Dr. Stephen V Evans
Secretary General International Rubber Study Group (IRSG)
in an interview with M Noorani

Congratulations on taking over as Secretary General of the IRSG. Was it a difficult decision to change over from industry to the IRSG?
I am privileged to have been asked to take on this role and frankly accepting it was one of the quickest and easiest decisions I have ever taken in my life. The three years I spent living and working in Japan, during the early 90’s, were professionally and personally the most rewarding of my career and stand me in good stead for a smooth transition to life in Singapore. The other dimension to my enthusiasm for the role is its close proximity to both the natural and synthetic rubber market dynamics but also the rapidly expanding downstream markets within the Asian continent.

Dr. Stephen V Evans

You are the first Secretary General in over 20 years with experience from industry. What advantages do you see arising from your varied and excellent background?
Specifically related to my previous industry experience, I am keen to focus on developing new internal management and project management processes within IRSG and also to develop a culture of prioritization and cost benefit analysis. One of the strength’s of Shell historically is its use of Scenario Planning and I plan to develop this approach more rigorously within IRSG as we handle our forecasting capabilities.
Having spent the past couple of decades in the commercial world, I am confident that I understand the business drivers and concerns of many of our upstream and downstream industry members. I want to reach out to them, bring them closer to IRSG and encourage new members to join our organization due to the quality of our work, our knowledge base plus our ability to add value to their own businesses.

As Secretary General what would you consider your main priorities for the next few years?
Statistics is the life blood of the IRSG and after new focus over the past couple of years there is a recognition externally that the quality and relevance of this output has been steadily improving. Continued focus here is a given. The IRSG is a unique organization within the global rubber world as it relates to all segments of the industry, namely, natural rubber, synthetic rubber plus the myriad downstream applications and users. This offers us a unique opportunity to find topics and projects of common interest to work on plus set up discussion groups to move many of these issues forward for the common good. It is early days for me and too soon to define exactly what influence the IRSG can have here but I plan to give it my best shot and reposition the IRSG on a pedestal where people within our industry are confident to bring forward ideas, trusting in the quality of the work product and motives of the IRSG and our ability to set up or lead discussion groups. I want to encourage new member countries to join our organization. We are currently interacting with six new potential members but it is too early to share any details at this stage. I expect to be able to find a significant number of new industry companies who will find our value proposition attractive and want to join our Panel of Associates.