Norfolk Southern names Lori J. Ryerkerk to board of directors
ATLANTA, Jan. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) has appointed Lori J. Ryerkerk, former chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Celanese Corp., to the Board of Directors (the 'Board'). Ryerkerk brings more than three decades of global leadership experience in the energy, manufacturing, and chemical industries. Her appointment expands the Board to 14 members.
'Lori's extensive experience leading global operations and managing complex supply chain systems is a highly complementary addition to our board,' said Mark George, president and chief executive officer of Norfolk Southern. 'Her strong operational acumen and insights as a large rail customer will be tremendous assets as we continue establishing a disciplined and operationally led network to drive long-term growth and deliver exceptional service to our customers and the communities where we operate.'
Claude Mongeau, chair of Norfolk Southern's board, added: 'Lori's leadership as a public company CEO and her ability to foster a culture of high performance and top-notch execution align perfectly with Norfolk Southern's strategic vision. Her insights will help us position Norfolk Southern as the premiere choice to help our customers deliver for the American economy and grow year over year.'
'Joining the Norfolk Southern board is an honor,' said Lori J. Ryerkerk. 'Railroads are vital to the global economy, and I'm inspired by Norfolk Southern's commitment to operational excellence, enhancing safety, and driving sustainable growth. I look forward to contributing to its continued success and delivering additional value to our stakeholders.'
Ryerkerk was identified through a national search conducted by Diversified Search Group and selected in consultation with Ancora Holdings. This appointment is made pursuant to the terms of the agreement between Norfolk Southern Corporation and Ancora Holdings that was announced in November 2024, in which the parties agreed to work together in identifying an independent director to join the Board.
More about Lori J. Ryerkerk
Lori J. Ryerkerk is the former chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Celanese Corp., a Fortune 500 global chemical and specialty materials company based in Dallas, Texas. She joined Celanese in 2019 as CEO and became chairman in 2020. Under her leadership, Celanese achieved significant growth, completed transformative acquisitions, and advanced its industry-leading safety performance.
Ryerkerk's expertise in the energy industry spans more than 30 years. She served as executive vice president of global manufacturing at Shell Downstream Inc., overseeing operations at refineries and chemical sites worldwide. Prior to Shell, she held senior leadership roles at Hess Corp. and ExxonMobil, where she gained extensive experience in refining, chemicals, and global operations.
She holds a chemical engineering degree from Iowa State University and currently serves on the board of Eaton Corp., a leader in power management technologies. Her leadership and expertise in operations, safety, and sustainability make her a valuable addition to Norfolk Southern's board.
For more information about Norfolk Southern's board of directors and corporate governance, visit NorfolkSouthern.com.
About Norfolk Southern
Since 1827, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) and its predecessor companies have safely moved the goods and materials that drive the U.S. economy. Today, it operates a 22-state freight transportation network. Committed to furthering sustainability, Norfolk Southern helps its customers avoid approximately 15 million tons of yearly carbon emissions by shipping via rail. Its dedicated team members deliver approximately 7 million carloads annually, from agriculture to consumer goods. Norfolk Southern also has the most extensive intermodal network in the eastern U.S. It serves a majority of the country's population and manufacturing base, with connections to every major container port on the Atlantic coast as well as major ports in the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes. Learn more by visiting www.NorfolkSouthern.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump sends Bessent and Lutnick to haggle with Chinese on tariff war after Xi chat
Three members of Donald Trump's cabinet will meet with Chinese officials in London on Monday in an effort to deescalate or resolve the unprovoked trade war which Trump started with Beijing two months ago. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was 'pleased to announce' that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutnick would travel to London along with U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer for a sit-down with 'Representatives of China, with reference to the Trade Deal.' He added: 'The meeting should go very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' The president's announcement of yet more trade talks between Washington and Beijing comes just a day after a 90-minute phone call with Chinese president Xi Jinping, which Trump described as a 'very good' discussion of 'some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal.' A day earlier, he had complained that Xi was 'VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH' in a separate Truth Social post which was made as he was reportedly pushing for a leader-to-leader call with his Chinese counterpart. Last month, Trump cut the tariffs he'd imposed on Chinese imports from a whopping 154 percent to 30 percent after Bessent and Greer met with Chinese negotiators in Switzerland to deescalate the trade war the president had kicked off on April 2, the day he declared 'Liberation Day' to mark his decision to unilaterally tax American imports of goods from nearly every nation on earth. Trump and other administration officials