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[Oct 2005]
Vesuvius Group Management Changes
Gian Carlos Cozzani, President and CEO of Vesuvius, the major refractories company and part of Cookson Group, will retire at his 65th birthday on 6 October 2005 having led Vesuvius for more than 11 years. He will also resign from the Board of Cookson Group PLC having served as an Executive Director since 1999.
He joined Vesuvius in 1988 after 23 years with Exxon Chemical in various managerial positions. Under his leadership and vision, Vesuvius grew through acquisitions and organic growth from US$400 million sales in 1994 to US$1.3 billion in turnover in 2004. The number of employees grew during the same period from 2,500 to over 9,000 today.
The company added that in the refractory industry, Vesuvius had become the world-wide leader and had set new standards in technology, product development and quality. Mr Cozzani, it concluded, leaves a very strong company present in all major markets from Nafta to China, from South America to Japan.
Francois Wanecq has been appointed as the designated successor to Mr Cozzani as CEO. Mr Wanecq held a series of senior management roles at ArjoWiggins Group, the global paper group, from 1995 to 2004. He was a Board Director at ArjoWiggins Appleton PLC from 1999 to 2001 and was Chairman of the Management Board of ArjoWiggins sas from 2001 to 2004.
Previous to his time with ArjoWiggins, from 1985 to 1995, he was Managing Director of the technical ceramics division of Saint-Gobain SA and before that spent seven years with the French Ministry for Industry, as head of the research and production department at the Oil and Gas Directorate.
ENDS