People

Brazil: COO of Intercement Ricardo Lima has been appointed as company president. He replaces Jose Edison Franco. Lima and Franco have made a strategic company plan, which includes a US$250m investment in a new cement plant in Mozambique.

Africa: Lafarge Africa has appointed Peter Hoddinott as the new group managing director / CEO. The former CEO, Guillaume Roux, will remain on the board as a director, according to the Kuwait News Agency

Hoddinott is a British mining engineer and started his business career in the mines of southern Africa before joining Blue Circle in 1988. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a lecturer in Imperial College of Science and Technology, London University in 1983 - 1988. While at Blue Circle, he worked in the Technical Centre and also managed the UK cement plants before going to the Philippines as CEO in 1999. When Lafarge took over Blue Circle, he stayed in Manila to integrate the two companies, leaving in 2003 to become regional president for Lafarge in Latin America. In 2007, Hoddinott became regional president for Western Europe (cement), including Morocco. In 2012, he became executive vice president (energy and strategic sourcing) responsible for worldwide energy strategy and sourcing of Lafarge's US$12bn/yr externally sourced inputs. Hoddinott was appointed group executive vice president (performance). He is currently president of Cembureau.

UK: Aggregate Industries' new cement division will be led by Joe Hudson as managing director of cement and concrete products. He joins Aggregate Industries from Lafarge, where he has worked in a number of key functional and operational roles since 2001. Hudson was heavily involved in preparations for the LafargeHolcim merger as group senior vice president for organisation and development at Lafarge and has experience of running a cement business, having previously worked as managing director / CEO for Lafarge Wapco Plc in Nigeria.

India: Lafarge India has appointed Ujjwal Batria as CEO of the company effective from 22 June 2015. Batria will take over the responsibility from Martin Kriegner, who has been named as area manager for Central Europe of LafargeHolcim.

The development comes shortly before the expected completion of the LafargeHolcim merger. The Indian Competition Commission of India (CCI) has already approved the Indian leg of the proposed merger, with certain provisions, including divestment of two cement plants; Lafarge's plants at Jojobera, Jharkhand and Sonadih, Chhattisgarh. The two plants have a combined capacity of 5.15Mt/yr. Holcim's business in India is run through ACC and Ambuja Cements. It is not clear what Batria's role will be in the merged LafargeHolcim entity. Since ACC and Ambuja Cements are public listed firms, Lafarge's Indian unit may continue to operate separately, at least to begin with.

Prior to his appointment as CEO of Lafarge India, Batria was managing director of the company and was managing its cement business. He has been with Lafarge for 16 years. He had joined the company in 1999 and has served on different position across functions since then.

Kenya: According to Business Daily, East African Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) has renewed its efforts to recruit a new COO after the candidates who applied to fill the new position in August 2014 'fell short' of the required qualifications. EAPCC has now re-advertised the position, which is expected to strengthen its governance structure.

The Athi River-based manufacturer first sought to recruit a COO and CFO in 2014 through consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kephar Tande, the company's managing director, said that the board deemed the applicants to be unqualified. "The first attempt in 2014 did not yield a suitable candidate from the shortlisted four, hence this new advertisement," said Tande. "This position is primarily required to improve the efficiency of our supply chain to make the company more competitive. We expect the position to be filled by August 2015."

EAPCC's current management executive structure is made up of heads of sections and divisions like financial management, research and development, internal audit and risk management, as well as strategy performance improvement. The new COO will be responsible for cement production operations, production engineering, product research and development, as well as sales and marketing.

EAPPC has not said whether it will re-advertise the CFO job, also a new position. The CFO is expected to streamline financial management at the company, which has recently faced accusations of having reported inaccurate accounts. "The position of CFO will be filled as soon as internal procedures are completed," said Tande.