People

People

Gordon (Gord) McKenzie became the new president and CEO of Canpotex in mid-January. His appointment is the culmination of a 25-year fertilizer industry career in a variety of senior sales and marketing roles. Gord most recently served as Mosaic’s vice president for global sales.

“Gord is an outstanding leader with a proven ability to deliver strong operating and financial performance in an internationally-focused organization,” said Joc O’Rourke, chair of Canpotex’s board of directors, and Mosaic’s president and CEO. “The Board believes that Gord is the right choice to lead Canpotex.”

“Canpotex is a great Canadian company with an outstanding team that has served overseas potash customers with excellence for almost 50 years. With Gord’s appointment, Canpotex is well-positioned to continue to compete, and to succeed, in highly competitive overseas potash markets,” said Ken Seitz, who sits on Canpotex’s board of directors and is also executive vice president and CEO for potash at Nutrien.

Raed Soub was appointed Secretary General of the Cairo-based Arab Fertilizer Association (AFA) at the start of January. He replaces Mohamed Zain. Mr Soub is a highly experienced international manager and was formerly the advisor to the chairman of the Arab Potash Company (APC). He has served with more than 20 international companies since 1989, occupying the positions of chair, director or general manager. Raed is a chartered engineer and holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Jordan.

Samir Brikho took up the role of chairman of EuroChem Group in December. He has served on EuroChem’s board since 2018. Mr Brikho was notably CEO of Amec Foster Wheeler from 2006 to 2016. Samir’s long and high-level business career has also included stints as CEO of Alstom Kraftwerke and CEO of ABB Lummus Global.

“I am proud to be taking over as chairman at such an exciting point in Euro-Chem’s history,” Samir Brikho said. “I see enormous potential for the business and am looking forward to helping the company become the most successful player in the fertilizer sector.”

Mr Brikho replaces Alexander Landia who has left EuroChem’s board after more than six years. He will now take up an unspecified new role within AIM Capital, EuroChem’s holding company. “It has been a pleasure to serve as chairman for EuroChem Group, and I would like to wish Samir all the best in his new role,” Alexander Landia said.

OCP Group has received the Industry Stewardship Gold Medal for the second year in a row. The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) prize was awarded to Hanane Mourchid, OCP’s senior vice president for sustainability, at IFA’s Strategic Forum in Versailles on 20th November. The award, which was personally presented by IFA president Mostafa Terrab, recognises OCP’s strong commitment to health, safety and environment (HSE) and its leadership on sustainable development.

OCP has demonstrated its commitment to HSE through the company-wide ‘Zero Incidents’ programme. This was set up with the help of DuPont OCP Operations Consulting (DOOC), a joint venture between OCP and DuPont. The programme covers both employees and external subcontractors. It makes each individual responsible for the safety of colleagues as well as their own safety in the workplace. OCP has also now implemented 18 health and environmental safety standards across all its industrial sites. Thanks to these efforts, the group’s accident frequency rate has dropped by 60 percent in the last five years.

Alexander Gilgenberg was appointed as general director of the PhosAgro subsidiary company Apatit in November. Alexander was appointed to the role from his previous position as deputy general director. He has worked for PhosAgro since 1999. Vladimir Davydenko, who previous headed Apatit, will now take on a high-level technical development role at PhosAgro.

PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev said: “These changes in the management structure of our production assets will enable the company to take on the challenges we face. PhosAgro’s recently-announced ‘Strategy to 2025’ calls for a large-scale investment programme of $3 billion. This requires direct personal control over investment activities – which will be carried out by Vladimir Davydenko with his enormous professional experience in this area.”

PhosAgro plans to increase its production capacity for fertilizers and feed phosphates to 11.7 million tonnes by 2025, a 25 percent increase on its 2018 capacity. The strategy also involves an expansion in the number of fertilizer grades produced by PhosAgro. These are set to increase from 39 grades in 2018 to 50 fertilizer grades by 2025. The company’s expanded product range will include new high-performance products which incorporate bio-additives.