Plastics and chemical supplier Arkema recently made a series of personnel moves, affecting its additives, fluorochemicals, specialty chemicals, and PMMA units. Rich Rowe, currently managing director of the functional additives business unit, has been appointed managing director of fluorochemicals. Christophe Villain, currently managing director of the specialty chemicals business unit, has been named managing director of the Altuglas International PMMA business unit. Manny Katz, currently the VP of goods and services purchasing and supply chain, has been appointed managing director of the functional additives business unit. Marc-Antoine Mallet has been named managing director specialty chemicals, while Michelle Williams takes over as managing director of the hydrogen peroxide business unit. Williams comes to Arkema from Dow Chemical where, since 2009, she was the managing director of that company's Advanced Materials Division.

Bayer MaterialScience has appointed Peter Vanacker to the executive committee position of head of industrial marketing and innovation. Vanacker had served as the head of Bayer's polyurethanes business unit. Bayer MaterialScience CEO Patrick Thomas said in a release regarding the move that he couldn't stress enough the importance of industrial marketing going forward. "The markets in which we operate are changing faster today than at any time in the past," Thomas said, "and we must ensure we develop a strong feeling for market trends through our activities in this field." Joachim Wolff succeeds Vanacker as head of polyurethanes, while Daniel Meyer joins the executive committee and succeeds Wolff as head of the coatings, adhesives, and specialties business unit. Daniel Meyer was previously head of marketing and business development within this business unit in the Asia Pacific Region. Bayer MaterialScience also announced that it has extended its executive committee to incorporate other functions at the company, bringing on Michael Bernhardt, Wolfgang Miebach, and Richard Northcote effective July 1 in their positions as the respective heads of human resources, corporate development, and communications and public affairs.

Davis-Standard LLC (Pawcatuck, CT) has hired Thomas Malec as a regional sales manager for its Extrusion System: Pipe and Profile Group. Malec comes to Davis-Standard from post-extrusion equipment supplier, RDN Manufacturing (Bloomington, IL) where he was VP of sales and marketing for more than 20 years. Prior to that, he was responsible for inside sales and corporate systems sales at auxiliaries supplier AEC (Schaumburg, IL). Based from a home office in Chicago, Malec will be responsible for sales of extruders and extrusion systems for the profile and rubber groups, covering a territory that includes Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Magnetic separation systems and material handling equipment supplier Bunting Magnetics Co. (Newton, KS) has named Jana L. Davis as its new chief financial officer (CFO), making her responsible for the financial operations of Bunting Magnetics and its wholly owned subsidiary, Magnet Applications Group Ltd. (MAGL). Davis, a certified public accountant (CPA) and certified management accountant (CMA), has almost 20 years of experience in business and financial management in the aerospace, printing, media, and manufacturing industries, coming to Bunting from McCormick-Armstrong, a Wichita, KS based printing company, where she served as CFO.