Kemira will restructure its group organization by decreasing reporting levels. All the five strategic business units start reporting direct to the Group's CEO Tauno Pihlava. With the organizational change Kemira Chemicals Oy will be merged with Kemira Oyj. The Group will revise its visual identity at the same time.
Kemira's strategic business units are: Pulp & Paper Chemicals, Kemwater, Paints and Coatings, Industrial Chemicals and GrowHow (previously Kemira Agro). The current SBU leaders will continue, viz. Juhani Lindholm for Pulp & Paper Chemicals, Lennart Johansson for Kemwater, Visa Pekkarinen for Paints and Coatings, Harri Kerminen for Industrial Chemicals, and Heikki Sirviö for GrowHow.
Yrjö Sipilä, President of Kemira Chemicals, will move to be in charge of acquisition-related duties and will report to the CEO.
KEMIRA'S NEW VISUAL IDENTITY
Kemira will revise its visual identity by replacing its old symbol and logo with the new Kemira logo. At the same time, Kemira Agro will change its name to Kemira GrowHow and start using its own visual identity.
The introduction of a new visual identity is part of Kemira's development process that aims to distinguish the company better from the competition in the eyes of customers.
Apart from the Kemira Group, the new logo will be used by the strategic business units which primarily serve industrial customers: Pulp&Paper Chemicals, Kemwater and Industrial Chemicals.
GrowHow, which serves the food chain as an integrated partner, will use the Kemira GrowHow logo in the future.
Kemira's Paints and Coatings business, with its strong local brands, will continue to use the current brand names in its marketing. The brands include e.g. Tikkurila in Finland, Alcro and Beckers in Sweden, and VivaColor in the Baltic countries.
The global launch of Kemira's new visual identity will begin on 11 February 2003, and the process will be completed during this year.
Kemira's new logo has been designed by Esa Ojala, Incognito Design, and the logo of Kemira GrowHow has been designed by D'Arcy Design.
Kemira's new logo available online: www.kemira.com
The press release with the new logo can be downloaded from the enclosed link.