have been frustrated by what they describe as China's failure to relax restrictions on the export of rare earth metals, which are used in manufacturing for advanced electric motors and other electronic products, including those with military applications, while China's government has bristled at a recent decision by the U.S. to impose export controls that will prevent American companies from selling Chinese buyers software used for semiconductor design, and by plans announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to to 'aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students' who are studying in the U.S. The meeting between American and Chinese negotiators will take place amid continued uncertainty as to the viability of Trump's expansive use of tariffs as a Swiss Army knife-type policy instrument under emergency powers he has claimed using a decades-old law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Last month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that President Donald Trump 'exceeded his authority' when he imposed his so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs on April 2. The court also struck down the tariffs Trump imposed on Mexican, Canadian and Chinese imports with the stated aim of combatting fentanyl and drug trafficking from those countries. That decision was put on hold by an appeals court while arguments play out in the case, but Trump and his allies are making plans to use other, more well-defined authorities to continue his use of import taxes as a way of driving manufacturing to return to American shores after decades of globalization and integration of supply chains. White House officials have been plumbing the depths of the U.S. legal code to find ways to get around judicial orders and carry out the president's plans despite the rulings of what they call have labeled the 'rogue judges' that have repeatedly ruled against Trump. Trump and his advisers are understood to be looking at invoking a never-before-used section of the 1974 Trade Act known as Section 122, which allows for a 15-percent tariff to be placed on imports for up to 150 days, in order to deal with trade imbalances with other countries. During that period, the White House would then start the process to impose alternative tariffs on individual countries' exports under Section 301 of the same 1974 law. Trump used Section 301 on multiple occasions during his first term to impose tariffs on some Chinese steel and aluminum imports, but using that authority takes time because it requires a notice-and-comment period. It's unclear whether the White House will seek to employ either of those alternate strategies while the case against Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs proceeds. Doing so might be seen by the appeals court — or the Supreme Court — as a concession that the Court for International Trade's decision was, in fact, correct. More follows...
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Morning Bid: Trump-Musk bust-up smolders
By Mike Dolan LONDON (Reuters) - What matters in U.S. and global markets today Donald Trump's hotly anticipated meetings with the leaders of the world's two other biggest economies ended up being sideshows compared to his online bust-up with billionaire backer Elon Musk. It's Friday, so today I'll provide a quick overview of what's happening in global markets and then offer you some weekend reading suggestions away from the headlines. Today's Market Minute * White House aides scheduled a call between Donald Trump and Elon Musk for Friday, Politico reported, after a huge public spat that saw threats fly over government contracts and ended with the world's richest man suggesting the U.S. president should be impeached. * U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping confronted weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals in a rare leader-to-leader call on Thursday that left key issues to further talks. * China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for the trade war. * By any measure, the recent resilience of U.S. stocks is remarkable, with Wall Street powering through numerous headwinds to erase all its tariff-fueled losses and move into positive territory for the year. Reuters columnist Jamie McGeever explains why the rally may still have some juice left in it. * There are some tentative early signs that weak thermal coal prices are starting to boost import demand among Asia's heavyweight buyers China and India. Read Reuters Columnist Clyde Russell to find out more. Trump-Musk bust-up smolders For markets trying to navigate everything from creeping signs of labor market weakness to the latest European Central Bank easing, the spat between the U.S. president and the world's richest man proved more than a distraction. It remains to be seen if it overshadows the May payrolls report later on Friday. The extraordinary sparring match drew in other major political and business figures and included potentially seismic accusations and threats. In turn, the share price of Musk's Tesla plummeted almost 20% at one point, dragging Wall Street stock indexes and crypto tokens deep into the red. The public feud appeared to cool off somewhat overnight and allowed stock futures to regain some lost ground. But the fact that the spat overshadowed the other major events of the day was another marker of this administration's unpredictability. The substance of the row was over Trump's "one big beautiful" fiscal bill that Musk thinks is a "disgusting abomination" due to the amount of spending. The bill, which has yet to be passed by the Senate, is expected to add $2.4 trillion to the U.S. debt over the next decade, based on CBO estimates. The vast bulk of this will likely be incurred over the next four years. In the background, the call between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping delivered