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dergraduate studies. “I started working very young because I
thought that the best school for success was working. In 1966,
I got a job with a manufacturer of industrial machinery and
equipment, and then I became a bank clerk. In June 1977, I was
hired by Comércio e Indústria Iretama as assistant manager. As
early as 1968, an opportunity came up at Esso, where I worked
in accounting and finance, and then as purchaser,” he tells.
In February 1972, Simões got back to the Iretama group’s che-
mical branch. “I was hired back by Iretama as inside salesper-
son, where I got acquainted with all of our customers at that
time and was soon promoted to sales. In late 1975, a new chal-
lenge arose: opening a branch in Curitiba, Paraná, from which
to supply customers in the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina.
So, in 1976, I moved to Curitiba, where I remained until mid
1982. Then, I came back to São Paulo and took over a local area,
but the sales department was rearranged soon afterwards, and
I made a point of handling the entire paint industry because
I consider it a more competitive market that provides more
opportunities for new business developments given its technolo-
gy and need for innovation. Later, Iretama was renamed Exxon
Química, and now to ExxonMobil,” Simões points out.
AkzoNobel Packaging Coatings Has New Organizational
Structure for Latin America
Effective as of January 1
st
, AkzoNobel’s Packaging Coatin-
gs business has a new organizational structure to run the
company’s Brazilian and Latin American operations. With the
retirement of Antonio Costa, who led the Packaging Coatings
business for 16 years in both Brazil and South America, the
company decided to fill his position in line with AkzoNobel’s
world structure by appointing Julian Cass, Regional Direc-
tor for North America, who now adds South America to his
responsibilities as new Regional Director for the Americas, and
Manoel Rodrigues to be the new General Manager for Brazil.
This change puts AkzoNobel Packaging Coatings in line with
the corporation’s world structure because South America was
the only region in the world that still was not within the same
geographic organization as the rest of the group around the
world. “South America is key to AkzoNobel as a major strategic
growth region, and the appointment of Julian Cass will allow
us to further conform to the company’s global organization
structure for the Americas,” says Fabiana Marra, Marketing
Manager for South America at Packaging Coatings.