Dow has named Karen S. Carter as its next CEO, making her the first Black woman to lead a major U.S. chemical company, effective July 1. She will replace Jim Fitterling, who has led Dow since before its separation from DowDuPont in 2019, according to a report by Chemical & Engineering News.

Since 2024, Carter has been Dow’s chief operating officer, co-anchoring Dow’s quarterly analyst conference calls with Fitterling and Dow’s chief financial officer, Jeff Tate, the report added.

Dow said it chose Carter as its next CEO following a “multi-year, thoughtful succession planning process.” Carter started working at Dow in 1994 as a sales specialist in its plastic-film business. Before that, she interned for the company as a marketing student at Howard University.

Today, she has what has been described as “deep expertise” across Dow’s operations in 29 countries with 34,600 employees.

Before becoming COO, Carter served as Dow’s president of packaging and specialty plastics — the company’s largest operating segment at $23 billion, Fortune reported. She “led value growth through asset upgrades, capacity expansions and improved reliability, while advancing circular economy solutions,” in that role.

Carter has, in all, held leadership positions within segments including building and construction, fabricated products, IT equipment, polyethylene, engineering thermoplastics, and consumer electronics. She even became Dow’s first chief inclusion officer in 2018.

That same year, she told the Disrupt Yourself Podcast (PDF) about a speech that then-CEO Andrew N. Liveris made during the announcement of her role. “He acknowledged that our company, like many other US-based companies, that we were falling behind in the effort to build more diversity in our workforce but also eliminate bias in our actions,” Carter recalled.

“And I’ll tell you what: that honesty was extremely refreshing. But he was also extremely compelling in his conviction that our company needed to reflect the world we were becoming and not the world we left behind.”

Carter will be one of only over 50 female CEOs running Fortune 500 companies right now. The 55-year-old will also be the third Black female CEO running a Fortune 500 company today, alongside TIAA’s Thasunda Brown Duckett and DTE’s Joi Harris.

Dow is at No. 103 on the Fortune 500, with almost $40 billion in annual revenue. 

Carter said she is “deeply honored” to be given this role and can’t wait to lead the materials science company “into our next chapter.”

“Dow has extraordinary people, world-class assets and leading positions in the markets we serve,” Carter added. “Our focus remains unwavering: delivering reliable and innovative solutions for our customers, and long-term value for our employees and our shareholders, while accelerating our transformation to set a new competitive standard for best-in-class performance.

“I look forward to continuing my partnership with Jim in his new role as Executive Chair, and to working with the Board and all of Team Dow to advance our strategy and deliver on our priorities.”

Carter holds a degree from Howard and a master’s degree in international business from DePaul University.