Listen to Victoria and Christian MacIver from Pilot Chemical Here:
Join Victoria Meyer as she unravels the dynamic journey of growth and transformation at Pilot Chemical with Christian MacIver, the company’s President and COO. With a background in engineering and a penchant for problem-solving, Christian shares her passion for bringing innovation to the specialty chemicals market. She discusses the strategic initiatives driving Pilot’s success, including expansion plans and pioneering sustainable surfactants addressing consumer and environmental demands.
Explore how Pilot’s private and independent status empowers it to adapt quickly to market changes while maintaining a customer and employee-centric approach. Christian highlights the crucial role of supply chain resilience, the transition towards digitization, and the thoughtful consideration of AI in their operations. Drawing from her own career experiences, Christian shares invaluable advice on leadership and the importance of using one’s voice in building a successful and forward-thinking business.
Join us on this week’s episode to learn more about these topics:
- Christian MacIver’s leadership journey and career development
- Privately held vs. public companies
- Specialty chemical industry transformation
- Supply chain resilience and adaptation
- Innovation and technology adoption
Killer Quote: ” Use your voice. I can remember being in my first job as a salesperson…inside, I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do…Now when I’m in a meeting, I make sure I’m sitting at the table. I make sure I speak up when I have a question about what’s being talked about or concern about what’s being proposed.” – Christian MacIver
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Watch Victoria Interview Christian MacIver Here:
From Legacy To Innovation: Pilot Chemical’s Path Forward With Christian MacIver
Welcome back to The Chemical Show. I am continuing our conversation here in the month of March with great women leaders in chemicals. Before we get started, if you are not already a subscriber of The Chemical Show, just do it. Hit the subscribe or follow button on whatever platform you’re on. Follow us on LinkedIn. That’s the best way to stay stay on top of all of our great interviews and other things that we publish.
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So today I am speaking with Christian MacIver, who is the president and chief operating officer at Pilot Chemical. Pilot is a privately held and independent global specialty chemical manufacturer. And I think that’s always a great distinction since there’s so much private equity in our industry. Christian began her career at Ingevity Specialty Chemicals, where she climbed the ladder and ultimately led some of the company’s biggest businesses. She joined Pilot a couple years ago and is working her magic there. So, Christian, I’m so excited to have you here. Thanks for joining me today.
Thank you, Victoria. It’s such a pleasure to be here on The Chemical Show.
Absolutely. So what is your origin story? How did you get interested in chemicals? And, ultimately, what got you to where you are today?
Yeah, great question. So I have always loved solving problems. I can remember being a little girl and looking out the front window waiting for my dad to come home because he would give me math problems to do, really hard math problems, and I love that. And my dad and I, we would also do puzzles together. Only we would turn them upside down, and we would race, not being able to see the picture, seeing who could do the puzzle the fastest.
Just based on the shape?
That’s right. Based on the shape. So I just grew up with this love of solving problems and puzzles, which naturally led me to being good in science and math. I was probably one of the few students that actually enjoyed the homework because each of those homework problems was a little mini puzzle.
So I majored in chemical engineering. And I actually thought that I was going to work in a plant with a hard hat and steel toed boots. That was what my plan was. But when I was interviewing, I had this interviewer who stopped me midway through the interview, and he said, I know you wanna work in a plant, but have you ever thought about sales? And I looked at him like he was crazy because the only salespeople that I’d ever met were the guy in the mall selling vacuums and the door to door salesperson selling encyclopedias when I was little. And so I said no. I would never wanna go in sales.
He fixed me up with one of his female technical sales reps who was selling industrial lubricants and put me on the road with her for a week so I could see what I was missing out on. And I tell you, from that point, I was hooked. So I totally switched my career search wanting to go into technical sales. So I think it turns out that interviewer was a good salesperson.
Absolutely. I think most engineers don’t think about going into sales and we all have these beliefs. I’m not sure I knew that I was gonna be wearing hard hats and yet I did for many years. But I think it’s just an interesting part of the journey. And so have you always stayed on the commercial side of the business?
Yes, for the most part. So I had more of a traditional career track going into sales and then moving into product management, sales management, and then director VP. But after many years on the commercial side, I actually for career broadening, took a role heading up a global supply chain team. And that was really interesting because when I took the job, I didn’t realize that six months later, the global pandemic was going to start. And so here I am really not knowing much. I still don’t know much about supply chain. But being in this role, having to lead a global team of over a hundred people through this crisis that nobody had ever experienced.
We had spent years trying to make our supply chain lean and to optimize inventories and, yet, suddenly we’re having not to just have a plan B, but a plan C, D, and E as every day the challenge was much different. But what I learned in supply chain, it gave me such an appreciation for our team. Because when I went into supply chain, someone I work with told me this and it’s so true, that when you look back on wars in the world, it’s the effectiveness of the supply chain that determines whether countries or the armies win or lose wars. It’s the supply chain. And the same is true in business that it’s how good your supply chain is whether you win or lose business. So I have such an appreciation for our folks in all parts of our supply chain.
