E-Malt.com News article: Kenya: East African Breweries reorganise board room

East African Breweries Limited has reorganised its board room in the wake of the exit of its chairman, Jeremiah Gitau Kiereini, last week in changes that have firmed the grip of Diageo on the brewing giant, All Africa reported on February, 20.

Tracy Barnes, Susan Githuku and Siobhan Moriarty' will occupy board seats previously held by Peter Ndegwa, Charles Muchene and Cristina Diezhandino respectively.

The appointments coincided with the replacement of Mr Kiereini - who had served as chairman for 24 years -by a former PwC executive Mr Muchene in changes that analysts linked to the boardroom wrangles at motor dealer CMC Motors.

These appointments give Diageo, which owns 50.03 per cent of EABL, four board seats up from two in 2008 - when its interests were represented by Seni Adetu (now managing director) and Nick Blazquez.

The board vice-chairman and the board of directors made the announcement following a meeting held on February, 16 in a statement sent to the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

The changes were prompted by the exit of Mr Kiereini on February, 17 and the appointment of Ms Barnes as the finance director, a position that gives her an automatic board seat.

The 83- year-old Kiereini has in the past six months fended off allegations that he together with former CMC chief executive Martin Forster, operated illegal offshore accounts worth more than Sh250 million.

The money was allegedly accumulated with suppliers who overcharged CMC on invoices and wired the money back to the duo along with other senior employees in a span of 26 years.

Kiereni's exit, that was to take place "with immediate effect", heralded Muchene's appointment whose seat Mrs Githuku filled. Mrs Githuku, an economist by profession, is a book publisher and has previously served as human resource director at Coca-Cola.

Ms Barnes, who is to assume the finance director's post from next month, replaces Mr Ndegwa who was promoted to another Diageo subsidiary, Ghana Breweries Limited in December.

She served as Diageo's audit and risk director for Africa and Europe in a career spanning 13 years.

The appointment of a high profile Diageo finance executive is linked to the need for tight cash management given that EABL has seen its accumulated money get depleted by new acquisitions.

Ms Barnes appointment comes at a time when expatriates seconded from Diageo have increased as the brewer continuously searches for people and new ideas to take on competition from rivals SABMiller and Heineken.

Top executives who have joined EABL from Diageo in the past two years include Mr Bonny Jojo (managing director of EABL International), Mr Geoff Biggs (sales director), Adesola Sotande (head of finance) and Mr Mark Abbey, (group controller).

Mr Cephas Alfebuameh (operations director) and Edmunds James (group legal counsel).

EABL recorded a 17 per cent growth in net profits earning Sh4.8 billion in the six months to December 2011 up from Sh4.1 billion in a similar period the previous year.


24 February, 2012