Tessenderlo Group, Brussels, announced Jan. 30 that Steve Azzarello has joined Tessenderlo Kerley Inc. (TKI) as CEO and will be based at TKI’s Phoenix headquarters. He takes over from Luc Tack, who will become TKI executive president. Tack served as CEO and president in an interim role after CEO and President Jordan Burns opted to retire (GM Feb. 2, 2016) after some 20 years in senior management.
The company said Azzarello brings more than 30 years of business expertise in general management, strategic planning, sales and marketing, and operations. Most recently, he was executive vice president at H.J. Baker Inc. He has also served as vice president, commercial development, at Amcol International, a multinational company with interests in the chemical and industrial minerals sectors.
Azzarello holds an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech University.
In other management news, at TKI’s crop protection unit, NovaSource, Group Vice President David Cassidy retired effective Jan. 13, 2017. He had been with TKI since 2004. Jon Akins has taken over for Cassidy. He joined TKI in 2010 as vice president of regulatory and government affairs.