Ashish Batra joined Dow Chemical in 2005 as a researcher in Dow’s elastomers business. His work to enhance the adhesion of polyolefins not only established him as an expert within the company, but also resulted in more than 20 patent applications.
When he moved to DowAgrosciences in 2010, the organization was launching increasingly complex crop protection formulations. As leader of formulation process development, Ashish was responsible for a team that scaled up nearly all formulation processes for crop protection, as well as the transfer of that technology to manufacturing plants around the world. He became the go-to expert for the most complex formulation types, such as water dispersible granules and suspension concentrates. He ensured that sound engineering fundamentals drove the process scale-up — and he led his team to invent novel formulation processes with a keen eye to filling customer needs, manufacturing plant capabilities, and safe operation of the scale-up facility. The success of these plant startups and product launches convinced Dow Agrosciences to continue to invest in scale-up.
In 2014, Ashish was chosen to participate in the Dow CEO Exchange Program, which gives selected candidates an opportunity to develop cross-cultural acumen while broadening their leadership experience. On this assignment, Ashish worked as an improvement engineer in a large polymer production plant in Argentina, where he led root cause investigations of previously unpredictable reactor fouling to assign causation and reduce plant downtime. He also coached the engineers at the plant to conduct more regular data analysis and to more consistently document plant improvements.
Currently, Ashish leads the Dow Agrosciences Crop Protection Global Formulations and Packaging Technology Center. In this capacity, he mentors a global team of engineers who support formulations and packaging plants in all regions of the world.