That is such a great perspective and so true because as we’ve seen, you know, I’ve been calling the 2020s the decade of supply chain because starting with the COVID crisis and then continuing on, supply chain has dictated a lot of success and profitability for businesses of all varieties.
You’re right. It takes hundreds of thousands of things to go right to get an order in full, on time, in spec to a customer that’s halfway around the world. But it only takes one thing to go wrong.
Absolutely, and we take it for granted. So what brought you to Pilot? Because you’ve been at Pilot now for two years. So you were doing great in Ingevity. You survived the supply chain challenges of COVID, and now you’re at Pilot. Tell us a little bit about that.
I loved running a global supply chain, I learned a lot. I was ready to get back to running a business though. I love running a business. When I was interviewing with the CEO at Pilot, he put the company’s strategy in front of me. And this strategy, it’s a diagram of a solar system. At the center of the sun are customers and the Pilot team. That was kinda my drop the mic moment.
Like, that was it. I was sold. I was ready to come to work for Pilot because through my interview process and coming on board the last two years, a lot of companies might say that’s what’s at the center of their strategy. But at pilot, it really is true. It’s our team. It’s our customers. Everything we do, it’s a filter that we use. Is this good for our customers and good for our team? So we live it, and it’s so much fun.
I can’t wait to get to work every day and be a part of making a difference in that way.
I love that. So tell us, other than customers being the center, the solar system and strategy for Pilot, tell us just a little bit more about Pilot.
So we’re a medium-sized chemical company, and you already mentioned that we’re privately held. There’s such a uniqueness in being privately held and medium size where we can be quick and nimble. We’re big enough to deliver and flexible enough to serve what our customers’ needs are. But Pilot was founded over seventy years ago, and Pilot was based on an innovative technology. So our founder invented a new way to sulfonate, an ice cold way of sulfonation. That technology, it imparts greater quality, greater consistency in essentially surfactants, which is what we still use that today for. So that’s still a backbone technology.
We also manufacture biocides and preservatives, and those products are used in household and personal care products, industrial and institutional, emulsion polymerization, metalworking, and lubricants.
Awesome. Thank you for that. Pilot seems to be in a period of growth and transformation. So you talk about your sulfonation technology. You guys have recently announced a plant expansion. You’ve announced some new strategic partnerships with Kao, and sustainable surfactants, and I know there’s been a few things really over the past several years.
Is this a new Pilot and a new strategy, or is it part of an ongoing bigger transformation story?
I think that you do see, as you mentioned, some new announcements coming out from Pilot, and we have been dedicated to growth for many years. In the chemical industry, you have to grow because your costs increase and inflation and benefits, all of those things. It becomes more expensive to stay in business. So you don’t have a choice. You have to grow. I think what’s different though is we’ve gotten very specific about how we wanna grow, and we call it our growth engine. And so our growth engine, how do we take advantage of our size, our ownership structure, our board who’s committed to investing in growth, and what do we do with that?
We are investing more in those markets that are changing because when there are changes, there are opportunities. For a company of our size, we can change and adapt quickly and meet those dynamic needs of customers in those markets. So, Victoria, two markets that we’re focused more on now than we were a few years ago are household and personal care. Specifically cleaning products and those end uses, what’s changing today are environmental regulations. For example, the low 14 dioxane regulations that have come out. Also, consumer preferences are changing. Consumers want more transparency. They wanna understand what’s in the product and then sustainability trends as well in the companies that make those products.
And so Pilot, we ask ourselves, how can we help our customers and the end consumers? How how can we meet those challenges? And so that’s what we’re focused on doing, and that’s why we’re expanding our flagship plant in Middletown, and that’s why we’re focused on bringing a portfolio of bio-based surfactants to those markets.
That makes a lot of sense. Those are two really unique markets driven a lot, as you point out, by sustainability, by consumer preferences, and require that adaptation and support. How is your team viewing this? There’s a lot of legacy at Pilot, 70 years old. So you’re probably implementing along the way, in order to achieve this growth strategy, some changes around people, processes, customers. How are they responding?
Our team is super excited about our growth engine, and they wanna be part of the story, part of Pilot’s success. And I’ve really been impressed by that when I joined Pilot, that Pilot’s a company very low on ego, really high on hard work, doing the best job that you can, and focused on doing all of our parts to make the company successful. I love going around and joining our CEO for our town halls and sharing with employees the difference they’re making, how they’re part of our of Pilot success. It’s really cool to see the strong foundations that our team has built over the years, how we’re combining that with new folks who’ve come on board and focusing all of that on delivering growth.
