India: Basant Kumar Birla, chairman of BK Birla Group, has died at the age of 98 in Mumbai. He is survived by his grandson Kumar Mangalam Birla, the head of Aditya Birla Group, the owner of UltraTech Cement, amongst many other family members, according to the Times of India.

Part of the influential Birla family of industrialists, Basant Kumar Birla originally started working at Kesoram Industries before turning the business into a conglomerate with concerns in cement, engineering, medium-density fibreboards, pulp and paper, rayon, shipping, tyres, tea, chemicals and other sectors. BK Birla Group reported a turnover of US$2.4bn in the 2018 – 2019 financial year. At present the group now comprises five major companies - Kesoram Industries, Century Textiles & Industries, Century Enka, Mangalam Cement and ECE Industries - and several smaller subsidiaries.

Image of Basant Kumar Birla by Biswarup Ganguly CC BY 3.0

Barbados/Jamaica: Trinidad Cement has made changes to its executive management at its subsidiaries in Barbados and Jamaica. It has appointed Carlos Roberto Cordero Castro as the General Manager of Arawak Cement in Barbados. He succeeds Yago Castro Izaguirre in the role from 1 August 2019. It has appointed Castro Izaguirre as the General Manager of Caribbean Cement. He succeeds Peter Donkersloot Ponce from 1 August 2019.

South Africa: PPC has appointed Roland van Wijnen as its chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds Johan Claassen, who announced his retirement in November 2018. Van Wijnen has signed a four-year contract and is expected to take up the position as soon as he secures a work permit.

Van Wijnen has worked for Holcim and LafargeHolcim for 17 years in various leadership positions across the group including the CEO of Holcim Philippines. He also worked in South Africa for the business before it left the territory. He is an Industrial Engineering graduate from the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Spain: Pedro Carranza, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Grupo Cementos Portland Valderrivas, has been named as the president of Fundación Laboral Andaluza del Cemento y el Medio Ambiente (FLACEMA). He succeeds Francisco Zunzunegui, who has held the post since late 2017. FLACEMA promotes the co-procesing of waste by the Andalusian cement industry. It was set up in 2003 by the Association of Manufacturers of Cement of Andalusia (AFCA) and a group of major unions.