Currently happening this month (Nov. 2018) at the RISI (Boston, Mass., USA) International Containerboard Conference, Jim Porter, WestRock President of Business Development & Latin America, will be presented with the RISI Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication and leadership to the industry.

Jim began his career in 1974 with a degree in Forest Management from the University of Missouri and a first job as field forester with Menasha in their Washington State timberlands. He worked for independent, privately held paper packaging companies for 34 years. After demonstrating success in many functions from fiber procurement to general management of a large virgin containerboard mill, he joined Steven Grossman at Southern Container Corp. in 1993, where he helped to build and lead a new recycled containerboard mill in Solvay, New York. The mill leadership built a strong team culture which aimed to engage and empower employees.

His success led to being promoted to President in 2002. In 2008, Southern Container joined RockTenn, which had $1.8 billion in sales. Jim and the RockTenn/Westrock team’s competitive strategy drove dramatic growth through numerous acquisitions and mergers; including Smurfit Stone in 2011, the MWV merger that formed WestRock in 2015, the recent KapStone acquisition and substantial investments in Mexico through the Grupo Gondi Joint Venture and Brazil Investments including the new Porto Feliz Box Plant and Tres Barras Virgin Mill expansion. Now $20 billion in run rate sales, WestRock is the second largest paper and packaging company in the world.

Jim believes the three keys of successful leadership are building an inspiring culture, a winning competitive strategy and setting huge goals. Drawing from his four decades of experience, he says "Management can take a control-and-push approach...but effective leaders use a ‘pull mentality’ to inspire, facilitate and empower their people."