no breakthroughs in the trade row apart from warmer words and an agreement to resume talks. The Oval Office meeting with Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz was relatively positive about trade and diplomatic issues. Earlier in the day, the ECB cut rates again as expected and suggested that there may be a pause at its next meeting and that it could be near the end of its easing cycle now that 'real' inflation-adjusted rates are back near zero. The euro hit a six-week high on Thursday regardless, although it gave back those daily gains today. Rising weekly U.S. jobless claims, meantime, cast a shadow over today's release of the May employment report. Consensus forecasts are for a slowdown in payroll growth to 130,000. Treasury yields, which ebbed and flowed all day on the conflicting signals from the trade meetings and stock gyrations, are back hovering at the week's lows ahead of the jobs report. Even though Federal Reserve officials continue to signal caution about the uncertain outlook ahead, markets are now priced for a resumption of Fed cuts by September. Into the already confusing mix, the Treasury released its annual report on potential currency manipulation overseas, adding Switzerland and Ireland to its watchlist, which already includes China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam. The list likely carries more heft than usual amid multiple tense trade negotiations. Markets assume the U.S. may pressure other countries to let their currencies appreciate versus the dollar as part of deals to avert severe tariffs being re-imposed next month. The Swiss National Bank responded on Friday by saying it would intervene in currency markets where necessary to keep inflation on track. Intervention to cap a super-strong franc has been a critical monetary tool used over the past decade and may need to be tapped again now that Swiss inflation has returned negative just as the SNB's key interest rate is set to return to zero in June. Elsewhere, China's yuan slipped against the dollar while falling to a near two-year low versus its major trading partners on Friday as the Trump-Xi call fell short of many expectations. Stock markets overseas were mixed on Friday as Wall Street remained on edge and the U.S. jobs report loomed. In the euro zone, first-quarter GDP was revised higher to show twice the growth originally estimated: 0.6% quarter-on-quarter, leading to an annual rate of 1.5%. India's central bank cut key rates by a larger-than-expected 50 basis points to 5.5%, its steepest cut in five years. It also slashed its cash reserve ratio - funds that banks are required to hold - by 100 bps to 3% in a surprise move aimed at boosting lending and speeding up policy transmission. In single stocks, Tesla shares recovered around 5% in Frankfurt on Friday, having closed down 14% in New York yesterday amid the Trump-Musk spat. It lost about $150 billion in market value yesterday, which caused the erstwhile member of the 'Magnificent Seven' megacaps to drop to ninth in the list of most-valuable firms behind Broadcom and Berkshire Hathaway. Broadcom's shares, however, fell 4% in extended trading overnight as its forecast-beating earnings seemed to underwhelm the Street. In Bank of America's weekly tally of fund flows, U.S. stocks saw outflows of $7.5 billion, the third week of exits, while European shares saw inflows of $2.6 billion, the eighth week of inflows. Weekend reading suggestions * 'BLUE BONDS': European countries should seize the moment to boost the size and liquidity of jointly-issued euro sovereign debt, and a solution could be to replace a proportion of the stock of national bonds with senior Eurobonds, or 'blue bonds'. So says a 'working document' from Peterson Institute senior fellow and former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard in a paper jointly written with Citadel's Angel Ubide. * NUCLEAR BLIND SPOTS: United Nations nuclear watchdogs appear to have lost track of some critical elements of Iran's nuclear activities since U.S. President Donald Trump ditched a 2015 deal that imposed strict restrictions and close supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Reuters Francois Murphy and John Irish report on key blind spots that include not knowing how many centrifuges Iran possesses or where the machines and their parts are produced and stored. * OCEAN ECONOMY: Trade in the global 'ocean economy' hit as much as $2.2 trillion in 2023, about 7% of total world trade, but this trade is increasingly threatened by climate change and environmental problems, the United Nations trade and development arm UNCTAD showed in a report this week. The ocean economy grew faster than the world economy at large in the five years to 2020 and an estimated 100 million jobs depend on it. * 'TRUMP DOCTRINE': The emerging foreign policy under President Donald Trump resembles a 'look the other way' doctrine or a 'none of our business' doctrine, argues former George W. Bush State Department official Richard Haass on Project Syndicate. "The U.S. sought to change the world, annoying some and inspiring others. Those days are gone, in some ways for better, but mostly for worse. The US has changed. It is coming to resemble many of the countries and governments it once criticized." * MAGNETIC FEW: A small team in China's Ministry of Commerce decides the fate of the global auto industry, one rare earth magnet export permit at a time. