Albert Chao (born 1949) is a Taiwanese-American chemical industry executive and the Executive Chairman of the Board and a director of Westlake Chemical Corporation and Westlake Chemical Partners LP. He was the CEO of Westlake Corporation from July 2004 to July 2024. In 2019, Albert and James Chao received the Petrochemical Heritage Award as part of the International Petrochemical Conference. Early life Chao was born in 1949 and grew up in Taiwan. His father Ting Tsung Chao was born in China and moved to Taiwan with his family in 1946. In the mid-1980s, Chao's family moved from Taiwan to the U.S. Education Albert Chao received a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University. He served on Rice University's Board of Trustees. Companies In 1986 T.T. Chao and his sons Albert and James Y. Chao founded Westlake Chemical, the largest manufacturer of low-density polyethylene in the US. Albert Chao served as an executive vice president of Westlake Chemical Corporation beginning in 1986, became president in mid-1996, and in 2004, became the company's president and CEO.<ref name="PHA"/> The Chao family also founded Suzhou Huasu Plastics Company in China as of 1993, and Titan Chemicals Corporation in Malaysia as of 1998. Albert Chao serves as a director of Suzhou Huasu Plastics Company.<ref name="PHA"/> In 2012, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index suggested his wealth to be at least $1.4 billion.<ref name="westlake"/>
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