Juan R. Luciano has been named to lead the company starting in 2015.

 

CHICAGO — Juan R. Luciano has been named chief executive officer of Archer Daniels Midland Co. He will succeed Patricia Woertz, who will remain chairman of the board and is expected to retire in May 2016. Mr. Luciano’s appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2015.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to lead our great company and team into the future,” Mr. Luciano said. “Under Pat’s leadership, we have made exceptional progress creating a high-performance, results-focused company. My commitment is to build on that success by accelerating our pace of progress. This is an exciting time, with tremendous opportunities, and all of us at ADM are committed to leveraging our core model to achieve new levels of value-creation. I look forward to working with my colleagues to extend our more than 100-year record of success.”

Ms. Woertz was named president and c.e.o. of ADM in April 2006. She was elected chairman of the board in Feb. 2007.

“When I joined ADM in 2006, one of the areas the board asked me to focus on was leadership development and succession planning, with the goal of ensuring an eventual seamless and successful transition to the next c.e.o.,” she said. “As I look ahead to fulfilling a decade of service to the company, the time feels right to begin that succession. ADM’s future is so bright.

“We have improved the company’s returns and crafted a strategic plan to achieve further improvements. We have worked hard to build the company’s earnings power and now — with good global demand, large global harvests and the expansion of our higher-margin business with the acquisition of Wild Flavors — we are well positioned for greater success.”

Mr. Luciano joined ADM in 2011. Before joining the company he was president of The Dow Chemical Company’s Performance division.