LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – Zambeef Products plc has announced that Joint Chief Executive Officer Dr Carl Irwin will retire from the business in March next year.

Dr Irwin, along with Francis Grogan, founded the company in 1994, growing the company from a small butchery business into a multi-national conglomerate that is one of the largest and most successful companies listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange, with a secondary listing on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.

Dr Irwin presided over key milestones that have helped grow the company into one of the region’s greatest success stories, with 197 retail outlets throughout Zambia and West Africa and more than 7,000 employees.

In addition to the stock exchange listings in both Zambia and London, he was instrumental with Francis Grogan in driving Zambeef’s investment of US$101 million in the last five years into developing Zambeef’s operations into world class operations.

“On behalf of shareholders, employees and the Board, I would like to thank Carl Irwin for his outstanding contribution to Zambeef over the past 23 years. He, along with Francis Grogan, co-founded the business and it has been through their vision, entrepreneurial drive and leadership that Zambeef has grown to become a market- leading and respected Zambian and Southern African business,” said Zambeef Chairman Dr Jacob Mwanza.

Dr Irwin graduated with a Bachelor of Commence from the University of Cape Town and is a Fellow of the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of the Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. He is also a shareholder and director of several other companies covering tourism, agriculture, and aviation, including Zambia’s domestic scheduled airline Proflight Zambia.

During the last nine months a special committee of the Zambeef Board, including the founders and Joint Chief Executive Officers, Dr Irwin and Mr Grogan, has undertaken a leadership succession planning process assisted by an external Human Resources consultant ahead of the planned retirement on March 31, 2018 of Dr Irwin.

As part of the management restructuring, Tim Pollock, Investment Director for Food & Agriculture for CDC Group, has resigned from CDC and will join Zambeef on January 1, 2018, initially as Group Managing Director and subsequently as Joint Chief Executive Officer effective from March 31, 2018, subject to usual regulatory requirements.

Mr Pollock has been a Non-Executive Director of Zambeef since September 2016 and has over 35 years of experience across the food and agribusiness sectors in both operational, leadership and strategic roles in businesses operating in both developed and frontier markets, including Cargill, Grainfamers, Armajaro and Lallemand.

CDC holds 17.5 percent of Zambeef’s ordinary share capital. In light of Mr Pollock’s candidature, CDC recused both of its nominee directors from the special Board committee formed to manage the leadership succession planning process and from all subsequent Board discussions regarding leadership succession and the appointment of Mr Pollock.

In addition, Mike Lovett, General Manager of the Cropping Division, has been appointed Chief Operations Officer and Director of Agriculture, and Walter Roodt, General Manager of Zambeef’s Novatek Stockfeed Division, has been appointed Deputy Managing Director with the additional responsibility for leading the implementation across the Cold Chain Foods Division of a food safety management system and certification to ISO standards.

Carl Irwin said: “I have greatly enjoyed my 23 years with Zambeef and my decision to retire has not been an easy one. Earlier this year, I notified the board of my wish to spend more time with my family. Tim Pollock’s timely appointment will secure an orderly transition of leadership in parallel with the reorganisation of responsibilities for Zambeef’s very capable senior management team.

“I would like to thank every one of the 7,267 employees of Zambeef for their contribution to where Zambeef is today. I feel very proud of what we have achieved as a team in creating a Zambian company that is a world-class operation. In addition, I would like to thank my Joint CEO, Francis Grogan, with whom it has been a pleasure working. I look forward to watching Zambeef continue to grow and be a national champion driving Zambian agricultural products into the wider SADC/COMESA region. It has been a privilege to be involved with Zambeef for the last 23 years.”

Zambeef founder and Joint Chief Executive Officer Dr Carl Irwin

About Zambeef Products Plc

Zambeef Products Plc is the largest integrated agribusiness and food processing company in Zambia and one of the largest in the region.

The group is principally involved in the production, processing, distribution and retailing of beef, chicken, pork, milk, dairy products, eggs, stockfeed and flour. The group also has large row cropping operations (principally maize, soya beans and wheat), planting 16,500 hectares in summer and 8,000 hectares in winter. The group is also expanding its West Africa operations in Nigeria and Ghana.

The company slaughters around 78,000 beef cattle, 7.1million chickens and 61,000 pigs per annum, while also processing 20 million litres of milk, producing 156,000 tons of stockfeed, 70 million eggs, 75,000 pairs of shoes and processes 101,000 hides in its tannery per year.
It has 196 retail outlets throughout Zambia and West Africa.

Zambeef employs over 7,200 people with a total of K357 million paid in remuneration and benefits in the last year.

More information is available at www.zambeefplc.com