Sweden: Sandvik has appointed Göran Björkman as its new president of business area Sandvik Materials Technology and member of the Sandvik Group Executive Management Team. He succeeds Petra Einarsson, who is leaving the company for an external assignment. The change is effective from 1 November 2017.

Björkman, aged 51 years, has been with the company since 1990, of which almost 20 years has been spent at the materials technology operations. Most recently he has held the position as Vice President Production at Sandvik Coromant and Vice President Production Strategy, Sandvik Machining Solutions.

US: Geoff Hynes has been appointed as the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Rexa. He succeeds Sam Lalos who will retire at the end of 2017. Lalos has held the post for five years. Rexa produces actuators for a variety of industries, including the mineral processing and mining sectors.

US: Jim Williams, the vice president (corporate purchasing and supplier relations) of Motion Industries, has been elected as the president of the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) in 2018. He will assume the role in January 2018. He succeeds Tom Clawser.

Williams has been a PTDA volunteer since 2005 when he joined the Motion Control Task Force. A past chair of the Programs and Products Committee, he has served on the Board of Directors since 2015.

Nigeria: Onne Van der Weijde, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Dangote Cement, has decided to step down. He will leave the post at the end of 2017 to return to his home country of the Netherlands. He has served three years in the role. Following the departure he will be appointed as a non-executive director with effect from 1 January 2018.

Until a successor is appointed, JO Makoju, Honorary Adviser to the chairman and former managing director of Lafarge WAPCO will be the acting managing director and CEO of Dangote Cement.