Interview: John Televantos on Chemical Engineers in Finance and Overcoming Career Obstacles

4/6   in the series 2017 Spring Interview Series

John Televantos, partner at Arsenal Capital Partners, sat down after his keynote address to speak with Shariq Yosufzai, vice president at Chevron.

Arsenal Capital Partners is a middle market private equity firm focused on the specialty industrial, healthcare and specialty financial service sectors. Before joining Arsenal in 2006, Dr. Televantos was president of Aqualon Company, owned by Hercules, Inc.; president and founder of Helios Chemical Company; and CEO for Foamex International.

Chemical engineers and careers in finance

In this video, John discusses his AGILE Award talk entitled "Chemical Engineers Can Do Anything," and offers advice to young leaders in the chemical engineering world.

Creative people are creative again and again. 

He discusses his path from chemical engineering to private equity. Furthermore, he discusses the difference between private equity and venture capital, and notes how chemical engineers have strong opportunities in each area.

Dealing with career obstacles

In his speech, John discussed several pieces of advice that he has gained over the years. Among them, he suggests that collaboration is critical for development. Many feel guarding their knowledge and know-how is critical, but this can be isolating. As he sees it, sharing knowledge leads to growth, because ideas and creativity are not finite.

He also suggests taking to heart the adage of treating others as you wish to be treated, as difficult as it can sometimes be.

Finally, Shariq and John talked about AIChE's Foundation's Doing a World of Good Campaign, a multi-year effort to raise money to advance chemical engineering and bring that expertise to bear in addressing societal needs. John is one of the campaign's founding donors and Shariq is the vice chair of the Foundation Board of Trustees.

Learn more about how you can get involved.