People

China: Anhui Conch Cement has appointed Yu Shui as its General Manager. The position is analogous to a CEO at the company. He succeeds Li Qunfeng in the post.

Yu Shui, aged 48 years, has been working most recently as Secretary to the Board, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Anhui Conch Cement. He is also currently the chair of subsidiary Wuhu Conch Trading and holds directorship with a number of other associated companies. He joined the group in 1997. Notable positions include Director of the Sales Department, General Manager of Conch Cement in South Kalimantan, Indonesia and Deputy General Manager. He is a graduate of Anhui University.

Brazil: Cemento Apodi has appointed Liciani Morais as its Finance Director. She holds over 20 years of corporate financial experience working for companies including DelRio, Grupo Iquine and Mob Telecom, according to the Diário do Nordeste newspaper. She is a graduate in financial management from the Universidade Estácio and holds a master of business administration (MBA) qualification from Fundação Getulio Vargas.

Tanzania: Elsawy Ahmed has resigned as the manager of Twiga Cement’s Wazo Hill plant. He had been in post at the subsidiary of Heidelberg Materials since 2017. He is now working as a technical consultant.

Elsawy started his career as a Quality Control Supervisor for Assiut Cement in Egypt. He later worked for Cemex Egypt and became a plant manager for Cemex in Bangladesh in the early 2000s. He joined Italcementi in 2006 becoming Maintenance & Project Manager for subsidiary Suez Cement in the mid-2010s. Elsawy holds a degree in chemistry from Assiut University.

Spain: Cemex has appointed Oliver Chaddock as Trading Head for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. He has worked for Cemex in trading roles since the late 2000s, becoming a planning analyst in 2008 and moving on to director-level trading roles from 2011. His last position was as Trading Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Chaddock holds an executive master of business administration (MBA) qualification from the IE Business School in Madrid.

Nigeria: Aliko Dangote has retired as the chair of Dangote Cement. He has been succeeded by Emmanuel Ikazoboh in the post.

Arvind Pathak, the CEO of Dangote Cement, said “On behalf of the board and management, we celebrate our president, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, who now steps down from the board, for his pivotal and transformative role in shaping the company’s growth, success, and lasting legacy. His visionary leadership, entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering commitment laid the very foundation of our journey.”

Dangote founded parent company Dangote Industries in 1981 as an importer of bagged cement and other commodities such as rice, sugar, flour and salt. In the early 2000s the company purchased Benue Cement and Obajana Cement from the government when they were privatised. Dangote Cement then built a new cement production line at the Obajana plant in the late 2000s before building other plants in Nigeria and expanding internationally in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 2010s. Today, Dangote Cement is the biggest cement company in Africa with a self-declared capacity of 52Mt/yr, operations in 10 countries and annual revenues of US$2.3bn.

Ikazoboh holds over 40 years of experience in management roles in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and South Africa. He started his professional career at Akintola Williams Deloitte becoming a managing partner in Cameroon and Ivory Coast and then later becoming a managing partner in West and Central Africa until 2009. In 2010 he was appointed by the Securities and Exchange as an Interim Administrator to carry out capital market reforms of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Central Securities Clearing System. From 2014 to 2000 he worked as the group chair of Ecobank Transnational. He has been a director of Dangote Cement since 2014. Ikazoboh holds a master’s of business administration (MBA) in financial management and marketing from Manchester University Business School, is a certified accountant in the UK and is a fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Chartered Accountants.