Black Bear appoints Commercial Director
EINDHOVEN, NETHERLANDS, MAY 2st 2022 – Black Bear, the Dutch tire upcycling company, has appointed Richard Dikkers as its new Commercial Director. Before joining Black Bear, Dikkers spent thirteen years at Oiltanking, most recently as Director New Business & Market Intelligence. In his new position he will support Black Bear in solving the global waste tire problem with the company’s circular economy-based business model.
Every year, 1.5 billion tires reach the end of their life. The vast majority gets dumped or incinerated, releasing massive amounts of CO2 and destroying valuable resources. Black Bear has developed an environmentally-friendly carbonization process to transform used tires into recovered Carbon Black (rCB) and Tyre Pyrolysis Oil (TPO), two valuable and sustainable materials which it sells to clients worldwide for use in tires, technical rubber, coatings, plastics or inks. Black Bear will develop its first industrial scale plant at Chemelot Industrial Park and Dikkers will have a key role in leading the company’s commercial strategy.
Richard Dikkers (39) has a master degree in Business Administration, and was holding various managerial positions in Finance, Sales and Business Development within Oiltanking. With this background, he brings extensive knowledge and experience to Black Bear Carbon.
Dikkers: “Black Bear is ready to roll-out its technology for recovering carbon black from end-of-life tires and realize a significant contribution to the circular economy. I can’t wait to help the company grow to the next level of circular entrepreneurship.”
Victor Vreeken, CEO of Black Bear, is excited about Dikkers joining the team: “At Black Bear, we believe the future of carbon black is green. We have been working very hard to spread the word about our sustainable solution around the world and we are very happy to have Richard in our team. He is an extremely skilled professional that can seriously contribute to our company reaching the next level. We believe that we can save considerable amounts of CO2 in the carbon black market, solve the waste-tire problem and operate a profitable business at the same time!”
About Black Bear
Black Bear is a green, recovered carbon black (rCB) manufacturer that produces carbon black using end-of-life tires as a resource material. Black Bear is changing the industry with breakthrough technology and passionate people. The company plans to lead the transition towards a circular economy for tires by rolling out multile upcycling plants with local partners around the world, first focusing on Europe. At its full potential of repurposing every end-of-life tire with its circular solution, Black Bear will reduce global annual oil consumption by more than 215 million barrels. After six years of testing and two years of production experience, Black Bear is now ready to roll-out its concept worldwide and start producing on large commercial scale. Also see www.blackbearcarbon.com.
Press contacts:
Evelien Dittrich – evelien.dittrich@blackbearcarbon.com
Annelies Putman Cramer, Fair Focus – annelies@fairfocus.nl