2025 Conference Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Micheal Lefenfeld
President & CEO
Hexion
Michael Lefenfeld is President and Chief Executive Officer at Hexion Inc. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hexion Inc. and serves as a member of the Board of Managers for ASP Resins Holdings LP. Michael joined Hexion in January 2023.
Prior to joining Hexion and beginning in 2018, Michael served as President and CEO of Cyanco International, where he led the world’s largest manufacturer of gold and silver extraction materials, while driving the effort to make recovery safer and more efficient. From 2007 to 2017, he was President and CEO of SIGNa Chemistry, a global chemical manufacturer of reactive metal materials serving oil & gas recovery, petrochemical refining, alternative energy and chemical processing industries. Michael also founded Alkami Consulting Group, a technology investment advisory group, and Blood Gas Diagnostics, a medical device technology growth company.
With a unique combination of executive, operational and entrepreneurial experience, Michael holds more than 100 patents and patents pending that are intended to collectively address some of the world’s most pressing environmental and sustainable product-related challenges. A serial entrepreneur, he has been named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in 2016, while SIGNa was recognized with the EPA’s Presidential Green Chemistry Award under his leadership. Michael earned a Master of Philosophy and Master of Science in Chemistry from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.
Plenary Speaker
Chip Frazier
Professor, Sustainable Biomaterials
Virginia Tech Site Director, Wood Based Composites Center
Virginia Tech University
Frazier is the T.M. Brooks Professor of Sustainable Biomaterials at Virginia Tech, and the Virginia Tech Site Director of the Wood-Based Composites Center, a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (WBC). Frazier is a plant-polymer scientist emphasizing materials like wood, grasses, nutshell, soybeans, etc., and composites made from same.