60 | theceomagazine.com
W
hen is watching paint dry exciting?
When it’s viewed through the eyes of
Oscar Wezenbeek. He’s the Managing
Director of AkzoNobel Decorative
Paints for South-East and South Asia
and is as passionate about his product
today as the day he joined the company three decades ago.
“If it drives, floats or flies, we cover it,” he enthuses.
“Even the mobile phone you’ve got in your hands is
probably coated by us. We provide the whole spectrum,
from the regular paints consumers require to decorate
their homes, to the high-performance coatings to protect
sensitive equipment.
“We’re the market leaders in coating aeroplanes,” Oscar
adds. “Imagine an aeroplane taking off in tropical weather
here in Singapore and within a matter of minutes it flies
all the way up to 9,000 metres where it’s cold, or maybe
even hailing. The metal is expanding and shrinking as it
passes through all those extremes, so you need a durable
paint that can withstand all these varying conditions within
a short period.”
When not flying the skies, AkzoNobel’s paints are
coating Singapore’s Burkill Hall, Sydney’s Harbour Bridge,
Malacca’s Stadthuys, Milan’s La Scala, The New York Times
Building, the London Eye and the world’s largest ferris
wheel, still under construction, the Dubai Eye.THEWORLD
Painting
OSCAR WEZENBEEK
HAS NO TROUBLE
PAINTING A PICTURE
ABOUT AKZONOBEL
PAINTS, AS HE’S BEEN
WITH THE COMPANY
FOR THREE DECADES.WORDS WENDY KAY
IMAGES YEW KWANG