It isn't easy heading a company with a 200-year history, but that's the kind of job 54-year old Chad Holliday Jr has. It helps that the man has spent more of these 54 years, 32 to be exact, in the company, DuPont, than out of it. He started off as an engineer (turning a summer job into a full-time one), spent a significant part of his career in manufacturing, headed the company's Asia Pacific operations out of Tokyo for seven years, and was named CEO of the company in 1998-he was named Chairman 11 months later. Things may have been different had Holliday Sr. not sold the family's industrial equipment distribution business during his son's final year in college-Holliday Jr. always expected to take it over. In India to review DuPont's operations and to deliver a lecture on sustainable development-he became Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 2000-Holliday, who has made eight visits to the country since 1989, met with Business Today's R. Sukumar. Excerpts from the interview.

How does it feel to lead a 200-year old company? You're virtually sitting on lots of history.

It feels great. We have a proud tradition-strong core values around safety and ethics. These are times when companies are being criticised for their ethical standards. It's good to be working for a company that you hear the opposite (about). It has very very high standards of ethics. I think the work we do as a science company-we are turning out products and systems that helps people's lives be better. That's not a bad (business) to be in.

DuPont started off with explosives, moved into materials, and has now branched off into the life sciences space. How easy has it been to manage this transition? For instance, you call yourself a science company-that's a pretty broad description.

Transitions are always challenging. You want to maintain what you have done so long, but it is also important for us (DuPont) to move on to new technologies. We just think modern biology is going to be one of those technologies for the next two-to-three decades, maybe the next century. This is an important change. But chemistry has been important to solving problems as long as we can remember, and we are not losing sight of that. It's a transformation; it's not a sudden change. It has taken place over years-we have been working on it for five years now. And it is going to take several more years before we get to exactly the right spot.

The stockmarket must like something about your company. DuPont has been one of the most stable stocks in the US, despite all that happened in 2001 and 2002. What do you attribute this stability to?

Last year, our price was about flat, while most of the major averages were down. We were the fourth best stock on the Dow Jones Industrial 30. I think we are in a rock-solid financial position. It's an ethical stock; we are an ethical company; and people never have to worry about having an ethical problem (with us). If you look at the yield on our stock, the dividend, it was a pretty good investment. If you look at the US last year, it was pretty hard to find an investment that would give you a guaranteed 20 per cent. We don't focus too much on stockprice. We focus on good returns and then communicate what we are doing to investors. We do all that right, the stockprice should be alright. We're not into hyping (things up).

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST TECHNOLOGY BANK With some 18,000 patents, DuPont is a large technology licensor.

Digest this-23 of the 25 layers in the spacesuits of the first men on the moon were made from one DuPont material or another. With products and technologies spanning areas as diverse as foods and fabric, construction and automobiles, and aerospace and health, DuPont owns and manages what is, arguably, one of the world's largest technology banks. Better still, the company recognises it as such and has an active (and aggressive) licensing programme. Which is probably why words like Teflon, Kevlar, and Lycra (all registered) have entered popular vocabulary.

In 2001 we made a $1.19 per share; 2002 we made $2.00. So it was a great year compared to 2001. But even in 2001, we were talking about making a $1.19 per share, which is a whole lot of money since we have about a billion shares out, while lots of companies were actually losing money. We felt really happy about last year. But we want to make it $3 a share. We'll get there.

DuPont is a fairly global organisation-it has a presence in some 70 countries. Where do you see the growth coming from? Do you see it coming more from developing countries such as China and India? Or do you see it coming from the US?

I believe we will see growth coming increasingly from developing countries in Eastern Europe, Asia-India will be an important part, so will China. You'll also see it (growth coming from) from new market opportunities, new technologies, commercialising new products. 24 per cent of our revenues come from products launched in the past five years. By 2005, this figure will be 33 per cent. So we are not just dependant on GDP growth (of countries) to grow. We are focused on what we need to do (to grow).

Given that it is imperative for DuPont to keep coming up with new products, how do you do it? How do you manage innovation?

We call it integrated science-getting biology, chemistry, physics, engineering to think together to get a product out. Other companies focus on only one area. This gives us more breadth. We focus on specific needs: if you start off with a customer need, the probability of success goes up tremendously. We make sure we understand customer needs, playing them back in.

What are your immediate plans for India? One, in terms of investments, and two, in terms of where you see the market opportunities.

We will be investing in people-more developers, more skills, more knowledge. We already do co-operative research with several institutions in India. We plan to increase that over time. We do a lot of engineering here, for projects inside and outside of India. We've been very pleased with (the quality of work) and plan to increase this with time. We do some software development here-that should go up.

The key thing that we are focused on is, what are the unique needs of our customers. We have a lot of different technologies and products, but how do we put it in the right size and shape and the right package. We are, for instance, using a product called Hytrel (a thermoplastic polymer elastomer) in collaboration with Indian Railways.

How do you rate India versus China, purely in terms of market potential?

I can't recall a time when we had a project and we said, are we going to do it in India OR in China. First off, I don't see the two countries competing. The manufacturing infrastructure in China has been growing more rapidly than India over the past few years. And I think the software, knowledge infrastructure in India has been growing faster than China. But I see both countries growing.

How important are your Indian operations to the company as a whole?

Very important. We can sell (here). We can source (from here). The Indian operation has been growing at 15 per cent a year for the last seven years. They organisation claims they are going to grow it 30 per cent going forward-that's great growth. We don't have many places in the world growing that fast. So, I think India is a very important country for us.

Biological science is a fairly prickly issue. If you look at GM (genetically modified) crops, for instance, some countries are opposed to them. What's your own view?

I think it was in 1995 that we understood the impact of altering the gene sequence of a plant. For the first time, we understood how life was made. That's a major breakthrough. But we also think we have to take this forward responsibly. One of the ways we do that is by having an external advisory board for biotechnology. We have members from India, China, Kenya, US, France, Mexico and they look at everything we do in biotechnology. We think that's one way (to be responsible): be very transparent with people.

I am very proud of what we are doing in biotech. Because you are turning out plants that are more productive, use less chemicals-which is better for the environment in the long term. It does need to be regulated. I believe if we had India adopting more such products, Indian agriculture would be more productive.

There's one product here, BT Cotton. That's not ours, but it is a step in the right direction. We turn out products that make a difference to farmers, make them more productive. We also turn out products that are more nutritious-it is better for your health.

Last year wasn't a great time to be the head of a large corporation in America, was it?

I didn't see it that way. I think if I headed Enron, or Worldcom, or Tyco (laughs), it was a pretty bad year. But what I found was that companies that were doing a good job were distinguished: there were a lot of articles about what a great job we were doing. So, for companies that were doing good work, it (last year) was a time for people to recognise them.

There have been some new legislations in the US. And we have honoured that. And it has taken some more work to put the procedures in place. But what really pleased me was that I didn't find anything I wanted to change. We really have the right thing going.

I know a few companies did some wrong things but it is not too bad. If only two or three companies did something bad-and I am not proud of that-out of many many thousands (of companies), let us not blast the entire system.

That's right, you did get a lot of good press last year.

A 200th birthday helps. Now we are in our third century. No free rides.