10: Stimulating Engagement

Mr. Roongrote Rangsiyopash has been the president and CEO of SCG (Siam Cement Group) since 2016. SCG is a century-old, widely respected, multi-billion-dollar regional cement-building materials, packaging and chemicals maker, a capital-intensive business requiring heavy equipment for raw material extraction and processing. Referred to as Khun Roongrote (Khun is an honorific used when referring to either men or women in Thailand), he is a Harvard MBA who joined the company in 1987. Trained as an engineer and business person, before becoming CEO he was President of SCG Paper (now known as SCG Packaging) and Executive Vice President, The Siam Cement PLC. He is a refreshing CEO. Respectful and thoughtful, he is one of those people that when he speaks, people stop to listen. He has the same pressures as any other public CEO: ensure the company's revenues and profits keep growing. Shareholders expect the same. Early on in his CEO tenure he was clear that SCG needed to find ways to modernize and prepare for a very different world than it had operated in for its first century. He was determined that this modernization include becoming more digitally savvy, more entrepreneurial, more sustainable; a set of capabilities that represented a significant operating and cultural shift for a company that had built its reputation from complex engineering projects with long-term investment and payback timeframes. Shortly after he became CEO, I witnessed a townhall-like session he had with managers where he described his rationale for focusing on those new capabilities. One questioner asked him why the qualities he outlined are so important given that SCG didn't depend on those capabilities for its success up to that point. Khun Roongrote answered “I am not entirely sure what the outcome for us will be, but I do know that they are important and that our future depends on our ability to adapt to changing times. What made us successful to this point is not necessarily what will help us stay successful in the future…” Since then, SCG has invested in developing the new capabilities as well as working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve Paris accord targets (including banning all plastic water bottles from company facilities virtually overnight), to connecting more directly with local communities. As CEO, he engages with a diverse range of stakeholders to learn their interests and gain their support.