With the appointment of Darren Wilson as Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Rob Lammertink as Research and Development Manager, LKAB Minerals strengthens the organisation to prepare for the planned doubling in size.
LKAB Minerals has offices, processing plants and deposits in 12 countries and are a leading global supplier of mineral solutions. With unique mineral deposits and a history of developing innovative and sustainable products based on natural minerals, LKAB Minerals are looking to further increase rate of new innovations presented to the market at the same time as they will be focusing on operational excellence and sustainability.
“It is our strategy to deliver unrivalled customer value by offering sustainable mineral solutions, developed by our application specialists and manufactured by our mineral and processing experts” says Leif Boström, CEO of LKAB Minerals.
A strong central Research and Development organisation
With R&D previously having been embedded in other parts of the organisation, the creation and strengthening of a central department is expected to increase the speed of developments and the number of innovations brought to market. Leif Boström comments on the appointment of Rob Lammertink ”Having worked in various roles and projects with account management, R&D and production, Rob has extensive experience of our company and mineral products as well as our customer applications. With his strategic view and methodological approach I am confident Rob is the right person to progress and boost the work we are doing with R&D”.
Rob Lammertink comments on his appointment “Innovation is a strong driver in our growth plan and the overarching objective for our R&D team will be to develop new mineral based solutions that will enable our customers to be more successful. Focus will mainly be on our unique mineral assets and their added value in numerous application areas. This means foremost a focus on magnetite, mica and hydromagnesite huntite as well as refractory minerals and recycling. Our research and development programs are managed in-house and in close cooperation with customers, suppliers, institutes and universities. Furthermore we will be increasing cooperation within the LKAB corporation with our owner company.”
Aligning global operations and supply chain
“Continuous improvement, operating excellence and sustainability are in focus when aligning our global operations” according to LKAB Minerals CEO Leif Boström who continues to say “Darren has a wealth of experience in mineral extraction, processing and manufacture of added value products. He has also held responsibility for the supply chain and has commercial experience from his tenure with Saint-Gobain in various roles. I am confident that as we grow the company, Darren is the right person to manage our global operations.”
Darren Wilson comments on his appointment as Chief Operating Officer “I look forward to the exciting challenge of taking the next step with the global team in LKAB Minerals. With our current and planned growth we have a fantastic opportunity to utilise our combined experience in Europe, Asia and the US and other best practices to build a quality focused and resource efficient operational structure that delivers operational excellence every day on all sites around the world.”
LKAB Minerals is an international industrial minerals group with a leading position in a number of product applications. The company develops sustainable mineral solutions in partnership with its customers, supplying natural minerals engineered for functionality and usability. LKAB Minerals has sales representation, offices, production units and deposits in 12 countries in Europe, Asia and the US and employs around 360 people. LKAB Minerals had a turnover of 192 MEURO 2013 and is part of the Swedish company LKAB, one of the world’s leading producers of highly upgraded iron ore products.
Read more about LKAB Minerals, www.lkabminerals.com