Global Cement recently sat down with Philippe Richart, the new CEO of the World Cement Association...
Global Cement (GC): Please would you introduce yourself to our readers?
Philippe Richart (PR): I began my career in 1989 as a construction engineer on a subway system in Taiwan. I became very fond of Asia, where I’ve spent most of my 35-year career to date. In 1996, I came to the cement industry with Lafarge (now Holcim), working on a project to build a second clinker line at a cement plant near Beijing. The scope of my function changed, as I became involved with acquisitions, one of them in Chongqing. I moved to the group’s headquarters, where I worked on Eastern European countries post acquisition. Here, I became involved with stakeholders like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and gained experience with joint venture dynamics.
I then returned to Asia as Holcim’s Concrete Director in Vietnam. The market was booming at this time, with 40% growth year on year, but then came a big ‘bust.’ This provided a whole host of other challenges to deal with. 60% of our demand disappeared in just a few months!
I subsequently moved to Sri Lanka as Country CEO and then, after Holcim divested its Sri Lankan assets, to Siam City Cement. I then moved back to Vietnam as Country CEO, before taking over a regional executive role overseeing South East Asia. I later moved to a similar role in West Africa overseeing the company’s activity in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Benin and Guinea.
I have been the new CEO of the World Cement Association (WCA) since 1 January 2026.
GC: What attracted you to the WCA?
PR: I’ve had wonderful experiences and great opportunities in the cement sector over the past 30 years and have learned a lot. I now want to give something back to the industry and I see the WCA as a great platform to do so.
Secondly, and connected to my first point, I will be able to use my experience in various markets in Asia and Africa, which are the key growth areas for the sector in the coming decades. I believe that my previous leadership roles in the cement sector and my experience of engaging with various stakeholders, such as joint-ventures, governments and authorities, would be a great help when leading an international organisation.
Thirdly, I believe that the WCA, which brings together cement producers of all sizes, large groups as well as independent producers from all over the world to ensure equal representation, has created the right platform for sharing experiences, learning, improving plant performance and tackling the challenges facing the industry together, including climate change.
GC: What do you see as the WCA’s most important role for our sector?
PR: Cement is an irreplaceable material but the industry is facing great challenges, such as decarbonisation, rising energy costs and growing global overcapacity. The role of the WCA is to represent and defend the interest of its members, the independent cement producers worldwide.
I’ve also seen the emergence of a lot of regional and local players, especially in emerging markets throughout my career so far. Many of these producers are not equipped as well as the multinationals. A global group can trial a solution in a given country and - if it works - replicate it across all other regions. The ability to share and rapidly transfer knowledge is a key competitive advantage. The cement sector has also seen rapid transformations and innovations in the last 10 - 15 years, not always easy to adapt to.
So… I believe there is a need to bring awareness and share the latest expertise and technology. The WCA has created a place where its members can develop a community in which to do better business. This is supported by our diversity - about half of our members are cement manufacturers and around half are technology and equipment suppliers.
GC: What would you say have been the WCA’s biggest achievements over its first 10 years?
PR: As it enters its 10th year in operation, the WCA is unrecognisable from its early days. Membership has grown to more than 70 members from all over the globe. There’s a mix of cement producers, equipment suppliers, engineering firms and tech start-ups that look at performance improvement, CO2 reduction and more.
There has been quite a lot of development in terms of what the WCA offers its members. WCA has established committees where all members are invited to contribute. For example, the ‘Operations and Performance’ committee focuses on industrial efficiency. We have the ‘Zero Carbon & Environment’ committee, which specialises in decarbonisation solutions within the plant, while the ‘Product, Materials and Concrete’ committee looks at decarbonisation in terms of product offerings. The WCA Pegasus program, which benchmarks cross country plant performance is well received, as it helps our members to see how they are doing against their peers.
Finally, I understand that the WCA Conference has always been well received with strong engagement from audiences, participating in active discussion with great comments in terms of both relevance of the content and the ability to obtain useful, high-quality information. The WCA also had a big impact in raising awareness on sustainability
GC: What are your aims for the WCA under your leadership?
PR: Firstly, I would like to expand the membership base. I also want to ensure that the WCA has a good geographical balance among its members with stronger representations in Europe, Africa and some countries in Asia. We also want to maintain good diversity, with a mixture of clinker and cement producers, associations, equipment providers, engineering firms, universities and more.
Secondly, I would like to engage very proactively with our current and future members. I would like to travel to meet them and their teams to deepen our relationships and to better understand their expectations and needs.
Thirdly, based on its enlarged base, more expertise and active engagement, the WCA may offer additional services to respond to our members. As examples, competence development, trading or business intelligence are themes that are often shared as points of interest.
Last but not least as I said earlier, I will defend the interest of our members and the wider industry.
GC: What aspects of your previous roles do you expect to draw on as CEO?
PR: During my career, I have consistently driven performance, led excellence programs and promoted innovation and agility in the organisation, always with the triple bottom line - financial, social and sustainability - in mind. I believe this is still at the core of WCA members’ strategies.
