The ChemQuest Group, Inc. recently announced the addition of David Youland in the position of director. Youland spent half of his 35+-year-career with Eastman Chemical Co. He is reportedly recognized for strengths in market research, competitive intelligence, strategic planning, new product and market development, acquisition evaluation, and the development of strategic alliances and partnerships.

Most recently at Eastman’s Strategy, Insights and Analytics organization (2016-2018), Youland led a global research team in the design and implementation of research and strategy projects that delivered market, customer, and competitor insights to drive organic and inorganic growth. He accomplished this by partnering with Eastman businesses to provide critical insights in automotive OEM buying behavior, Chinese consumer perceptions, key account strategies, competitor intelligence, agriculture market opportunity analysis, retailer engagement, and polymer market mapping.

From 2012-2016, Youland established and led Eastman’s Research, Strategy and Competitive Intelligence function for its Plasticizer Business Organization, which identified new revenue streams and increased its front-end product portfolio. Concurrently, Eastman initiated an antidumping investigation against Korean competitors by leveraging the competitor intelligence that Youland developed.

For Eastman’s PCI Business Organization, Youland refreshed business strategy for a key specialty chemical acquisition, leading to increased margins while maximizing differentiation of “commodity” products. Earlier at Eastman, he worked to develop robust key account strategies for the company’s largest strategic accounts, which created substantial organic growth opportunities. 

“While I was at Eastman, I worked with ChemQuest as a client and was always impressed with depth of experience of the team and the meaningful insights that they were able to provide that enabled us to make informed strategy choices as we pursued growth opportunities,” said Youland. “Eastman’s relationship with ChemQuest goes back to 1999 with repeat engagements across multiple businesses. I look forward to leveraging my expertise in specialty chemicals organic growth and market and business intelligence to ChemQuest clients to drive their future growth.” 

According to Dan Murad, president and CEO of ChemQuest, “We are very excited to welcome David Youland to our practice. He brings extensive specialty chemical research and business experience and has the unique ability to provide deep insights utilizing a common-sense approach that will benefit ChemQuest Technology Institute clients. We enjoyed working with him at Eastman where we have completed over 100 projects over the past 30 years. We look forward to introducing him to our client-base and their individual objectives.”

For more information, visit www.chemquest.com.