India: Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha, has attended the inauguration of Ramco Cement’s new cement grinding plant at Haridaspur. The unit had a cost of just under US$100m and has created 105 direct jobs. A LM 46.2+2 CS type vertical roller mill with a capacity of 3750kW has ordered from Germany-based Loesche in 2018 for the project. The cement producer says that the plant is designed to be ‘totally dust free,’ including bag filters designed to ensure emission levels below 30mg/m³.

Sri Lanka: Insee Cement has appointed Gustavo Navarro as its chief executive officer (CEO) of its operations in Sri Lanka. He succeeds Nandana Ekanayake, according to the Nation newspaper. Ekanayake will remain at the company as chairman of the board. Navarro has previously held chief executive positions for Holcim in Serbia and Russia, and for CRH in Romania.

UK: Breedon Group plans to appoint Rob Wood as its Group Chief Executive in 2021. He is currently the Group Finance Director. Recruitment for a new Group Finance Director is underway. This will follow the retirement of current head Pat Ward who has held the post since early 2016.

Nigeria: BUA Cement has appointed Jacques Piekarski as its chief financial officer (CFO).

Piekarski holds over 26 years of experience in finance with executive level roles in cement, trading, mining and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). Prior to joining BUA Cement, he was Group CFO for TGI Group Nigeria, a food and agricultural conglomerate, and he held the same role at Flour Mills of Nigeria. His knowledge of the cement industry comes from working as the CFO for Holcim in Egypt with a joint venture with the Orascom Group.

A Swiss and French National, Piekarski was born in Switzerland. He is a graduate from the Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and holds an MBA from the Robert Kennedy College in Zurich, Switzerland.