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a key component in electric vehicle motors, and it added them to an export control list in April as part of its trade war with the United States. Reuters' Laurie Chen and Lewis Jackson show how it falls to the Bureau of Industrial Security and Import and Export Control, part of China's Ministry of Commerce, to review export permits for the rare earth magnets, vital for car motors, wind turbines and even U.S. F-35 fighter jets. * FINANCE AND AI: Artificial intelligence advances in the financial sector offer enhanced data analysis, risk management and capital allocation, but there are problems too, according to a paper on CEPR's VoxEU website. As AI systems become more widespread, they introduce challenges for regulators tasked with balancing the benefits of innovation with the need for financial stability, market integrity, consumer protection and fair competition. * DRONE ATTACK: Ukraine's 'Operation Spider's Web' last weekend used smuggled drones to attack bomber aircraft deep inside Russia, and the 'remarkable event' could affect the future of conflict, argues Council on Foreign Relations fellow Michael Horowitz. The attack "clearly shows that even targets deep in a country's territory could now be at risk". * IMF EUROPE: The case for closer European economic integration has become more compelling as external challenges multiply, according to Alfred Kammer, director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department. Stressing the need for the completion of the single market, Kammer said capital markets integration has been too slow and that cross-border flows have been frustrated by persistent fragmentation. "If history is a guide, Europe can turn adversity to advantage." * ALPINE TRUSTS: Liechtenstein is examining tightening control of scores of Russian-linked trusts abandoned by their managers under pressure from Washington. Reuters' John O'Donnell and Oliver Hirt cite sources in reporting that the country, one of the world's smallest and richest, is home to thousands of low-tax trusts, hundreds with links to Russians. Chart of the day Supply chain stress ticked up in May, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday. The bank noted that its Global Supply Chain Pressure Index for May rose to 0.19 from -0.28 in April, only the second time it stood in positive territory this year and the highest reading since the 0.20 seen in August of last year. Although the index remains subdued compared to the post-pandemic surge, growing concerns about the impact of the tariff war - particularly the impact of China's restrictions on rare earth and minerals exports on the global auto industry - will ensure policymakers keep a close eye on these pressures for any signs of re-emerging inflation. Today's events to watch * U.S. May employment report (8:30 AM EDT), April consumer credit (3:00 PM EDT); Canada May employment report (8:30 AM EDT) Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. (By Mike Dolan; Editing by Anna Szymanski)
USA Today
12 minutes ago
- USA Today
Flying cars and supersonic flights? Trump turns on boosters for new-age tech
Flying cars and supersonic flights? Trump turns on boosters for new-age tech President Donald Trump's newest executive orders aim to speed development of aviation tech, including high-speed flights and flying cars. Show Caption Hide Caption Watch this $300,000 flying car prototype takeoff California flying car company, Alef, debuted their flying car prototype which will cost about $300,000. WASHINGTON − Flying cars. Drone deliveries. Supersonic flights. President Donald Trump is aiming to speed up commercial development of new-age aviation tech by reducing regulations administration says have hindered testing and production. "This year, flying cars are not just for the Jetsons. They are also for the American people in the near term," Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters. Trump in an executive order directed the Federal Aviation Administration to expedite approval for routine commercial drone operations that retailers such as Amazon have said are crucial to expanding airborne deliveries. Orders that Trump signed will also allow manufacturers to begin testing flying cars and removed regulatory barriers his administration says are preventing supersonic over land passenger flights from being introduced in the United States. The changes will also allow drones to be used to be used in emergency response situations, including responding to wildfires, and long-distance cargo and medical delivery, the administration says. Trump's order establishes a pilot program for electrical vertical take-off and landing aircraft, known as eVTOLs, a type of flying car, that his administration hopes will lead to public private partnerships across the country. It is based on a 2017 program from the first Trump administration and will apply to emergency medical services, air taxis and cargo deliveries among other areas. The administration says the program will allow companies that are already conducting this type of testing, such as Joby's air taxi service, to partner with state, local and tribal governments. The California-based company plans to begin flight testing in Dubai within months and aims to launch passenger services on the aircraft in late 2025 or early 2026. Flying cars are coming! Here's how they could change the way you travel. Another order instructs the FAA to establish a standard for noise certification and lift a ban on overland supersonic flight. Kratsios said that advances in aerospace engineering and noise reduction have made over land supersonic flight safe, sustainable and commercially viable but federal regulations have grounded the speedy passenger flights and weakened U.S. companies' competitiveness. "The reality is that Americans should be able to fly from New York to LA in under four hours," Kratsios said. Trump separately established a federal task force to review and propose solutions to threats to America's airspace from personal unmanned aircraft and directed his administration to step up enforcement of civil and criminal laws against drone operators who endanger the public or violate airspace restrictions. The directives were issued with the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics on the horizon.
