July 2008
By Mark Rushton, Editor, PPI magazine, Graeme Rodden, Editor, Pulp & Paper magazine, Annie Zhu, Features Editor, PPI magazine, Felicia Willis, Associate Editor, Pulp & Paper magazine and Rhiannon James-Van Beuningen, Senior Vice President, Media Products, RISI
31. Gautam Thapar, BILT
India is emerging fast in the paper industry, and one of the most prolific producers, headed by Gautam Thapar, chairman and CEO, is the Avantha Group. The $3bn group has business interests in diverse areas such as power generation and distribution equipment and services, food processing, farm forestry, chemicals, infrastructure, and IT. With an impressive global footprint, the group operates in over ten countries, employing 20,000 people. Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) is publicly listed and is Avantha Group’s flagship company, it is India’s largest paper manufacture and is a major player in the paper industry in Asia.
After studying chemical engineering in the United States, Thapar returned to India and started his career at one of the group’s companies. He was appointed joint managing director of BILT in 1994 and subsequently appointed chairman in 2006.
With the acquisition of Sinar Mas’s Indian operations in 2001, BILT has established a dominant position in printing and writing grades in the domestic market.
Thapar has been instrumental in turning around and upscaling BILT, including pioneering the first overseas acquisition in the Indian paper industry. In 2007, under his guidance, BILT bought over Sabah Forest Industries, Malaysia’s largest pulp and paper manufacturer for $260 million.
32. Erkki Varis, Botnia
Mr. Varis has been the President and CEO of Botnia from 1997. Before that he was in charge of Botnia´s Kaskinen pulp mill, executive vice president of Botnia, and president and CEO of Oy Metsä-Rauma Ab. Metsä-Rauma was then merged into Botnia in 2000. All in all Varis has been working for Botnia for 26 years.
As the president and CEO Mr. Varis has full responsibility of all business operations at the company. During his time there, he has been responsible for implementing many pulp mill investments; Metsä-Rauma pulp mill (startup 1996), Joutseno pulp mill (startup 2001) and Fray Bentos pulp mill in Uruguay (startup in 2007), the biggest investment ever in the country. Furthermore, one saw-mill was built-up in Russia (startup 2005).
Botnia is currently the second biggest pulp company in Europe. In 1996, Botnia`s annual production capacity was 1 million tonnes of pulp. In 2008 it is 3.8 million tonnes of pulp.
33. Ben Gunnerberg, PEFC
Forest certification is about as hot a topic as you can get in pulp and paper at the moment, and right there heading up one of the most subscribed to schemes is Ben Gunnerberg, secretary general of the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC). The PEFC has more certified forests worldwide than any other scheme, and has in its membership 35 independent national forest certification systems of which 25 to date have been through a rigorous assessment process. These systems account for more than 200 million ha of certified forests. Gunnerberg is a chartered forester and a business graduate and has spent most of his working life in forests in one way or another firstly as a contractor, and then as a researcher for Forest Economics at the University of Wales, UK. He was appointed to his current position in June 1999.
34. Peter Berg, Global Paper & Forest Products Practice, McKinsey
If you are a regular on the pulp and paper conference circuit, you will no doubt be familiar with Peter Berg as he is often invited to speak at the leading industry events. The reason why he appears on many a conference program is not just because he’s a good speaker, but because he has built up a solid knowledge base about the pulp and paper business over the years and people have come to rely on his advice and listen to his “outsider” viewpoint. And of course as a consultant, companies in the sector pay a lot of money to get advice from McKinsey on what to do with their business, which puts Peter and his team in a very influential role.
In his current role, Peter is responsible for McKinsey’s knowledge development in the forestry, pulp and paper industry and he has been 100% focused on our sector since 1995. He also coordinates the industry-specific support to McKinsey’s project teams around the world and advises teams and clients. Although active in many different fields, his favorite area of research currently concerns the developments in climate change and bio-energy connected to the forest products industry. And this is one of the reasons why PPI chose to put Peter on the list as a representative of the consultants in the sector. Along with Pöyry, he was instrumental in putting together an influential study for CEPI on the potential impacts of the European Union’s (EU) renewable energy policies on the European pulp and paper industry. Among other findings, the report indicated that a shortfall in the supply of wood from EU forests for this industry is likely given the current policies.
