Edward J. Donnelly

Edward J. Donnelly is the president of the International Paint and Printing Ink Council and a senior fellow at the Council on Competitiveness. He recently retired from Dupont after 37 years in a variety of business, functional and regional positions. His last position was senior vice president of corporate affairs, and immediately prior he was the group vice president of Dupont Coatings and Color Technologies, one of Dupont's five business platforms.

Donnelly taught chemistry before joining Dupont as a chemist in 1969 at the Marshall R&D Laboratory in Philadelphia. Since then, he has been in research, planning, human resources, new business development and business roles in Troy and Mount Clemens, MI; Fort Madison, IA; and Wilmington, DE. He played an instrumental role in the acquisition of the Ford Motor Company's Paint Operations and became the director of Dupont Automotive before relocating to Geneva, Switzerland, where he was the European director of engineering polymers.

He returned to the United States as director of planning and was the lead negotiator for the acquisition of Herberts GmbH coatings business, a $2 billion business addition for DuPont. At that time, he was appointed vice president of the Global Refinish and Industrial Coatings business and DuPont Performance Coatings Americas and was subsequently appointed to group vice president for the Coatings and Color Technologies platform.

Donnelly has served as vice chairman and treasurer of the National Paint and Coatings Association and then as chairman before his retirement. For the past year, he has been an Senior fellow to the Council on Competitiveness. He has been married to his wife, Caren, for almost 40 years, has four successful grown children and three grandsons. He currently lives in Avondale, PA.