Barbara Garcia Arias is the director of business development at DSM, a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials, and involved in developing sustainable solutions in the field of plastics engineering to drive economic prosperity, environmental progress and social advancement.
Prior to that she worked for twelve years for Shell, Basell and LyondellBasell with a range of responsibilities: production engineer, product manager, global accounts manager and global marketing manager for sanitary applications in the field of polyolefins, always striving to develop long-term customer relationships. She graduated in Chemical Engineering from ETSEQ and completed a master's degree at the École National Supérieure du Pétrole et des Moteurs (France) in advanced technology of petrochemicals, polymers and plastics. She has lived in the Netherlands and France, and is currently in Brussels; she speaks English, French and Dutch. Her husband is Dutch and they have a son and a daughter.