US: Texas Lehigh Cement has appointed Derek Nicholls as president.

Nicholls previously worked for Italcementi Group from 2005 to 2015 eventually becoming Senior Vice President - Technical Director. Earlier he was the Plant Director at the Martinsburg plant in West Virginia. Prior to this, he worked for Heidelberg Materials North America as the plant manager of the Glens Falls plant in New York and Vice President Operations. Nicholls is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Denmark: Hasle Refractories has appointed Christian Halken as Chief Sales Officer.

Earlier in his career, Halken worked for FLSmdith for 1996 to 2019, eventually becoming Senior Vice President, Customer Services EMEA and India. He originally started working for the equipment supplier as a Commissioning Manager in 1996. Other notable positions during his time with FLSmidth include becoming General Manager, Customer Services,  Cement, Denmark in 2007. Halkern holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and master’s degree in chemical process engineering from UCL.

Sweden: Cemvision has appointed Claes Kollberg as its CEO. He succeeds Oscar Hållén, who will take Kollberg’s position on the company’s board of directors.

Kollberg co-founded Cemvision in 2019. This followed nearly two decades working in cement production, mostly for Cementa. After starting as a technical trainee, he became a Project and Maintenance Engineer. Further maintenance, production and operations roles followed included stints for Cimgabon in Gabon and Twiga Cement in Tanzania. Kollberg was the plant manager of Cementa’s Degerhamn plant from 2012 to 2017. He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stokholm.

UK: Breedon Group has appointed James Brotherton as CEO with effect from the start of 2027. He will succeed Rob Wood in the role, who has decided to retire. Wood will remain an employee of the group until the expiry of his notice period on 30 September 2027.

Brotherton has been the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Breedon since 2021. Previously he was CFO of Tyman between 2010 and 2019, prior to which he was Director of Corporate Development. Earlier in his career, James worked in investment banking roles at Citi and HSBC, after qualifying as a chartered accountant at Ernst & Young. He is a graduate of Loughborough University.