Emerald Kalama Chemical Promotes Gravel to Vice President, Global Key Accounts

Emerald Kalama Chemical, a business group of Emerald Performance Materials, has promoted Shamsi Gravel to vice president, global key accounts in order to develop, implement and lead Emerald Kalama Chemical’s key account program across all businesses, including K-FLEX plasticizers, Kalama® flavor and fragrance ingredients and Kalama® benzoates and intermediates.

Gravel has 20 years of experience focused on specialty chemicals. Since Gravel joined Emerald in 2009, she has served in various management roles dedicated to driving success for K-FLEX plasticizers and coalescents, most recently as K-FLEX vice president. She also previously held positions with organizations such as Chemquest, Bostik Findley and National Starch and Chemical. She earned an MBA in finance, marketing and strategy from Boston University, an MS in chemical engineering from Rutgers University, a graduate certificate in polymer engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a BS in chemical engineering from Villanova University.

“Our biggest clients are multi-faceted with footprints across many regions in the world, industries and technologies; the opportunity to scale success through our businesses is enormous. Shamsi’s move into this expanded role is ideally timed with our growth strategy. Her commercial expertise, industry relationships and technical knowledge are tremendous assets to our clients and our brands,” said Edward Gotch, CEO of Emerald Kalama Chemical.

K-FLEX benzoate technology has a proven track record of more than three decades for delivering performance, providing a highly effective alternative that eliminates the health and environmental concerns of increasingly regulated phthalate plasticizers and high-VOC coalescents. The REACH-compliant K-FLEX platform provides a range of low-VOC, non-phthalate, non-SVHC products, including those with certain clearances for use in food-contact applications.

In recent years, the company has focused on product innovation to deliver benefits to an expanding range of adhesives, sealants, caulk, paints, coatings, graphic arts and plastisol and vinyl applications. For example, in adhesive and sealant applications, K-FLEX products are known for enhancing film formation and adhesion, processing characteristics and improving the resistance of the end-products to oil, grease and water. Other important benefits include improved scrub resistance and gloss retention in paint and coatings. In vinyl applications, performance can be greatly enhanced by blending the fast-fusing K-FLEX plasticizers with many other general purpose plasticizers to increase line speed and/or lower processing temperature, as well as improve stain resistance and toughen wear layers in plastisols.

Emerald Kalama Chemical also produces sodium and potassium benzoate, benzoic acid and intermediates, and specialty flavor and fragrance ingredients, which the company sells globally through its distribution partners. The business has manufacturing operations in Kalama, Wash., Rotterdam, Netherlands and Widnes, UK.