Dow Employees Travel to Indonesia to Develop Sustainable, Community-Driven Solutions while Enhancing Leadership Skills

MIDLAND, Mich.

For the third consecutive year, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) has committed to combining leadership and business development while simultaneously addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges. From September 26 – October 3, 2015, Dow will send 42 employees from 24 global locations to Surabaya, Indonesia to work with nonprofit organizations and address long-standing challenges in a key growth market for the Company. The program, Leadership in Action (LIA), is being held for the first time in Asia and in one of Dow’s focused growth geographies. The company recently opened its first sales office in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province.

Pairing talent development with global citizenship, LIA offers Dow employees the opportunity to partner with on-the-ground, local organizations in emerging geographies to develop sustainable community-driven solutions. In Indonesia this year, employees will work with three universities and four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to address challenges related to education, agriculture, water and community development. The Dow employees have been working virtually with their colleagues since April 2015 on various projects, and will travel to Surabaya in September to work side-by-side with their Indonesian counterparts to present their proposals. The Dow teams and their local partners will then work together to reach the most suitable solutions and by the end of October, Dow will present the final solutions.

“Leadership in Action exposes our employees to real-world challenges in emerging economies,” said Johanna Söderström, Dow’s corporate vice president of human resources and aviation. “These projects serve as exceptional development opportunities for our employees, who become visionaries for new business development opportunities while learning first-hand the realities of working in unknown situations that test their leadership, decision-making and problem-solving skills.”

“As part of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals, we have committed to positively impacting the lives of one billion people over the next 10 years,” said Rob Vallentine, Dow’s director of global citizenship and president of The Dow Chemical Company Foundation. “Leadership in Action is helping us accomplish this goal while leaving a lasting impact on both our employees and the strategic communities in which we see growth opportunities. This year in particular, our employees will be collaborating with NGOs, government agencies and civic groups on sustainable development projects, with the ultimate goal of creating sustainable communities.”

Dow’s LIA is a collaboration between Dow Sustainability Corps (DSC), the Company’s skills-based employee engagement program, and the Company’s human resources function. LIA leverages the goals of DSC and human resources to generate solutions to global challenges and exceptional leadership development opportunities.

For additional information and to learn more about Dow’s commitment to sustainability and global citizenship, please visit www.dow.com. This year’s program can be followed online or via Twitter at #DowLeads.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2014, Dow had annual sales of more than $58 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 201 sites in 35 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

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The Dow Chemical Company
Sara Steele, 202-429-3428
smsteele@dow.com