That’s excellent. And I know the people I know from Pilot really love Pilot. They feel this strong affinity to Pilot, to its customers, to its business, and that shows. We talked a little bit about change, and one of the things I’ve been talking with people recently, they’re just commenting on the rapid pace of change we’re seeing here in 2025, particularly when we think about trade and tariffs and all kinds of policies that are rolling through with the new administration. How are those changes affecting you in Pilot, and how do you even get ready for the uncertainty of the changes that are coming through?
It’s dizzying. I just saw an hour ago that it’s changed again, what the plan is.
Day by day.
Right. In a company our size, we don’t have a big team that we can tell them to go work in a closet on this and tell us what the magic answer is. We don’t have that luxury. We are a lean team, and we do scenario planning. So we try to look at kinda 80/20. What do we think the outcome will be here and put a couple different scenarios together and then as it plays out, react from there. But fortunately, through COVID, we lessened our dependence on outside supply chains.
I’m not not saying we’re insulated from tariffs because that’s certainly not the case, but much less than we would have been five years ago if it had happened then. What I’m starting to see unfold is more of a willingness to work together across the supply chain. So this doesn’t seem like there’s any one party in the supply chain that is trying to stick it to the one up or downstream from them. I’m really seeing a partnership of how do we share in this together? How do we work through these challenges? Which is great to see that we’ve got relationships like that.
The chemical industry prides itself on its relationships and had to be strengthened through some of the supply chain challenges we’ve seen over the past few years as we look at how business and markets are evolving, collaboration and partnership is getting redefined and becomes really critical.
You’re right. We’ve been in business more than 70 years. Most of our suppliers and customers have been too. You see this balance of power that shifts. Markets are short. Markets are long. Markets change. And we plan to be in business another 70 years, and I think the other parts of our supply chain do too. So how do we look at this sustainably?
Yeah. Are most of your customers North America? Is that largely where you guys are selling and marketing today?
Our manufacturing base is in North America. So we have five plants in across The US and Mexico. And about a third of our sales are outside of The US. So we manufacture in The US and ship all over the world.
We talked a little bit about sustainability. We’ve talked about some of these supply chain challenges. The other thing, companies are really moving quickly on or not so quickly in wondering where they’re going is around digitization and AI. So I think two years ago, nobody knew how to spell AI. Today, it’s part of our everyday conversations at least. Although, I think a lot of companies that I’ve talked to in fact, I had a conversation just yesterday where they’re like, we’re trying to figure this out still.
What about Pilot? What’s your approach to digitization and AI? Is there anything new that you guys are rolling out or how are you approaching it? Because as you know, and we already talked about changes are occurring rapidly.
It is rapid. I was very impressed when I joined Pilot at the level of digitization that’s already taking place within Pilot. We have a Digi team, and they also focus on automation. Just from a data standpoint, with a couple clicks I can find out all kinds of information, and it’s the same source of information that everyone in the company is looking at. So we’re not reliant on spreadsheets. And I think being our size of a medium company, that benefits us, you know, our ERP system is pretty simple to navigate in order to extract the data, and get it in one place.
Also in our plants, we have invested a lot of money in automating our plants, looking at how we take out the human factor of possibly making mistakes and how we do these things from control rooms. Our board has been very supportive of that, of automating our plants. Then as far as AI goes, we still have a long way to go in using AI. But I’m looking forward to seeing how we can leverage AI in technology specifically. As the AI programs evolve, I think it’s more ready for a company our size.
When you say in tech when you think about it, is this about in formulations? Is it in your business lines? How do you see yourself attempting or trying to start utilizing AI more?
I think on our marketing and business development side, there’s an opportunity there. And in innovation, like product development and optimizing formulas, I think both sides of that. It’ll be different AIs, but we’re ready to look at what makes sense for us. We’re careful about what we invest in. I don’t know about being the early adopter, whether that makes sense for Pilot. But once something is ready and we see that it’s gonna add value, we’re quick to step up and make an investment in it.
Yeah, and that makes sense. I have said this before, I think a lot of companies kinda got burned by SAP. Right? Like, it’s such a big, huge investment. Once you make the switch, you feel like you’re stuck. So when we think about digital applications and AI tools, I think people many companies are afraid of getting stuck. You don’t mind being the leaders.
You don’t mind being fast followers. But there’s a concern that what if we adopt the wrong thing for us, but then we’re stuck. As I talk to people in technology companies and others, I do think the good news is that we’re moving into applications that are more robust and resilient, being able to bounce in and out and not being stuck with a single platform, but being able to figure out what really works for you and adapt and evolve. Now how this all plays out, time will tell.
And I think about, how can we invest in technologies that allow us to do things that we’re not doing today? And maybe if we were more back investing by having AI do things we’re already doing, maybe we would have that stuck feeling. But I think today we’re looking at how can this really supercharge what we’re not able to get to today.
