane was DuPont president and chief operating officer from 1973-1980, Woolard was DuPont chairman and CEO from 1989-1995 and Holliday was CEO from 1998-2008 and Chairman from 1999-2009.
Prior to being appointed chair of the board and chief executive officer at DuPont, Kullman served as president, executive vice president and a member of the company’s office of the chief executive. She has led the company’s focus on growth in emerging international markets, led double-digit growth of the company’s Safety & Protection business portfolio, started two high-growth businesses known today as DuPont Industrial Biosciences and DuPont Sustainable Solutions and ran several industrial businesses.
As CEO she has transformed the company for its next century of growth through strategic portfolio enhancements, including the acquisition of Danisco, the sale of the DuPont Performance Coatings business and the decision to separate the DuPont Performance Chemicals business.
Kullman is a board director of United Technologies Corporation, chair of the U.S. China Business Council and member of the U.S. India Business Council. She is an executive committee member of The Business Council and a board member of Catalyst, Inc. Kullman is a board member of Change the Equation (CTEq), a national coalition of more than 100 CEOs committed to improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning (STEM) for U.S. pre-kindergarten to grade 12 students. She is on the board of trustees of Tufts University and the board of overseers for Tufts School of Engineering. Kullman served as a member of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. She is co-chair of the National Academy of Engineering’s committee on Changing the Conversation: From Research to Action.
Kullman has been named one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” and “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” by Fortune and one of the 50 “World’s Most Powerful Women” by Forbes. She also has been named an ICIS Top 40 Power Player. She has received the Sustainable Engineering Chemical Industry Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, The Yale CEO Summit Legend in Leadership Award, and the BIO George Washington Carver Award for Lifetime Achievement in Industrial Biotechnology.
