By Dipo Olowookere
The board of directors of Lafarge Africa Plc has announced the appointment of Ms Sylvie Rochier, who is presently a Non-Executive Director of the company, as the new Vice-Chairman of the board.
Her appointment followed the resignation of former occupier of the position, Mr Guillaume Roux, who left the firm on April 6, 2018.
A statement issued by the cement maker disclosed that the appointment of Ms Rochier took effect from Saturday, April 7, 2018.
It was further disclosed that two non-executive directors of the company, Dr Adebayo Jimoh and Mr Umaru Kwairanga have also resigned from Lafarge Africa Plc.
However, their vacant positions have been filled with the appointment of Ms Geraldine Picaud, Mr Christof Hassig and Mr Grant Earnshaw as Non-Executive Directors and members of the board with effect from April 7, 2018.
Ms Geraldine Picaud is a trained auditor with 20 years of experience in leading and transforming Finance teams in complex, multinational companies in the United Kingdom, United States of America, France and Switzerland.
She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Reims Superior School of Commerce and is currently the Chief Financial Officer of LafargeHolcim.
Prior to joining LafargeHolcim Group in 2018, she was the Group CFO and member of the Executive Committee, Essilor International, Paris, France; CFO, Volcafe Holdings Limited (ED &F Man Coffee Division), Zurich, Switzerland, Head of Corporate Finance in charge of M&A, ED&F Man, London, UK; and CFO, Safic Alean SAS, Paris, France.
On his part, Mr Christof Hassig joined Holcim Group in 1999 and before then, he worked for 25 years at UBS in many different functions, including global relationship manager and investment banker for multinational corporates in Switzerland and abroad.
Mr Hassig holds a Master’s degree in Banking and the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
He is currently Head of Corporate Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions at LafargeHolcim.
For Mr Grant Earnshaw, he holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from Edinburgh Business School and is a certified Building and Civil Engineer from Peterborough Technical College with trainings in Concrete Technology & Construction from UK Construction Industry Training Board.
Mr Earnshaw has held several positions at LafargeHolcim, including Senior VP & Head of Integration, CEO of Lafarge Iraq, Group Vice President, Strategy, Development, Mergers & Acquisitions EMEA Region–Lafarge (UK and France) and Managing Director, Lafarge Middle East and Project Engineer at Balfour Beatty Plc.
Mr Earnshaw is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors (UK) and is currently LafargeHolcim Area Manager for Middle East.