Let’s turn a little bit more to you. You joined Pilot two years ago, moving from a larger publicly traded company to midsize privately held company, Pilot. What was the biggest challenge you faced in that transition?
I’ll answer that two ways. One, I actually have to read all my emails now. So I used to get copied on so many informational emails and I would get hundreds of emails and a lot of them I’d never even open and nobody would notice. But at Pilot, a medium sized company, that doesn’t happen. I’m copied on emails for a reason. And it’s kind of like having a smaller group who is informed on what’s relevant in the company, what material is in the company.
It allows us to make decisions so much quicker because we’re already informed. So that was a change for me. I hadn’t even thought about about that being a change. Then the second one, and this is a really good change, is that craziness leading up to a quarter. We don’t have that being privately held. We don’t have a quarterly earnings call that is going to impact our share price based on, did we meet the analyst’s expectations? And that is so refreshing that we don’t have to compromise the long term for the short term. Of course, we’ve got end of the year targets, but we’re not in the hot seat every quarter like that.
Yeah. I love that. And I think two things. Number one, I think that the email, sometimes we don’t understand our decision making burdens that come along with it. Right? It’s something that you come to grips with. Good and bad, in terms of just kind of the focus of role. So I think that’s really cool. And hopefully you have fewer emails, Christian.
And the ones that matter, you know.
Yep. It’s manageable.
But I think that this whole concept of having a longer term viewpoint is so critical because especially when we look at the last few years, just the volatility in markets with supply chains being up and down and people being overstocked and understocked, public companies have really been whipsawed a little bit. Whereas with private companies, and I’ve talked to a lot of leaders from privately held companies, and it is a bit more of a balanced view. Yes, you’re running your numbers monthly, maybe daily, weekly, who knows, on whatever frequency matters to you and makes sense for you to be effectively running your business. But you can look at a longer term view and know that it’s not about the December 31st number. It’s about, we said we were gonna get to some place by May 1st, and let’s track to May 1st, and that’s what makes sense. So being able to have a longer horizon and a more balanced horizon.
Yes. And we do look at our numbers daily. The numbers are still just as important to us. But if the numbers aren’t what we expect, we’re not gonna pull orders forward or make cuts in investments and growth that we need to make. So it’s really refreshing and great to have the board and shareholder support for that.
So I wanna close with a question around leadership. What’s one piece of advice that you’ve received in your career that you consider to be so critical that you now share it with others?
I’ve been so fortunate to have to have worked with some great leaders. So I learned from some of the best out there. So it’s hard to pick one. One that has stuck with me is, use your voice. And I can remember being in my first job as a salesperson and sitting around the table, and my boss was proposing that we go out and raise prices by x percent. And inside, I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. I knew I was gonna have a couple customers that were gonna have a very hard time with that. And, I didn’t speak up.
The boss said, okay, everybody gonna go do this? And I raised my hand with everybody else. Yes, we’re gonna do this. And sure enough, I lost a huge piece of business by forcing a price increase through that I spent the next couple years trying to get back. That’s one example of using your voice. Now when I’m in a meeting, I make sure I’m sitting at the table. I make sure I speak up when I have a question about what’s being talked about or a concern about what’s being proposed.
And that’s what I’m hired to do. I view all of our employees like that. We’re hiring them for that brain that’s sitting between their shoulders, and we want them to use it on day one. They don’t have to be have a certain level or be with the company for so many years. That’s why we want them to lean in and speak up, use their voice.
That’s a great message. We have a voice. Use it. So, Christian, thank you so much. I’m really excited that we got a chance to do this. I appreciate you sharing insights with myself and our listeners of The Chemical Show, and it’s been great to have this conversation with you.
Thank you, Victoria, and I appreciate what you do.
Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening. Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will talk with you again soon.
About Christian MacIver:
Christian MacIver is President & Chief Operating Officer for Pilot Chemical Company, a privately held and independent global specialty chemical manufacturer providing high quality products and services to the personal care, household, industrial and institutional, oilfield, and emulsion polymerization industries. In this role, she has full responsibility for developing, executing, and delivering upon short- and long-range strategies for profitable growth.
Christian has a passion for building highly effective teams that deliver exceptional results. She began her career at Ingevity Specialty Chemicals and held various roles of increasing levels of contribution over her 27 years there, including Global Vice President of Supply Chain and Global Vice President of Industrial Specialties. Christian was instrumental in positioning Ingevity to become a standalone publicly traded company, leading a $450 million business that accounted for half of Ingevity’s revenues at the time of formation.
She is an active leader in the industries and communities she serves, including board member of the American Cleaning Institute, and past participation in the Executive Committee of the Adhesives and Sealants Council, boards of March of Dimes and United Way, and Chair of Trident Women’s Leadership Council (800 members).
Christian earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia. She has continued her education with executive classes at MIT, Wharton, and Kellogg.