Built for senior technical professionals in rubber and polymer who are being asked to lead the business as well as the material. Practical, peer-led and grounded in real industry experience.
Small room. Peer learning throughout. Every framework tested in real rubber businesses under pressure.
Duration
One day
In person, full day
Room
Capped
Small enough to hear everyone
Format
Working session
Peer learning throughout
Pitched at the priorities sitting on your desk today and the ones coming next.
Led by Dr Matthew Thornton
EU and US regulation decoded for people who run P&L, not compliance. We reframe sustainability as an edge your competitors have not earned yet, and map the specific shifts most likely to reshape your market over the next five years. Where it fits the room, we run a three horizon positioning exercise against peer companies.
Led by Michael Clayton
The shift from doer to enabler is harder than it looks. We work through the practical moves senior technical people make when they start leading other leaders. How you spend your week changes. What the team asks of you changes. We also work through where AI augments leadership in practice. Meeting prep. Team feedback. Customer briefings. The long Friday review compressed. Tools for making the shift on purpose, with leverage.
Led by Dr Matthew Thornton
Innovation pipelines that actually commercialise. Participants look at their own pipeline honestly and decide what to keep, what to kill and what to accelerate. We work through what gets funded, what stalls and how to allocate R&D resource by stage and risk. Drawn from real materials science commercialisation experience.
Led by Michael Clayton
Most strategies stall in execution. This theme converts direction into a weekly operating rhythm. Participants take their strategy through a practical check, then work on the scorecard and accountability loop the team can still run when you are not in the room. The test is whether the team feels the strategy in how the week runs.
Led by Michael Clayton
AI as an extension of judgement, not a replacement for it. We work through where AI earns its keep inside an operating business, where it does not, and how senior leaders should think about piloting, measuring and embedding it. No hype, no showpieces. The focus is the quiet wins that change how the team already works.
The specific tools vary with the themes selected for the room. The outcomes below hold across deliveries.
Clearer thinking on a decision you have been sitting on
Thought through with peers and written down for yourself.
Working tools tuned to your context
Populated with your own numbers, not a blank template.
A small peer group facing the same shift
People you can pick up the phone to after the day if it helps.
A ninety day view of what you will do next
Yours to keep. Optional check-in with us if you want it.
Fifteen statements, about five minutes. Rate each as it is today, honestly. You get a private read on where you're strong and where to put your attention first.
Generate a free strategic report.
The day works best for operators already running something who are being asked to run more. Those stepping into broader executive responsibility tend to get the most from it.
General managers and senior executives
In rubber manufacturing, compounding and testing.
Technical directors with broader business scope
Carrying P&L, people or strategy alongside the technical brief.
R&D leaders managing innovation portfolios
Responsible for pipeline, commercialisation and spend.
Operations managers with strategic roles
Running plants and shaping the direction of the business.
Future leaders in succession programmes
Identified for the next step and preparing for it now.
Online and in person, through global partners. Registration runs directly with each host.
Live webinar
30 July 2026 · 11am–12pm ET
A free ACS Rubber Division webinar. Two short talks: Matthew Thornton on running an R&D pipeline that commercialises product, and Michael Clayton on the leadership and succession gap. Free for members, US$99 otherwise.
Register for the webinaropen_in_new
North American delivery
30 September 2026
Hosted at The Global Polymer Summit with ACS Rubber Division (28-30 September 2026). Registration is open on the ACS site.
Register for GPS 2026open_in_new
Asia Pacific delivery
20 January 2027
Delivered as a course as part of POLYMERA 2027 (20-23 January 2027). Keynote talk by Dr Ian Wilson (CEO, HF Group), with an industry and academic panel discussion.
The agenda is tuned to your commercial priorities and delivered on site, anywhere in the world. Tell us the shape of the room and we come back with a proposal.
After the TRI presentations at Vienna Rubber Week, June 2026.
The presentations at Vienna Rubber Week were a refreshing departure from the standard technical conferences. The core focus was on business leadership and why technical professionals must step into broader business roles, precisely the strategic conversation our industry needs right now.
The session on AI confirmed my perspective on digital transformation and also highlighted some important new aspects. Our industry carries enormous technical expertise that lives only in people: undocumented, untransferred, and at risk every time someone moves on. The session showed me what is possible when you start capturing and connecting that knowledge properly, especially with production staff. It's an area I am now looking at with a much higher level of urgency.
The leadership session pushed me outside my technical thinking in a way I did not expect. I left with a much clearer sense of what stepping into a broader business role actually requires.
When they finished, the first question I asked was when they would bring the full workshop to Europe.
Pricing sits with the host partner in each region. For private in-house delivery, pricing is by scope.
Yes. The agenda is tuned to your commercial priorities and delivered on site. Use the contact form with subject set to private delivery.
Operators from across the industry. General managers, technical directors carrying broader commercial scope, R&D leaders, plant managers with strategic responsibility. Rooms are capped so the discussion stays real.
Working tools and industry-specific frameworks, populated with your own data rather than a blank template. A ninety-day view of what you will do next, yours to keep.
The day is built around what you and your team will do next.