Lori Koch

Lori Koch became CEO of DuPont in 2024, inheriting the challenge of executing the company's third major restructuring in less than a decade. DuPont — founded in 1802 as a gunpowder manufacturer and once America's largest chemical company — has been through a dizzying series of transformations: the 2017 merger with Dow Chemical to form DowDuPont, the subsequent three-way split in 2019 (creating Dow Inc, DuPont, and Corteva Agriscience), and now a planned further separation into three independent companies. The planned split will create: an electronics-focused company (DuPont's semiconductor technologies business, providing CMP slurry pads, photoresists, advanced packaging materials, and other critical materials for chip manufacturing), a water and health-focused company (water filtration membranes, biopharma filtration, protective solutions including Tyvek and Nomex, medical packaging), and a remaining diversified industrial company. The strategic logic is that DuPont's electronics business (which benefits from the AI chip buildout and semiconductor fab expansion) and water/health business (benefiting from clean water mandates and biopharma growth) are undervalued within a conglomerate structure. As independent companies, each can attract investors with focused sector exposure. Key stock drivers include separation timeline and execution, semiconductor materials demand (driven by AI chip production), water filtration market growth (PFAS remediation is a catalyst), Tyvek and protective solutions demand, PFAS litigation exposure and liability management, and the broader valuation premium for focused vs. diversified industrial companies.