Olivier reshuffles Grindrod hierarchy

TERRY HUTSON ALAN OLIVIER, chief executive officer-designate of Grindrod Group, has wasted little time in putting his mark on how he would like the company management to look. Olivier succeeds Ivan Clark at the end of the year when Clark steps down as probably the most successful CEO ever in Grindrod’s history, having overseen a dramatic turnaround for the company in little more than seven short years. When Clark retires officially at the end of December 2006 he will become deputy chairman of the Grindrod board. This week Olivier announced that Laurence Stuart-Hill, currently Grindrod’s executive director responsible for landfreight logistics, would take over Olivier’s position of executive director of Unicorn Shipping, Grindrod’s tanker owning and operating division. Stuart-Hill is no stranger to shipping and worked for Unicorn for five years prior to his appointment as Grindrod financial director in 1999. Captain Dave Rennie, also a Grindrod executive director, will assume responsibility for landfreight logistics and terminals in place of Stuart-Hill, but remains in charge of Ocean Africa Container Lines which Grindrod operates as a joint venture with Safmarine. Olivier said that Captain Rennie had been with the Grindrod Group for 28 years and had a sound knowledge of shipping, ports and logistics and had been very successful in re-engineering the group’s seafreight logistics business.