Dr. Philip Rakita is Managing Director of Armour Associates, with offices in North Carolina and Paris, France. He is a senior executive with more than thirty years of international experience in the chemical and related industries. For eighteen years he held various management positions in fine and specialty chemicals and plastics for the Elf Aquitaine Group. He also served as CEO of Syrgis Performance Products, LLC, a privately held $50 million diversified group of specialty chemical companies. He has lead numerous successful projects in new business development, technology assessment and transfer, divestitures and acquisitions. He has worked and lived in France, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, and the United States and has extensive experience with multinational technical and cultural interfaces within organizations. Prior to his industrial career he was Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Minnesota, and Senior Fulbright Visiting Professor at Moscow State University (USSR).