Seifi Ghasemi is out as the CEO of Air Products and Chemicals less than 2 weeks after losing control of the board at the industrial gas firm’s annual shareholder meeting. The new board named Eduardo F. Menezes CEO, effective Feb. 7.

Menezes, 61, has worked in the industrial gas industry, primarily at Praxair, since graduating as a chemical engineer from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His most recent position was leading that firm’s operations in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, overseeing $8 billion in annual sales and 18,000 employees. After Praxair and Linde merged in 2018, Menezes briefly continued that role in the combined firm.

The CEO change is a direct result of a successful activist campaign by the investment firm Mantle Ridge. A minority shareholder in Air Products, Mantle Ridge spent a large part of 2024 campaigning against Ghasemi and a corporate board that the investor portrayed as subservient. At Air Products’ annual meeting on Jan. 23, Mantle Ridge unseated three board members nominated by the company, including Ghasemi.

The Mantle Ridge campaign called for appointing Menezes as CEO. It also proposed that former Praxair CEO Dennis H. Reilley should lead the Air Products board. Reilley won a board seat at the annual meeting and was named vice chairman today. Wayne T. Smith, a board member who won reelection, will serve as chairman.

The result is an ignominious defeat for Ghasemi, 80, who has led Air Products since 2014 as the firm’s president, CEO, and board chairman. In recent years, Ghasemi has placed the global push for sustainability at the center of Air Products’ strategy, making heavy investments in clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide management.

Mantle Ridge, led by Paul Hilal—now an Air Products board member—based its campaign on criticizing that strategy as risky and capital intensive, as well as on the lack of a succession plan for Ghasemi.

“Leading Air Products over the last 10 years has been an honor and a privilege,” Ghasemi says in a press release. The firm has achieved “new heights” of profitability and growth over that time, he says. “That result is due to the hard work of the people of Air Products, and I have no doubt they will drive the Company’s continued success into the future.”

Craig Bettenhausen is a business reporter at C&EN.

Chemical & Engineering News ISSN 0009-2347 Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society