E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The antecedent of the DuPont Corporate Plans Department was the Development Department, created in 1903 following the DuPont Company’s reorganization as a modern corporation. The founding director, Arthur J. Moxham (1854-1931), envisioned a leading role for the department in strategic planning that would fuel the company’s long-term economic growth. The diversification strategy charted by Walter S. Carpenter Jr. (1888-1976), director from 1917 to 1919 and vice president for development from 1919 to 1921, and Fin Sparre (1879-1944), director from 1919 to 1944, was responsible for the company’s growth in the years following World War I. Under the leadership of Carpenter and Sparre, the department embraced its responsibility for centralized long-range strategic planning and actively pursued new opportunities for diversification. With Sparre’s retirement, however, the Executive Committee shifted responsibility for managing long-term growth to the industrial departments.

In 1975, the Development Department was abolished and its functions were divided between the Central Research and Development and Corporate Plans departments. By assigning to the Corporate Plans Department primary responsibility for coordinating all of the company’s strategic business planning activities, this centralized the management of research and development and provided the Executive Committee with greater control over corporate strategy. The department worked closely with members of the Executive Committee to establish priorities for the allocation of the company’s resources by systematically evaluating investment opportunities. The department was renamed DuPont Corporate Plans in 1990.