Archer Daniels Midland Company announces that Juan R. Luciano has been named the company’s next chief executive officer, effective Jan. 1, 2015. He was also elected to the company’s board of directors, effective immediately.
Luciano currently serves as president and chief operating officer responsible for leading and running the company’s global operations. He will succeed Patricia Woertz, who will continue in the role of ADM’s chairman of the board and is expected to retire in May 2016.
“When I joined ADM in 2006, one of the areas the board asked me to focus on was leadership development and succession planning, with the goal of ensuring an eventual seamless and successful transition to the next CEO,” Woertz said. “As I look ahead to fulfilling a decade of service to the company, the time feels right to begin that succession. We have improved the company’s returns and crafted a strategic plan to achieve further improvements. We have worked hard to build the company’s earnings power and now—with good global demand, large global harvests and the expansion of our higher-margin business with the acquisition of Wild Flavors—we are well positioned for greater success.”
“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead our great company and team into the future,” Luciano said. “Under Pat’s leadership, we have made exceptional progress creating a high-performance, results-focused company. My commitment is to build on that success by accelerating our pace of progress. This is an exciting time, with tremendous opportunities, and all of us at ADM are committed to leveraging our core model to achieve new levels of value-creation. I look forward to working with my colleagues to extend our more than 100-year record of success.”
Previously, Luciano was with The Dow Chemical Company, where he last served as executive vice president and president of the Performance division.