CMPC Team Interview | Guilherme Viesi – Chief Commercial Officer

How long have you been in the Pulp business?  How will your previous experience help you in your new role at CMPC?

I started working for the Pulp and Paper industry in early 2007 in London for a Japanese trading company. It was a completely different experience from what I currently do. However it was a great school and taught me an important perspective of the dynamics and fundamentals of the pulp and paper market.

After a few years trading pulp in London I moved to Switzerland to work for the world’s largest pulp producer. Since then I have passed through different roles and responsibilities and had the opportunity to live in 3 different countries.

All those countries, languages, cultures and experiences gave me an enriching background which will certainly help in future challenges at CMPC.

At CMPC, we are very concerned about ensuring that our culture and values are in line with the relationship we have with our customers. Do you agree?

Ensuring that our customers are aligned with our values and culture is of fundamental importance for our long lasting relationship and the sustainability of our business.

Having customers who share our values is important because it takes the relationship from a «price discussion» to a «value creation» platform. We can only reach this level of partnership if both parties share the same values.

CMPC enjoys a reputation of having relationships with many customers for over 3 decades.

One of the main enablers of CMPC is innovation . How would this  drill down to our business?

Innovation is the vehicle which ensures we are constantly challenging the status quo.

When managed sustainably, our industry is a source of potentially infinite renewable materials and we must always seek to innovate and differentiate.

CMPC’s combination of sustainably-managed renewable raw material, combined with production expertise and investment in innovation,  gives us considerable leverage in the market.

I’m a firm believer in the pulp industry and there are a lot of synergies to be harvested from innovation.

How will new global pulp capacity affect the market?

Paper consumption is intrinsically linked to global GDP growth. Pulp consumption is growing on average between 0.5 and 1.5Mtons/year.

Furthermore there are always unexpected closures, conversions and technical problems which contribute to limiting the offer of pulp globally.

There are many important projects scheduled to come on stream over the next few years which will have a short-term impact on the supply -demand balance.

However the new projects in our industry are large, efficient and low cost and consequently displace the older, smaller and high cost capacity. Therefore the dynamics in our industry are efficient and balance themselves out.

COVID had an impact on CMPC ‘s customers. How will this affect CMPC’s commercial strategy?

COVID has impacted market dynamics in significant ways. It has changed consumer behaviour, trade flows and presented logistical challenges unthinkable before the pandemic. It drove demand for some paper grades and depressed demand for others.

All these changes only serve to highlight the importance of having the right team and customers who will be in business for the long term regardless of geography, segment or size.

Our team has developed a tool to ensure we are constantly reviewing our portfolio.

What are the business objectives for 2022?

2022 will be a challenging year. We can expect significant hurdles on logistics, credit and competition.

Moreover the lingering uncertainties related to COVID are not going away any time soon.

Internally we want to continue using BEST as our management tool and become even more customer focused.

Externally we aim to continue having the right customers, bringing them closer to CMPC, increasing the development and sales of value-added products, and paving the way for our future growth with Bio CMPC.

Overall the commercial department must ensure all stakeholders’ interests are addressed.