By InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)- Brewer, Guinness Nigeria Plc on Monday announced it has appointed  Thomas Dogonyaro, Cephas Afebuameh and Ronald Charles Plumridge as directors of the company, the brewer said in an issuer’s announcement with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

The company said while Dogonyaro is a non-executive director, Afebuameh is the Supply Chain Director while Plumridge is the Finance and Strategy Director.

According to Guinness Nigeria, the appointments are coming on the heels of the resignation of Lisa Gillian Nichols from the board of directors of the company with immediate effect. “Until her resignation, Nichols was the Finance and Strategy Director of the company,” Guinness said.

Similarly, Guinness says it has appointed Rotimi Odusola, currently the company’s Legal Director, as the Deputy Company Secretary with immediate effect.

The company says Odusola will combine this position with his role as the Company’s Legal Director and supporting the Company Secretary in the management of shareholder and investor relations and the board.

The brewer affirms that Dongoyaro, holds a First Class Honours degree from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Business Administration. He also attended the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom where he graduated with an MSc degree in Economics with emphasis on Human Resource Management. He is a member of the National Institute (mni) having attended the one year Strategic Management Course at the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos in 1998. He is also a Certified Management Trainer and Consultant.

He started his career as an academic with the Department of Business Administration, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU). He moved from ABU to set up the School of Business Studies at the then Sokoto State Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi. He has served in the defunct Nigeria Security Organisation (NSO), the Nigerian Foreign Service in the Nigerian Missions in London, United Kingdom and Pretoria, South Africa where he was Deputy Head of Mission. He became Nigeria’s pioneer Ambassador-in-situ and Coordinator of Programmes at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Secretariat, Midrand, South Africa with responsibility for developing the initial programmes and documents on NEPAD.

Dongoyaro was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Sao Tome & Principe between 2007 and 2010. He co-founded the African Policy Research Institute (APRI), an independent think tank based in Abuja which is committed to bridging the development gap in Africa through informed public policies. He holds the National Honour of Officer of the Order of Niger, (OON) having been decorated for outstanding contributions to Nigerian Foreign Service. He has served previously on the Boards of the Commonwealth Foundation, London, Swazi Sugar Company, Swaziland and Centre for Africa’s International Relations (CAIR) of the University of Wits, Johannesburg, South Africa.

He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Family Ministries (Africa) International, Abuja and Faith Revival for the Nations (FReN) based in Livingstone, Zambia and Australia.

Afebuameh on his part holds a B.Engr. degree in Electrical/Electronic engineering from Federal University of Agriculture (formerly University of Technology), Makurdi, an MBA from University of Benin, and a Certificate of Proficiency in German language from Goethe Institute.

He joined Guinness Nigeria over twelve years ago as Packaging Shift Manager and subsequently functioned as Operations Improvement Manager in both Benin and Lagos breweries at various times before taking on the role of Packaging Manager. In November 2008, Cephas was appointed the Plant Manager, Benin Brewery in which role he provided exceptional leadership to deliver great performance for the site. In August 2010, he was appointed Operations Director, Tusker Plants in Kenya Breweries Limited, a subsidiary of East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL), Nairobi and, in that role, he made a significant impact across the business leading to his being celebrated as the most inspirational leader/ employee of the year in 2011. The Tusker Brewery Kenya under his leadership also won the Most Transformed Site award during the Diageo Manufacturing excellence conference as the most transformed site in Diageo in 2011. He was promoted the Supply Chain Director of Guinness Nigeria in 2012 and became a member of the Guinness Leadership Team.

While  Plumridge holds an honors degree in Economics from the University of Exeter and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1985. He was admitted to fellowship in 1997.

Prior to joining Guinness Nigeria Plc. as Commercial Director in 2004,  Plumridge had over 22 years’ experience in various roles spanning accounting practice, consulting, financial management and general management of commercial in various consumer goods businesses in Europe and the United States. In 2007, he was appointed the Finance Director of Diageo Africa but remained on the Board as a Non-Executive Director. In 2010, he became the CFO of the DAL Group, a privately owned Sudanese Group headquartered in Khartoum, with operations across Sudan, Dubai, Djibouti, south Sudan, Ethiopia and sourcing operations in Malaysia and China Operating across food processing, property, agriculture, and engineering with turnover in excess of $1.5bn, and c6000 staff. He re-joined Guinness Nigeria Plc. as Finance and Strategy Director in January 2015.

While Odusola joined the company as Legal Director in November 2014. Until he joined the Company, he was Senior Manager, Commercial Legal in MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, where he was responsible for providing proactive legal advice and support to the various units of the MTN business. In his over eleven years at MTN Nigeria Communications, he has previously held a number of roles including acting company secretary, acting head of corporate affairs, acting general manager for regulatory affairs and acting general manager for commercial legal.

The company affirmed that in these roles, he had primary responsibilities that included at various times, managing the claims and litigation portfolio of over 500 cases in various courts, intellectual property and copyright protection matters, perfection of proprietary interest to landed properties across the country, management and support to the marketing, sales and distribution channels of the company to help facilitate the attainment of set corporate objectives and general business support services to the company.

Prior to joining MTN Nigeria, he spent over nine years at one of Nigeria’s leading commercial law firms, Aluko & Oyebode, where he was an Associate and later Senior Associate and was responsible for full legal advisory services to major clients across various industries that included manufacturing, tobacco, agro-allied and food processing, oil and gas, telecommunications, aviation and banking.

With these appointment and resignation, the board of Guinness Nigeria Plc now comprises of the following notable individuals:

• Mr. Babatunde Abayomi Savage – Chairman

• Dr. Nick Blazquez – Vice-Chairman

• Mr. John O’Keeffe – Managing Director/CEO

• Prof. Joseph Ogbonnaya Irukwu, SAN

• Mr. Bismarck Jemide Rewane

• Mrs. Zainab Abdurrahman

• Mr. Phil Jenkins

• Ms. Yvonne Ike

• Mr. Andy Fennel

• Ambassador Sunday Thomas Dogonyaro

• Mr. Cephas Afebuameh

• Mr. Ronald Charles Plumridge