Dow's New CEO Takes Over Just as the Tailwind Lifting Its Results Fades
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Dow's new CEO takes over just as the tailwind lifting its results fades.
Karen Carter was promoted to CEO effective July 1, the insider Dow's board chose over an outside hire. She joined as an intern in 1994. She rose through sales, the plastics business, and human resources, then ran Packaging and Specialty Plastics, Dow's largest segment. She became chief operating officer in December 2024. She is also the first woman and first Black CEO in Dow's nearly 130-year history.
The board did not reach outside. It promoted the executive who helped design Transform to Outperform, the cost program she now has to finish. And Jim Fitterling is not gone. He becomes Executive Chair, still chairing the board she answers to and steering long-term strategy.
Finishing the cuts plays to what Carter has proven: operational discipline. What she has never done is allocate capital to reposition the portfolio for growth. That is the harder job once the cost program ends, and the one Fitterling's continued influence may shape most.
The backdrop is unforgiving. Dow lost $2.4 billion in 2025 and opened 2026 with a $445 million quarterly loss. It is 55% of the way through cutting roughly 4,500 roles.
The beat that made headlines was not Carter's quarter. Second-quarter results, reported July 23, swung to a profit and topped expectations, lifted by a roughly 40% rise in polyethylene prices under Fitterling. Carter's first quarter as CEO is the third, already guided down to about $1.7 billion in operating earnings from $2.3 billion. Her first report as CEO, due in late October, is the quarter guided lower.
At Eagle Talon, we weigh a CEO against the job ahead, not the one just finished. Carter has run Dow's businesses. She has never had to decide where they grow next.
Once the cutting is done, can an operator who came up inside Dow become the capital allocator who decides where it grows next?