35. Johan Gullichsen
He has been called the “most innovative” person in pulping in the last 100 years. A renowned consultant, he is founder of Arhippainen, Gullichsen & Co as well as chairman of Ahlstrom Corporation. In 2005, he was inducted into the Paper Industry Hall of Fame for his work in Research/Development/Entrepreneur/Academic. He is an innovator in the processing of pulp fiber suspensions at medium consistency. This allows a three-fold reduction in water use. Gullichsen created and developed this technology, which provides benefits such as improved pulp quality, reduced chemical and energy consumption, lower fiber losses and reduced environmental impact. He has more than 60 patents.
36. Dr Michael Smurfit, Smurfit Kappa Group
Joining his father’s company, Jefferson Smurfit & Sons Ltd in 1955, he was appointed chairman and CEO in 1977, a position he held for 25 years. Known as the Cardboard Man, under his leadership the company expanded across the US, Latin America and Europe. Jefferson Smurfit became Ireland’s first international company and a global leader in paper-based packaging. As chairman, he oversaw the merger of The Smurfit with Kappa Packaging in 2005 to form the Smurfit Kappa Group that has operations in 33 countries employing more than 40,000 people. Widely admired for his philanthropic work, he has been honored by numerous governments and was named a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 2005, an honor that entitles him to be called Sir Michael. The Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, University College Dublin, was named after him because of his support. In 1999, he was named Pulp & Paper/PPI Global CEO of the Year for his leadership in the Smurfit-Stone Container merger of 1998.
37. Matt Unger, Purchasing group manager, Procter and Gamble (P&G)
Our list of the most powerful people in the pulp and paper industry would not be complete without representatives from the buying side: the people who are putting the pressure on the producers to manage their pricing and improve their product offerings. One of the largest buyers of containerboard and boxboard in the world is Procter and Gamble (P&G) and the company runs global purchasing operations to manage packaging sourcing for many well-known brands distributed in 140 countries.
Deciding what to buy and from where is Matt Unger, purchasing group manager, who started out 16 years ago in R&D and package design, and is now at the very point of the sharp end in fiberboard procurement. Unger has responsibility for global containerboad and boxboard purchasing as well as corrugated boxes for North America. P&G buys a significant quantity of its boxboard and containerboard directly in collaboration with its converters and has established relationships with leading producers of corrugated boxes, cartons, boxboard and containerboard worldwide.
38. Duncan Pollard, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
The environmental organizations may be the bane of forest products producer’s lives, but there is no escaping the influence these organizations have on the industry as a whole. They have a direct line to the end users’ hearts and minds and have no fear about exerting this influence. Duncan Pollard, Director of Conservation Practice & Policy at WWF is highly influential in the pulp and paper world as he has intimate knowledge of wood supply to pulp mills; in a previous career he was responsible for the startup of the Santa Fe pulp mill in Chile and was the first operations manager at the Shell/UPM plantation project in Uruguay. Pollard has a long history of collaborating with and influencing the corporate sector and during his time at WWF has led the organization’s work on the global paper industry which has moved from a single issue approach on forest certification to a broad approach covering water, energy pollution and recycling issues.
39. Lemaire Brothers, Papier Cascades
In 1964, Antonio Lemaire and his sons officially ventured into the production of paper made from recycled fibers when they took over a disaffected mill in Quebec. Papier Cascades Inc. was born of that transaction. In 1976, the Lemaire brothers were involved in the startup of the containerboard mill Papier Cascades in Cabano, Quebec. This was the beginning of a great adventure that would bring Cascades all over the world.
40. Wolfgang Palm, Papierfabrik Palm
Wolfgang Palm is owner and CEO of Papierfabrik Palm, one of the leading German companies in the paper industry and is still run as a family business. Palm represents the fourth generation of Papierfabrik Palm which was founded in 1872. He joined the business in 1982.
The company produces 1.4 million tonnes of paper annually focusing on newsprint and corrugated case materials in three paper mills. A fourth mill is under construction. Furthermore, the Palm group operates 18 box plants.
Palm is also vice president of the German Paper Association and studied economics at the University of Mannheim in Germany where he also received his PHD.
RISI Power List - Top 41 through 50
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31. Gautam Thapar, BILT" >
