HARARE- Lafarge Zimbabwe has appointed Kaziwe Kaulume as the new CE of the company taking over from Amal Tantawy, who left the company at the end of 2018 to pursue other personal interests.

The later led Lafarge between 2014 and 2018 and since her takeover Lafarge went on to report weak financial performances amid market share loss implying her exit might have been forced

The new CE Kaziwe is of Zambian origin but has been based in the UK. Kaziwe has been working within the group as the UK General Manager for Lead Retail Division.

The group said Kaziwe is an accomplished executive with over 14 years of international experience leading teams in Operations, Digital transformation and Business development in Europe and Africa.

Kaziwe is credited for successfully led the commercial turnaround in Zambia by developing and executing sales, marketing and retail strategies.

A brief stint between 2012 and 2013, while working as regional marketing director for the Southern African cluster comprising of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, exposed him to the Zimbabwean market.

Lafarge is the second largest cement manufacturer in Zimbabwe with a production capacity of 450,000 tones per annum which accounts for 15% of total market capacity. Rival PPC has scaled up capacity and market share in recent years and has been reporting storng earnings since installing the Harare plant.

The producer has however been losing ground, reporting a topsy-turvy performance saddled with losses in at least 2 of the 5 years while revenue has generally trended southwards.

- Equity Axis News