As we discussed earlier, providing best practice platforms, tools and methodologies to ensure successful knowledge transfer that can be deployed quickly and systematically is the DNA of the WCA. This is something I have been very keen to foster, to accelerate change and enhance performance.
I’ve had the opportunity to work across many continents and understand very well that economic, regulatory and cultural environments can be different in each market. Consequently, WCA members may have different priorities while, at the same time, they will all face the same macro challenges and megatrends. And don’t forget that worker safety is cement producers’ first priority. This is an area in which the WCA can also actively help its members.
GC: How will the WCA encourage members to decarbonise under your leadership?
PR: Decarbonisation will certainly be one of the key challenges facing the industry. Overall, the cement industry has been able to significantly reduce emissions as international climate commitments have been made. Embodied CO2 emissions are falling, although there are big variations across regions and countries. These results have come without compromising financial performance. On the contrary, they came from low-cost drivers. The WCA would like to continue to promote those initiatives, some of which are still underutilised by the sector. These include:
- Reducing the clinker factor with faster adoption of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), LC3 cements, pozzolans and similar initiatives;
- Increasing alternative fuel substitution rates, particularly domestic refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and industrial waste, as well as biogenic fuels
- Improving energy efficiency through increased use of waste heat recovery, renewable energy, advanced process control, and AI optimisation, to reduce emissions while offsetting rising energy costs.
The good news is that the decarbonisation of the cement sector has triggered innovation along the entire value chain and the emergence of many start-ups. This is true from low-CO2 raw materials, new SCMs, CO2 mineralisation, engineered binders, smart blends, AI-based optimisation, etc.
However, further emissions reductions will require high capital requirements that impact the cement sector’s bottom line or put significant cost burdens on end users. To reach further ambitious targets, new and innovative technology or processes will be required. Today current carbon capture technologies require investment exceeding the capital cost of an entire cement plant.
Cement is irreplaceable and vital for the infrastructure that underpins a green economy. It will require collaborative actions, the careful implementation of broader mechanisms - regulatory, financial and technical. Examples include the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) and the EU Innovation Fund. These approaches show how governments can support decarbonisation, although they are still lacking in many markets. Some types of legislation may even trigger unfair competition across borders.
GC: How will AI affect the cement sector?
PR: I am glad that you’ve asked this question. In fact, digitalisation and AI adoption will be the main theme of the WCA 2026 Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, in April 2026. AI is right up there with decarbonisation in terms of the impact it will have in the sector. Indeed, it already is having an impact – and it will help with decarbonisation to a great extent. At the moment, the impacts are mainly being seen in plant optimisation, where we can see energy efficiency gains of 5-15% for some solutions. There will be a drive to obtain more and more data from the plant, to better optimise the process.
Other key areas for decarbonisation are distribution and quality control/prediction. Regardless of where AI is deployed, those that embrace it will quickly gain a competitive advantage.
GC: Do you think the large multinationals are - once again - best placed to take the advantage?
PR: Not necessarily... Adoption of new technologies is rapid in emerging markets and by smaller producers that don’t need to go through laborious decision-making processes before they implement projects. I’ve seen this firsthand in Vietnam and West Africa, where the new generations are very keen to adopt new approaches.
GC: We often hear that there are issues with attracting younger staff to our ‘old, grey’ sector. Do you think AI has the potential to reverse this?
PR: I think attracting staff was a problem 10 - 15 years ago, certainly in developed markets, but less so today. Cement production is changing before our eyes from an old, grey, polluting sector to a green-tech sector. This is an attractive transition for younger people to be part of.
GC: In an interview with us in 2025, your predecessor Ian Riley advised his successor to ‘travel a lot and ‘challenge members’ with ‘controversial topics.’ What do you make of this advice?
PR: Travel in this job is non-negotiable and I look forward to visiting members all over the world as a key part of my role. In terms of controversial topics, I think most of these lie within the decarbonisation sphere still. As mentioned, many members are at an early point in their decarbonisation journey and some may still think that it’s ‘not for them.’
GC: How will the WCA change in the future?
PR: As well as adding members and developing new initiatives to better respond to our members’ needs, the WCA is becoming more regionalised. We already have a regional platform in China and are establishing one in Dubai. This is another example of how we can be closer to our members. I would like more of this.
GC: How will the cement sector develop in the next 5 - 10 years?
PR: This centuries-old industry has not changed for decades, but today there is a real transformation underway. This is not only in terms of processes, production or efficiency, but also in terms of new demand from the market. Developers and specifiers are increasingly requesting sustainable solutions.
In the future, there will need to be much closer collaboration between producers and users, with greater integration of cement and other building materials. Developed markets will move towards full circularity for building materials, with the lines between different materials blurring to some degree. This will be done with sustainable construction at its heart. The WCA is ready to play its part!
GC: Thank you for your time today, Philippe.
PR: You are very welcome indeed!
