Alexander Drits

Head of Business Development and New Technologies at Arconic Russia.

In 1969, after graduating from the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, he began to work at the Russian National Institute of Light Alloys, where he went from an engineer to the head of the heat treatment of aluminium alloys sector.

In 1975, he defended a candidate of sciences dissertation on heat and mechanical treatment of Al-Mg-Zn alloys. In 1986, Alexander Drits was given an award by the Soviet of Ministers of the USSR for his work aimed at creating 1161, 1973 and 1933 alloys, and the development of a production process for making large-size semi-finished products from them which could be used in the manufacture of cargo planes.

In 1984-1993 Mr Drits worked at the Soviet National Institute of Aviation Materials as head of the laboratory of weldable aluminium alloys. In the time of his work at the Soviet National Institute of Aviation Materials, he and his colleagues carried out a large body of work on the 1201 alloy to create special purpose equipment, including the Energia-Buran aerospace system. Lithium aluminium alloys 1450, 1451, 1460, 1461, 1470 were developed.

In 1993, Mr Drits was appointed executive director of the Alcoa representative office in Russia and the CIS, and after Alcoa acquired the Samara Metal Production Plant in 2005 (today it's JSC Arconic SMZ), he was appointed deputy CEO of LLC Alcoa Rus and head of technology at Alcoa Russia (now Arconic Russia). In 2015, for his great contribution to the development of industry in Russia and his many years of work, he was given the Honorary Metallurgist award. Alexander Drits has authored more than 120 articles and books, as well as 70 patents, many of which are used in production.