Borealis announced its CEO Thomas Gangl is stepping down effective June 30. The decision to terminate Gangl’s mandate, which started in April 2021, was reached by ‘mutual agreement’, according to a Borealis statement.
The announcement comes after Borealis reported a 94% drop in operating profit in 2023. It was ‘definitely a challenging year, not just for us but for the entire industry’, Gangl told Sustainable Plastics in an interview this February.
Borealis’ sales in 2023 were down by roughly €2 billion, largely attributed to lower prices for polyolefins. “In times like these, when the prices are upside down, it is difficult to show that circularity is a viable business,” Gangl said in the Feb. interview. Nonetheless, he emphasised that circularity is still ‘the way to go’.
Gangl has been instrumental in refining Borealis’ Strategy 2030 with sustainability at its core and accelerating the company’s transformation towards a circular economy. Key milestones during his tenure included the sale of Borealis’ nitrogen business, the acquisition of Rialti Spa, a polypropylene (PP) compounder of recyclates in Italy, along with the signing of the acquisition of Integra Plastics AD, an advanced mechanical recycling player in Bulgaria.
Gangl started his career at OMV in 1998 as a process engineer before holding various management positions in OMV's refining business. In 2019, he became a member of the OMV Executive Board as Chief Downstream Operations Officer.
Before him, Borealis circular economy executive vice president Lucrèce Foufopoulos-De Ridder also stepped down in December 2023.
Borealis said it would announce details about Gangl’s successor at a later stage.