Painting the future: Ton Büchner

A 400-year-old company, AkzoNobel has well and truly cemented its place in the chemicals industry. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the business operates in more than 80 countries worldwide, from Argentina to Vietnam, and is active in the fields of decorative paints, performance coatings, and speciality chemicals. CEO Ton Büchner has been at the helm of AkzoNobel since 2012, a position that sees him drive his employees to continually innovate and grow. An engineer at heart — and by education — this push for perpetual improvement is hardwired into his core.

"One of the fundamental wishes of an engineer is to always make things better," reflects Ton, "and that certainly underpins my leadership style. I like my employees to know which direction they’re heading in, but am very conscious not to micromanage them." Ton’s resoluteness to afford his employees their own space to work is based on his personal experience that "as an engineer, that’s what I always wanted: a space to tackle things." 

The DNA of the company

That’s not to suggest that Ton doesn’t engage with or offer his teams direction; in fact, far from it. His approach is to provide a scaffolding — a long-term target grounded in the company’s core values — in which his employees operate. "I give clear directives and tell people how I’d like them to behave in terms of culture and values, and then I encourage them to run with it, to make it happen," he says. "So I afford people a lot of liberty for them to show their own initiative." 

That said, Ton also likes to quantify the work of his teams to ensure they are on track and are operating efficiently. He says, "We sometimes have to refine the direction a little bit to make sure we get to the target as fast as we can. So my management style is a combination of people leadership, overseeing the energy within the organisation, and measuring what gets done, but still enabling the autonomy of all the employees."

"My management style is a combination of people leadership, overseeing the energy within the organisation, and measuring what gets done, but still enabling the autonomy of all the employees." 

AkzoNobel’s 3 defining principles — safety, integrity and sustainability — are so central to its operations that Ton sees them as "in the DNA of the company." In conjunction with the company’s core values — which include innovation, focusing on what its customers want, passion for excellence, and that teamwork is crucial for success — these principles form the tenets around which his employees are instructed to work. "It’s the last one, teamwork, that I always enjoy the most," shares Ton. "When I see our diverse teams get together, approach a complex problem, take it apart, and find an innovative solution, that’s when I get really excited."

Ton has displayed a high regard for teamwork and cooperation from the outset. "When I started in 2012, many of our markets were in major crisis," he recalls, "and I was tasked with mobilising the team of 46,000 AkzoNobel people around the world. I was completely transparent and told them, ‘Listen, there may be trouble out there, but we’re going to stick together, we’re going to work as a team, and we are going to completely change this company so that in 4 years’ time we will be one of the most successful companies in our industry.’ For the AkzoNobel team to have achieved that makes me extremely proud and is my biggest achievement."

Innovation in Asia

Part of AkzoNobel’s vision for transforming the company over the past 4 years has been increasing its presence in Asia–Pacific. In May last year, the organisation inaugurated its €6.5-million technology centre in Shanghai, China. This specialised R&D facility is enabling AkzoNobel to develop products that specifically suit the Asian market, and is also giving the company a greater presence in the region.

The company’s suitability for this market is demonstrated by the Chinese government’s thirteenth Five Year Plan, which highlights the importance of both green development and innovation, two of AkzoNobel’s core values.

"We don’t make any decisions without taking sustainability into consideration," explains Ton. "It’s always there. It’s incorporated into the decisions we make when we select suppliers, the decisions we make when we put money into capital investments for organic growth, and the decisions we make when we put money into innovation. About 70% of the money that goes into innovation goes into sustainable solutions for our customers."

An example of one of AkzoNobel’s sustainable products specifically suited to the Chinese marketplace is a paint that reflects the sunlight more effectively than normal paint, saving on air-conditioning. In the south of China where it gets exceptionally hot, this paint can help reduce an electricity bill by 5–6%.

Furthermore, the company’s Global Marine Coatings Headquarters and Research Center is based in one of Asia–Pacific’s emerging business hubs, Singapore. "Singapore is also home to a regional headquarters for our decorative paints business, 2 R&D facilities that have both a regional and a global role, and we develop products in Singapore that get rolled out in other areas of the world," explains Ton. "We have a lot of activity in Singapore; it’s central to anything that is happening in South East Asia, so it’s very important."

Resilience & regeneration

Highlighting just how important Singapore is to AkzoNobel, in 2015 — as part of its Human Cities project — the company embarked on a venture to help renovate Burkill Hall. Located in Singapore’s Botanic Gardens, Burkill Hall is believed to be South East Asia’s last surviving example of an Anglo-Malayan plantation-style house. Its restoration is of deep cultural and historical significance to the people of Singapore, and AkzoNobel’s role in this project reinforces its position in relation to urban resilience and regeneration, and the company’s dedication to contributing to the communities in which it operates.

Ton says, "As an industry leader, we are uniquely positioned to play a key role in building resilient cities across the globe, both in terms of physically safeguarding infrastructure and creating a stronger sense of community, identity and belonging." Furthermore, the project showcases the utility of some of AkzoNobel’s innovative products, and once again reinforces the values that underscore the company. 

Asked about the footprint that he himself wants to leave on the organisation, Ton pauses before saying, "This company is 400 years old, so rather than me wanting to be remembered personally in the time that I am responsible for it, I want to do everything possible to ensure it will be around for another 400 years." And while the next 5 years may seem insignificant in the context of 400, Ton believes that every year is a building block. Accordingly, his goals for the next 5 years include "significant organic growth, increased innovation, and inorganic growth", all of which will make AkzoNobel stronger and more flexible so that it can endure for centuries to come.