Ahlstrom appoints Mary Puddepha as Chief People Officer

AHLSTROM OYJ PRESS RELEASE MAY 24, 2023 at 14.30 PM EEST

Ahlstrom has appointed Mary Puddepha as Chief People Officer and a member of the Executive Management Team, effective June 1, 2023. Mary will succeed Tarja Takko, EVP People & Culture, who is leaving Ahlstrom to pursue new opportunities outside the company, as previously announced.

In her role, Mary will lead Ahlstrom’s cultural transformation to help the company achieve its growth ambitions and vision of becoming the leading sustainable specialty materials company. She will relocate from the US and be based in the Netherlands.

Mary, a US and UK national, has a strong track record in leading business focused people strategies and teams for multinational organizations. She will join Ahlstrom from Syngenta, where she has worked since 2016, latest as Head of HR, Global Seeds. Prior to joining Syngenta, she has held HR positions at SABMiller, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM Global Business Services.

“I’m delighted to join Ahlstrom and for the opportunity to lead the development of the company’s people and culture strategy and continue the cultural transformation journey to enable Ahlstrom’s sustainable growth agenda. Success is all about people and how we work together. I’m looking forward to joining a company with a strong and inspiring purpose and with the possibility to contribute to building a more sustainable world with solutions that purify and protect,” says Mary Puddepha. 

“I’m confident that Mary’s outstanding experience in leading business focused people agendas and helping organizations and their employees thrive will help us greatly in enabling our sustainable growth,” says Helen Mets, President and CEO of Ahlstrom.

For more information, please contact:

Katja Ollila, Vice President, Group Marketing and Communications, +358 44 517 0891, katja.ollila@ahlstrom.com

Ahlstrom in brief
Ahlstrom is a global leader in combining fibers into sustainable specialty materials. Our purpose is to Purify and Protect, with Every Fiber, for a Sustainable World. Our vision is to be the Preferred Sustainable Specialty Materials Company for all our stakeholders. We serve five growing and distinctive end markets, which form the basis for our five divisions: Filtration, Food & Consumer Packaging, Healthcare, Building Materials, and Technical Materials. Our net sales in 2022 for continuing operations amounted to EUR 3.3 billion and we employ some 7,000 people. Read more at www.ahlstrom.com