Meet our Polymer Pioneer, Laura Chamorro, General Manager. A member of the Shell family since 2012 and the Shell Polymer team since 2017, Laura brings 15+ years of experience in the PE industry to lead and innovate the Shell Polymers brand.
General Manager, PE
As the construction of its new polyethylene plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania, continues, Shell Polymers has been assembling a team of industry experts, aka Polymer Pioneers and Polymer Pros, with proven track records in polymers and their respective field. In this article, we talked to our General Manager, Laura Chamorro, to learn more about how she’s leading the Shell Polymers project as it nears start up.
As the General Manager, Laura is tasked with keeping Shell Polymers ahead of industry changes. To do that, she’s constantly thinking through what the next generation of the polymers business will look like. She works closely with leadership, encouraging her team to think critically through problems and push the boundaries of technology and what people expect from a polyethylene supplier.
She explains, “We have qualified experts who can reliably and efficiently run the business in its current state. Therefore, it’s my job to push us to optimize and evolve our operations with next-generation thinking and technologies.”
In her role, Laura is on the front lines of figuring out how modern production and logistics technology can help improve the experiences of converters who work with Shell Polymers. Whether that’s testing digital collaboration tools or staying at the forefront of the latest advancements in AR and VR, Laura pushes the envelope of how technology can enhance the customer experience.
Learn more about advanced production technology & new ways of working that could change the game for converters
"We have qualified experts who can reliably and efficiently run the business in its current state. Therefore, it’s my job to push us to optimize and evolve our operations with next-generation thinking and technologies."
Laura Chamorro
Another key part of Laura’s role is to help differentiate Shell Polymers from other suppliers in how they coordinate orders or deal with common industry problems. As part of this goal, Laura is examining how interactions take place across different functions in the supply chain and how Shell Polymers can reimagine the supplier-converter experience to exceed customer expectations.
Laura is helping to create an unrivaled customer experience for converters through the team of qualified experts Shell Polymers is building. For example, some of the technical experts they’ve brought in-house are leaders in their field, such as Senior Technical Service Engineers, Dan Falla and Carl Baker. The logistics team also has industry veterans like Chris Jackson, who has over 20 years in polymers logistics, and Jeremy Cross, who has over 30 years experience working in polymer technology and production management. This elite team’s industry knowledge, paired with fresh ideas and unique perspectives, mirrors Shell Polymers’ entrepreneurial approach to business.
“It was important we built a team with experience, but that was also open to new ideas.”
In part, this is because it can be difficult to lead and innovate when the traditional ways of working are so ingrained in day-to-day work. In Laura’s experience, that’s why it was so important we built a team with in-depth industry knowledge, but that was also open to new ideas. One way this was achieved was by finding team members with a balance of PE expertise and business expertise like polyethylene product manager, Natalie Holmes, and global marketing manager, Chris Conrad.
As a greenfield project, Laura and the Shell Polymers team have the opportunity to start from scratch using the latest technology. For every piece of technology the plant will employ, Laura pushes the team to ask forward-thinking questions like, “will this tool provide the necessary analytics to help us and customers make informed decisions? If not, can it?”
However, technology is always changing and Laura doesn’t want current capabilities to limit their work. She encourages the team to accept technology as it stands, but also to innovate and adapt with it as it evolves.
For example, Laura is paving the way to introduce new business management tools and functionalities to automate our commercial operations. This will include opening doors for the brand team to connect with customers using new-to-industry approaches.
This culture will be critical to the team continuously improving internal and external procedures – ultimately allowing them to offer customers a differentiated supplier experience as the business evolves.