This section includes additional information not found on resume. I’m currently seeking a full-time position.

Product Manager, Performance Chemicals (January 2022 - April 2025)

  • Reporting to Global Vice President of Sales & Marketing

  • Responsible for North and South America; personal care, industrial, home care, HI&I, agrochemical, and construction markets with global new product launches – including direct reports

  • Multi-disciplined project manager for new product & process development teams; Agile & Lean methodologies

  • Cross-departmental global product commercialization and decommercialization manager, cradle-to-grave

  • Led marketing team activities and direction for new product launch strategies and materials

  • Managed the sample fulfillment services department

  • Built business cases and plans for new business development opportunities

  • Developed several new processes utilized across multiple departments

  • Strong root-cause-analysis (RCA) background solving customer technical and operations issues

Senior Site Engineer (May 2019 - January 2022)

  • Reporting to Vice President of Manufacturing

  • Principal responsibilities in capital project management for 20+ concurrent projects, up to $10 million each

  • I was brought into the Salisbury, NC manufacturing site to grow the footprint by 3x in 4 years - which we did

Global revenue: $1.8 Billion (2024)

Local revenue: $600 Million

Sector: Manufacturing, Specialty Chemicals

Global size: 2,000 - 2,500 employees

Local division size: 300 - 400 employees

Explanation for resignation: I made the difficult decision to resign from Innospec following a global organizational restructuring aimed at aligning with our EU counterpart’s hierarchy regarding new product and process development activities. This resulted in the loss of a core and highly fulfilling aspect of my role as an unintended consequence.

Further, as an entrepreneurial-minded person always thinking of ways to innovate, I wanted to take the opportunity to commit to focusing on the final development and design hours required to get my side-business, online software product launched (see bottom of this page).

I’ll soon have letters of recommendation from both the Senior Vice President of Technology and the Global Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Innospec. Both are respected mentors who have endorsed my contributions to global project & product development leadership and understand the reasoning for my resignation.

Product Manager, Performance Chemicals & Imaging Materials (July 2017 - May 2019)

  • Responsible for all manufactured products out of High Point, NC facility, >170 active products

  • Evaluated feasibility for all new projects including new product development, costing, capital expenditure, timeline, and capacity estimates

  • Functioned as tolling manager for site (produce vs. outsource); contract framework drafting and negotiation

  • Sales analysis; product-mix-level and customer-level health, pushing price changes

  • Single point of contact/liaison between engineering/operations/production planning groups for the business group

  • Main point of contact for all customer commercial, technical, quality, product/process changes, application

  • Managed internal customer complaint resolution system

  • Automated several internal processes from financial reporting to budget drafting, product costing dependencies, and business plan simulation for a $600 million greenfield new construction manufacturing plant

Process Engineer (March 2014 - July 2017)

  • Lead process engineer for Plant #1; Project management; five to ten approved capital projects per year

  • Support new product development and stage-gate commercialization (piloting, scale-up, commercialization)

  • Systems Management; Honeywell DCS batch recipe manager

  • SQC/SPC data analysis with change proposals and implementation

  • Championed annual shutdown teams for plants #1 and #2; internal vessel inspections, LOTO supervisor and controller, capital project integrations, PM schedules – while working directly with contractor project managers and construction crews

  • PSM, ISO 9001, RC14001, Management of change (MOC), RMP

Global revenue: $14 billion

Local revenue: $300 Million

Sector: Manufacturing, Chemicals

Global size: 2,000 - 2,500 employees

Local size: 250 - 275 employees

Production & Process Development Engineer (December 2011 - March 2014)

  • Process development engineer and lead project manager for $5 million technology transfer for the largest chemical company in the world including a new DCS controls system, refurbishment and retrofit of a new 4-story structure with 13 unit operations

  • Lead production engineer, focused on toll manufacturing – specialty & fine chemicals batch processes

  • Led hands-on team running pilot equipment for several new product development projects

  • Led multiple production lines for small to Fortune 100 customers

Revenue: $865 Million

Sector: Manufacturing, Specialty Chemicals

Size: 2,000 - 2,500 employees

Owner & Founder

  • FORTRION LLC., D.B.A. SAMPLEFUL - the product

  • Having a background in managing sample departments for manufactured and R&D products, not only understanding the internal struggles with information transparency and the impact on productivity in sample fulfillment, but also the external struggles customers face every day from not knowing where their sample requests stand, when they’re delivering, and more

  • SAMPLEFUL is an online software as a service (SaaS) platform that companies (clients) can use to greatly expand their information transparency with the internal teams, distribution teams, and customers

  • Client setup is 100% in the hands of the client and in as little as 5 minutes, without any help required from the SAMPLEFUL team

  • Everything is managed and operated at maximum efficiency with predetermined user permission levels - easy to set up and maintain

  • Client data is managed and insured on world-class cloud architecture with custom enterprise options for additional layers of security, such as dedicated server hardware, 2-factor authentication (“2-FA”), custom back-up intervals, and more

*Information found on this site is shared with specific recipients and may not be re-shared with additional parties without express permission received by James Kelley

Established: November 2024

Sector: Online software as a service (SaaS)

Revenue: $0

Size: 2 (founder & co-founder) plus part-time contract employees for design work

This business is a glorified hobby with a realistic objective of minimal oversight, passive income, and potential future sale - only worked on during evening hours collaborating with co-founder & best friend of 25 years, senior software developer and Vice President of Technology for a sizeable organization