Didier Viala became President of CP Kelco in October 2017, building on a career in which he has held a wide range of leadership positions at the business. Viala has been a Director on the CP Kelco Management Board since October 2017 and previously served on the Huber Engineered Woods Management Board from 2019-2023. He is also a member of the Huber Management Council.

Prior to his appointment as President, Viala served as Senior Vice President (SVP) of Global Operations for CP Kelco. Over the course of more than 25 years with CP Kelco and its predecessor companies, Viala held leadership roles across a broad spectrum of critical areas, including innovation, marketing, business development, operations, sales and distribution.

Moving from Paris, France, to CP Kelco’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2006, Viala became VP of Business Management and joined its Senior Leadership Team. In 2013, he became a member of the newly formed Executive Leadership Team of CP Kelco while serving as Senior VP of Growth & Innovation.

Viala’s many achievements at CP Kelco include helping the business implement a specialty differentiation strategy for its biogums product platform, completing several major capacity expansions and achieving significant improvements in manufacturing reliability, process capability and product quality.

Viala received his CESA in Business Management from HEC Paris and holds a degree in Engineering from AgroParisTech in France.