Steering Committee 2025

Mr Sayee RaghunathanChairman , Sayee Raghunathan
Welding and Metallurgical Engineering Consultant for Saudi Aramco

Mr. Sayee Raghunathan is an experienced, commercially focused technocrat, with specialization in the manufacturing and the energy sectors, as well as having experience across the entire product lifecycle and technology readiness spectrum. As a welding and metallurgical engineering consultant for Saudi Aramco, in Saudi Arabia he is engaged in, amongst other things, materials selection consultations, run-repair-replace evaluations for assets, and high-level studies and investigations. Until recently, he volunteered as a non-executive director of the American Welding Society (AWS), as the Chair of the Product Development Committee (PDC) and as a member of four other committees. Before Saudi Aramco, he worked as an Associate Director at TWI, Cambridge, UK and as a visiting professor for the Dalton Institute of Manchester University. He was awarded the Counselor status by the AWS in 2022, the Lidstone Medal in 2012 and is a Fellow of eight UK professional institutes including the Welding Institute, Nuclear Institute, Energy Institute, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Institute of Corrosion and IOM3. He actively volunteers for education, professional development and technology advancement causes.

Below you will find the steering committee of the Stainless Steel World Conference 2025.

Raymond Cordewener

Raymond Cordewener

Position: R. Cordewener Management & Consultancy, the Netherlands
Categories: Conference, Steering Committee, Steering Committee 2023, Steering Committee 2025

Raymond Cordewener graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and has fulfilled many technical and managerial functions in several companies. He is on the Steering Committees of Stainless Steel World and Duplex World. Raymond’s broad metallurgical experience and materials knowledge covers forming, forging, casting, welding and machining. He has given training and workshops/masterclasses in the fields of quality, heat treatments, stainless steels, and duplex. He began his own consultancy company in 2005, in his expert fields of metallurgy, cold and hot forming/forging, and overlay and multi-layer steel welding. He also performed Assessments and improvement projects related to the Oil & Gas industry. He is performing QE and QC projects as well.

Raymond Cordewener

R. Cordewener Management & Consultancy, the Netherlands

Raymond Cordewener graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and has fulfilled...

Roger Francis

Roger Francis

Position: RF Materials Corrosion Consultancy
Categories: Conference, Steering Committee, Steering Committee 2023, Steering Committee 2025

Dr Francis has been a corrosion engineer for over 40 years.  He has wide experience in the fields of marine corrosion, desalination, sour oil and gas corrosion, mineral processing, and the chemical and process industries.  He has published over 100 technical papers in all these areas, particularly on copper alloys and duplex stainless steels.  He has written six books on various aspects of corrosion and has jointly edited three others. The most recent was on corrosion in desalination plants.  The author has served as the NACE (now AMPP) European Area director.  He was made a NACE Fellow in 2005 for his work in marine corrosion.  In 2014 he received the T J Hull Award for his work in publications.  In 2012 he set up his own corrosion consultancy business, RFMaterials, and also works as a consultant to the Nickel Institute.

Roger Francis

RF Materials Corrosion Consultancy

Dr Francis has been a corrosion engineer for over 40...

Raquel Rodriguez

Position: Tubacex group, Spain
Categories: Steering Committee 2023, Steering Committee 2025

Raquel Rodríguez, PhD in Material Science, is a Research Scientist in TUBACEX GROUP since 2011. Her expertise lies on the metallurgy of stainless steels and nickel-based alloys. She is involved in the development of new materials and technologies for different applications (oil&gas, power generation, fertilizer and hydrocarbon processing industries), with also a strong focus on new developments for energy transition. Before joining TUBACEX, she was a researcher in CEIT-BRTA.

Raquel Rodriguez

Tubacex group, Spain

Raquel Rodríguez, PhD in Material Science, is a Research Scientist...