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India: Ambuja Cements has appointed Gautam Adani as its chair and his son Karan Adani as a director. ACC has appointed Karan Adani as its chair. The changes in board personnel follow the completion of the acquisition of Holcim’s subsidiaries in India by Adani Group. Karan Adani is expected to manage both cement companies, according to the Press Trust of India.

Other initial personnel changes following the takeover include the appointment of Ajay Kapur as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Ambuja Cements. Vinod Bahety has been appointed as the chief financial officer. The company’s former chair, NS Sekhsari, has been appointment as chairman emeritus in recognition of his “outstanding and invaluable contributions.” At ACC, Sridhar Balakrishnan remains as CEO.

Gautam Adani, the chair and founder of Adani Group, holds over 30 years of business experience. Under his leadership, Adani Group has emerged as an integrated infrastructure conglomerate with interests in resources, logistics and energy sectors.

Karan Adani is the CEO of Adani Ports and SEZ Limited (APSEZ). He is currently leading the transformation at APSEZ to form an integrated logistics company. This has included growth at the company from two ports to 10 ports and terminals. He is an economics graduate from Purdue University in the US.

Ajay Kapur holds over 25 years of experience in the cement and construction, power and heavy metals sector. He joined Ambuja Cement in 1993 as an executive assistant to the then managing director (MD). He held various strategic positions over the last two decades, and from 2014 to 2019, he served as the CEO and managing director of the company. Prior to joining Adani Group in June 2022, Kapur was CEO - Aluminium and Power and MD - Commercial at Vedanta. Most recently he served as CEO of Special Projects at Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone. Kapur is an economics graduate from St Xavier's University in Mumbai and holds a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) from the KJ Somaiya Institute of Management. He has also attended the Advanced Management Programme at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Vinod Bahety previously worked as the Group Head - Merger & Acquisition & Corporate Finance for Adani Group. He has worked on some of the major merger and acquisition activities for the group. Previously he worked in the banking sector. He is a chartered accountant by qualification.

Australia: Boral has announced that Vik Bansal will start work as its chief executive officer and managing director on 10 October 2022. It was previously announced that he would succeed Zlatko Todorcevski in early December 2022.

India: Gautam Adani, his son Karan Adani and his nephew Pranav Adani are all expected to join the boards of ACC and Ambuja Cement. Sources quoted by the Mint newspaper anticipated changes to the boards of both companies to start happening in mid-September 2022. At the same time, a number of existing board members of the subsidiaries of Switzerland-based Holcim are expected to resign. Adani Group’s US$10.5bn acquisition of the subsidiaries of Switzerland-based Holcim has been gathering pace, with the latter having completed its due diligence process and the mandatory open offers for the public shareholders finished.

UK: Tarmac has appointed Craig Kirkland as the plant manager of Tarmac’s integrated Dunbar plant in Scotland. Kirkland first started working for the subsidiary of Ireland-based CRH in the mid-1990s as its Landfill & Recycling Manager. He later became its Commercial Manager in 2015 before becoming the Head of Transformation at the Dunbar plant in 2021.

Finland: Coolbrook, the manufacturer of electrically-powered gas heating technologies, has announced the appointment of Mikko Jaatinen as its first chief financial officer (CFO). Jaatinen was previously heading the Group Treasury's Funding & Markets team at Neste, a renewable fuels and circular solution company.

In his role as CFO at Coolbrook, Jaatinen will ensure that the company’s financial strategies and policies support its growing global partnerships and commercial relationships, including those with Cemex and UltraTech Cement. He will support Coolbrook’s ambitions of international expansion and scaling up its operations, and lead the development of sustainable financial strategies.

Coolbrook’s chief executive officer Joonas Rauramo said, “The appointment of a CFO is the next logical step in the growth and development of Coolbrook. Mikko’s experience and expertise in a wide range of finance functions and new business development combined with his leadership qualities make him ideally suited to the role.”

Read Global Cement’s interview with Joonas Rauramo in its September 2022 issue