Two operators behind the workshop.
We've compounded the material, run the factories, signed the customer contracts and closed the books. The Rubber Initiative is built on the work the technical conferences do not yet cover. The leadership shift coming as senior technical people step into running businesses. The innovation and R&D pipelines that actually commercialise. AI used to augment judgement, not replace it. The next-generation question of what a sustainable rubber business looks like.
Why the workshop exists.
Michael and Matthew met through industry work in rubber and polymer. We have spent years inside the conferences. IRCO, IOM3, APRI, ACS. The programmes there are strong on the technical side: innovations, materials, processing, efficiency, sustainability. That work is well-served.
What we kept noticing was what was not on those programmes. The leadership shift coming as senior technical people step into running businesses. The way the next generation will run rubber companies under different commercial, regulatory and AI pressure. Neither was being talked about at the conferences.
The Rubber Initiative is built to sit alongside the existing technical training. Same audience. Different subject matter. Part leadership. Part next-generation business sustainability.
Based in
Adelaide, Australia
Michael Clayton
BEng (Chem) · FAPRI · FIMMM
Twenty-five years in manufacturing leadership. Twenty of them in rubber, starting as a compound developer and technical manager before moving into general management and executive roles.
Michael works as a fractional executive with business owners and CEOs across manufacturing, construction and technology. He adds executive bandwidth where it's needed most: strategy execution, operational systems, AI integration and the commercial thinking that gets a business moving when it's running at capacity.
He's a Fellow of IOM3 and APRI and currently serves as Executive Chairman of IRCO.
Based in
Lincoln, United Kingdom
Dr Matthew Thornton
MBA · PhD · BSc Hons · CEnv · FIMMM
Twenty years in advanced materials. Director and C-suite roles in polymer and materials science businesses, with deep work on commercialisation, scale-up and investor-grade technical due diligence.
Matthew advises a small number of specialised clients at a time, usually around innovation strategy, R&D portfolio management, investor readiness and commercialisation. He's run the funding rounds, signed the licence deals and made the calls on what to kill and what to accelerate.
He's a Chartered Environmentalist and a Fellow of IOM3, holds a PhD in Materials Science and an MBA, and currently serves as Secretary General of IRCO.
Four views that shape how we work.
Most businesses don't fail at strategy. They fail at execution.
The plan is usually fine. The gap is the operating rhythm. That's where we work.
Technical skill earns the promotion. Different skills carry the role.
People, strategy, customers and capital aren't compound recipes. They take a different kind of practice.
AI commoditises the technical edge. Human judgement is what's left.
Use AI as an extension of your own thinking. The leader's craft remains purpose, relationships and trust.
Frameworks earn their place by being used.
If we haven't run a tool in a real business under real pressure, we don't teach it.
The skills that earned you this role are real.
The ones you need from here are learnable.