Rajiv Banavali

Rajiv Banavali is the senior VP, science and innovation at Westrock.   Reporting to Patrick Lindner, President, Rajiv leads building materials science capabilities for creating new products, processes, and services across the company with a focus on sustainability and innovation.

Rajiv partners with WestRock’s Commercial, Digital, Marketing and Innovation teams to advance our innovation strategy with a strong focus on more environmentally sustainable products, breakthrough packaging designs and the digitalization of packaging.

Rajiv joined WestRock from Huntsman Corporation, a $9 billion global manufacturing company of chemical products for consumers and industrial customers with manufacturing and R&D operations in more than 30 countries  Most recently, Rajiv served as the global vice president, Research and Technology, Textiles. In this role, he led research and development centers in Asia and Europe and built sustainability practices for textiles in the clothing industry. During his career, Rajiv has lived and worked in the U.S. and Singapore.

Prior to Huntsman, Rajiv worked for Honeywell International as the vice president and chief technology officer, Advanced Materials, where he led the Global Research and Innovation organization that commercialized refrigerant products with a significantly lower global warming impact.

He has more than 80 publications, including 40 patents/applications, and has developed and commercialized several new processes, products, and applications, with high profitability and sales more than $5 billion. His areas of expertise are in Dyes, catalysis, polymer products, organic synthesis, process development and a variety of applications in Films, Fibers, Additives, Fine chemicals, Biofuels, Photovoltaic, Li battery, and water treatment.

Rajiv holds degrees in chemistry from the University of Mumbai, as well as a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Missouri – St. Louis. He also served for two years as Robert A. Welch Fellow at Texas Christian University.

 Rajiv is based in Atlanta with his wife Marysusan.