Executive VP & CFO, Lyondellbasell
Search every verified Agustin Izquierdo interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Agustin Izquierdo became executive vice president and chief financial officer of LyondellBasell on March 1, 2025, succeeding Michael McMurray, who retired. Izquierdo said he was grateful for a two-and-a-half-month overlap with McMurray, which he described as helpful for learning about the company's strategy. He stated that LyondellBasell is "going through a great transformation" under CEO Peter Vanacker, including expansions in the Middle East and a push into circularity and sustainability. Izquierdo said his priorities include building a "best-in-class finance organization" that can be compared favorably across chemicals and other industrial sectors. He emphasized developing talent within finance and the broader organization, as well as using digital tools to accelerate analysis and strategy. He noted that LyondellBasell has a strong balance sheet and investment-grade credit rating, and he said he aims to help the company achieve its "aggressive and ambitious" goals.
“I mean personally I want to make sure that we have a best-in-class finance organization and that we can compare it not only across chemicals but industrials and any other sector and they anybody from the outside can say LYB is really going through a you know positive transformation and and finance is a key enabler and...”
“I started my career in investment banking and I thought that would be a great platform to learn have you know about many industries have an accelerated learning curve and it actually did deliver on that.”
“Having run a business gives you that extra ownership and I would say empathy with the business, right? You could look at the financial metrics and see what's going right or wrong, but then having that ability to dig deeper and trying to find the root cause and then work closely with the business to find the solution.”
“I had the time to overlap with Michael almost two and a half months and I'm very grateful for that opportunity. There's a lot of strategy of course you know working capital cash LYB is going through a great transformation right since Peter arrived the new strategy pushing into CLCS the expansions that we've announced o...”
“We're much more present. The push for circularity for sustainability has been great and put us on the forefront as a leader in that space. And it's been really fun also to being able to help build that along with him and the entire executive committee.”
“I would say be very very curious. To me that has been a great asset. Try to learn as much as possible. Ask questions. Help people. I'm also someone that trying to be in constant cool panic. So when things go wrong instead of you know just running like a chicken without a head just try to figure out the reasons stay cal...”
“I think I will also make a big push into digital tools trying to you know enable that and accelerate the work and the thinking that we do around our strategy and analysis and just making life easier for all our employees and finance function and just in general enable and help Peter and LYB achieve the goals and strate...”
“We've announced Middle Eastern Ventures. As I said, we have Flex Circularity, CLCS. That business has a lot of potential and work and the market is being developed. It's a big startup within LYB. So, I think really steering and making sure we have all the right resources that we prioritize and obviously manage our cash...”
“LB has a very strong balance sheet investment grade we have great liquidity very good cash conversion and all those things are the base for how we operate and should be the priorities on on how we move going forward.”
“I'm also very happy and grateful for Michael and all the work he did because he truly built a very strong finance team but we also as I said need to bring people from the business from manufacturing from R&D that if they're interested they can also have the mobility and the opportunities.”
In this episode of the LYB podcast, Deepi Sidhu interviews Agustin Izquierdo, the new executive vice president and chief financial ...
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Agustin Izquierdo.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →