John Dearborn

About John Dearborn

I retired from Williams Energy Companies after divesting their petrochemical assets and am currently seeking opportunities to apply my 36 years of industrial experience focused on growing shareholder value as a senior executive, advisor or Board member. My diverse experiences at Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, SABIC and Williams Energy all add up to a contributor who brings broad industrial operating expertise and a global perspective. As a corporate officer at Williams, I witnessed the impact at both the executive and board level of a proxy attack from two activist investors. During that same time, I led the successful recovery of a large ethylene plant after suffering a significant industrial accident. That asset was later sold for $2.1 billion, delivering a significant gain to Williams. This incident further reinforced my process safety mindset and the operational discipline required to sustain a strong corporate reputation while operating safely, reliably and at low cost. During my career, I ran several global businesses and served on boards contributing to the governance of Dow, Union Carbide and several joint ventures between major corporations in the US and Kuwait. My global perspective was further enhanced by a three-year assignment in Dubai, where I served as Dow’s President of India, Middle East and Africa. As my way of giving back, I joined the Stevens Institute of Technology Board of Trustees in 2013, participating as a member of the Audit, Research/Engineering, and Executive Committees and chairing the Alumni/Development Committee. At Stevens, I earned both a Bachelor and Master of Chemical Engineering which was later complimented with an MBA from New York University. In early 2019, I completed the National Association of Corporate Directors Governance Fellowship® accreditation.

Experience

1. Advisory Board Member

   Knowde

   Aug 2021 — Present · San Jose, CA, US

   Knowde is THE online marketplace for ingredients, polymers and chemistry. Knowde connects thousands of suppliers with tens of thousands of R&D and procurement professionals. Buyers use Knowde to simplify the process of searching, finding and acquiring the materials they need to cut development time and get products to market faster. Chemical companies get leading-edge technology that extends their market reach, lowers their cost of sales, and gives their customers the online buying experience they want

Education

• Stevens Institute of Technology

  BE and ME, Chemical Engineering

  1975 — 1981

• NYU Stern School of Business

  MBA, Finance and International Business

  1985 — 1988