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Luis Fernandez is the Vice President of Dow Coating Materials, a global business unit of The Dow Chemical Company. He is responsible for the unit's profit and loss, global business strategy and leads the Dow Coating Materials Leadership Team. Fernandez began his current role after Dow acquired Rohm and Haas in April 2009, now managing the combined coatings business of the Dow and Rohm and Haas organizations. Prior to then, he was the Business Group Vice President of the Rohm and Haas Paint and Coatings Materials division, a position he has held since 2005.
Luis joined Rohm and Haas Mexico in 1983 as assistant to the Operations Director. A year later, he became a production area manager for Plexiglas sheet in the Apizaco Plant. During the next decade, Mr. Fernandez held positions of increasing responsibility in marketing and business management, both in Philadelphia and Mexico City. By 1996, he was working in Sao Paulo, Brazil, running both the Specialty Polymers and Plastics businesses for all of Latin America. In 1999, Mr. Fernandez headed to Europe, first to become the regional business manager for Specialty Polymers out of the UK office, and later, to head the global Printing and Paper Technologies business, based in the Paris office.
Relocating to Philadelphia in 2001, Mr. Fernandez worked as the sales and marketing director for the single largest business segment within Rohm and Haas, the $900 million Architectural and Functional Coatings business in North America.
In 2002, Mr. Fernandez was elected to vice president, and was named regional director for Latin America. Returning to Philadelphia in 2004, he became Business Director for Plastics Additives. He assumed his Vice President and Business Unit Director titles in April 2005.
Mr. Fernandez is also a member of the Board of National Paint and Coatings Association (NPCA) executive committee, and is a member of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology Board of Overseers.
Attending the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mr. Fernandez earned a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. He also attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Fernandez is fluent in four languages. He and his wife, Martha, reside in Bluebell, Pennsylvania, with their two children.