October 19, 2022
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. ET
ARMS 3041 - Dunville Conference Room
- Lunch Provided - Limited to 25 People -
Informal opportunity for ChE Faculty to engage and network
Dr. David H. Li
President, Chief Executive Officer, & Director (Ret.)
Cabot Microelectronics Corporation
Bio:
David Li was announced as President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors at Cabot Microelectronics Corporation
effective January 1, 2015. Cabot Microelectronics is the world's leading supplier of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) polishing slurries and is a growing CMP pad supplier to the semiconductor industry.
He has more than fifteen years of experience in a wide range of roles with Cabot Microelectronics, including eight years of leading
the company’s Asia Pacific business. Over that period, he demonstrated a record of delivering growth in the company's most important product lines and geographic regions, while forging close bonds with customers and developing the company's leaders throughout
the Asia Pacific Region.
Prior to that, David served in various leadership roles, including Cabot’s Managing Director of China and Korea, and the Global Business
Director for Tungsten and Advanced Dielectrics. He held a variety of leadership positions in operations, sourcing and investor relations since joining Cabot in 1998.
Before joining Cabot Microelectronics, David held process engineering and marketing roles at UOP. In addition to his Purdue degree,
David earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 2003. David received his OCHE Award in 2017 from the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue.
The original parent of CMC, Cabot Corporation (the historic, 140-year-old maker of carbon and silica products) created Cabot Microelectronics
in 1995 to help accelerate the push into the emerging opportunity for chemical mechanical planarization (CMP). David Li joined the new subsidiary only three years after its formation and thus had an early opportunity to make noteworthy contributions to the
growth of CMC. After the spin-off of CMC as an independent company in 2000, with sales of $200M and 100 employees, CMC’s then leaders identified David as a future leader of CMC, with David placed in various leadership roles to help CMC firmly establish itself
as the market leader for silica slurries for polishing semiconductor wafers.
Named as the President and CEO of CMC in 2015, “David Li moved quickly to streamline CMC’s upper management and revamped the company’s
culture to instill more agility and risk-taking” (cited from a 2019 article in C&E News magazine of the American Chemical Society). This sector of the semiconductor industry was entering a period
of rapid consolidation and David’s first action was to acquire NexPlanar Corporation in October of 2015 to help steer CMC to the #2 position for polishing pads. By 2018, CMC had grown to over a billion in sales and its newly attained scale placed it in a position
to acquire KMG Chemicals for $1.6 billion and become a major player in an even greater segment of the semiconductor materials supply chain. Recognition awards as an outstanding supplier from major companies in this industry (Samsung, Intel and IBM to name
three awards), rapid organic growth and additional strategic acquisitions dramatically increased the size and scale of CMC. Ultimately, in 2021 the Board of Directors of CMC accepted a friendly $6.5 billion buy-out offer from Entegris Corporation, representing
approximately a four-fold return for shareholders over David’s six-year term as CEO.
To R.S.V.P.
|
(765) 494-4365 |
(765) 494-0805