UK: Breedon Group has appointed James Brotherton as its chief financial officer (CFO) designate with effect from 1 January 2021. He was previously the CFO of Tyman between 2010 and 2019, prior to which he was Director of Corporate Development for five years. Prior to Tyman, Brotherton worked in investment banking roles at Citi and HSBC, after qualifying as a chartered accountant at Ernst and Young. He is currently a director of the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) and represents the QCA on the Takeover Panel.

As announced previously, Rob Wood, Breedon Groups' current Group Finance Director, will succeed Pat Ward as chief executive officer (CEO) upon Ward’s retirement during 2021. It is anticipated that Brotherton will be appointed to the board as CFO at that point to ensure an orderly transition.

China: Xia Zhiyun has resigned as the president of China National Materials International Engineering (CNBM Engineering). However, he will remain a director of the company, a member of the strategy and investment committee of the board of directors and a member of the nomination committee. The company is part of CNBM Group. It provides engineering services and equipment to the international cement, housing, industrial equipment and light industry sectors.

Denmark: FLSmidth has appointed Carsten Riisberg Lund as its new Cement Industry President and member of Group Executive Management. It follows the resignation of Jan Kjaersgaard due to family reasons.

Riisberg Lund has worked for FLSmidth for over 30 years in various roles, most recently as the president for Region Europe, North Africa and Russia (ENAR) where he has been responsible for all sales and service activities in the region, with a particular focus on customer relationships and creating a single interface for customers. He has played a role in implementing the equipment producer’s current regional strategy and expanding its presence in Eastern Europe. Riisberg Lund started his career as a process and commissioning engineer. Since then he has headed FLSmidth’s former Material Handling division and spent three years as a managing director in India.

Outgoing Cement Industry President Kjaersgaard joined FLSmidth in early 2018 as president of the Product Company Division. In July 2018, he took the role as president of the Cement Industry division.

Ireland: Jim Culliton, a former chief executive officer (CEO) of CRH, has died. He originally started working for Roadstone before eventually becoming the CEO of the merged Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) for 13 years, according to the Irish Independent newspaper. Notably, he presided over the start of the company’s move from a domestic building materials producer to a multinational one. At home in Ireland he was also known for the 'Culliton Report,' an influential Irish industrial policy document published in the early 1990s.