Leadership Transitions: The Watkins Collection (4 Items)

The Promotion

1Challenge

bert vandervliet had been working steadily toward

this promotion for years. But just four months into his new job,

as a business unit leader at BSC Chemicals, the euphoria was

beginning to wear off: the realities of what it would take to lead

the company’s plastic resins manufacturing unit were becoming

evident—and Bert was wondering if he was fully prepared for the

challenges of handling a global business with more than three

thousand employees worldwide.

Bert had spent his entire fifteen-year career at BSC, a maker of

specialty chemicals, plastics, and pharmaceuticals headquartered

in Belgium. He had joined BSC’s performance plastics unit soon

after completing his master’s degree. Even in his first job, as an

assistant product ...