New chair unveiled at Johnson Matthey

Johnson Matthey has chosen Covestro boss Patrick Thomas to succeed Tim Stevenson as chairman at the chemicals company.

Thomas will join the board as a non-executive director and chairmandesignate on 1 June and take over as chairman from the end of the AGM on 26 July, when Stevenson retires.

Stevenson, chairman of Johnson Matthey since 2011, said: “I am thrilled that the board has chosen Patrick to succeed me as chairman.

“Patrick brings a valuable combination of extensive board experience and recent executive leadership of major global organisations.”

His successor joins from polymers business Covestro, where he served as CEO and chairman since 2015 following eight years at Bayer Materialscience.

Thomas, who is a nonexecutive director of the paints and specialty chemicals arm of Akzo Nobel, said he was “really excited” to be joining Johnson Matthey, “a company with a strong reputation for science”.