Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAurorium Holdings LLC, the longtime Indianapolis-based chemicals manufacturer that formerly did business as Vertellus, has named Faye Freeman as its new top executive, the company announced this week.
Freeman, who became the company’s CEO at the beginning of December, previously served as Aurorium’s president. She succeeds John Van Hulle, who joined the company as CEO in 2018.
As part of his planned retirement, Van Hulle will transition into the role of executive chairman at Aurorium.
“Faye is a fantastic leader with a proven track record of commercial and operational excellence,” Van Hulle said in a written statement. “I’ve worked closely with her for many years and am incredibly confident that she is the right leader for our company’s next chapter of continued growth and innovation.”
Freeman has more than 20 years of experience in the specialty chemicals, polymers and semiconductor industries. She joined Aurorium in 2019, initially serving in a United Kingdom-based position as vice president for Europe and India and general manager of the company’s fine chemicals division. She was named president in 2021.
Aurorium makes specialty ingredients and performance-enhancing materials that are used in everything from soaps and toothpastes to batteries and underwater cables. The company has its corporate headquarters in downtown Indianapolis and more than a dozen offices and manufacturing sites in the U.S., Europe, China and India.
The company traces its roots back to 1857 as a maker of castor oil. It became Vertellus in 2006 when Reilly Industries, formerly Reilly Tar & Chemical, merged with Rutherford Chemicals.
Vertellus went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 and was acquired by its lenders for $454 million in debt relief. The company was acquired by Chicago-based Pritzker Private Capital, along with members of the Vertullus management team, in 2020.
Vertellus rebranded as Aurorium in March 2023. The company’s Indianapolis manufacturing plant, which employed 159 people at 1500 S. Tibbs Ave., closed last year.
An Aurorium spokeswoman declined to say how many people the company currently employs, but at the time of its rebranding last year, the company said it had more than 1,400 employees.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
