Experience

Portland Cement Malawi LTD

• Malawi
• Wholesale Building Materials
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Plant Manager at Portland Cement Malawi

  • Aug 2021 - Present

  I am responsible for overseeing operations in production, maintenance and laboratory in two different plants that are 15 km away from each other. I report directly to the Chief Executive Officer and I am a member of the executive committee, Excom. I have 5 managers reporting directly to me but I am managing a total plant team of 140 employees. My responsibilities include providing coherent coordination and guidance to the different plant sections to deliver the agreed plant key performance indicators safely, efficiently and cost effectively. I started off as Acting Plant Manager before being confirmed as Plant Manager. My responsibilities include:  Identifying and executing opportunities and services that benefit both internal and external customers  Ensuring business governance and sustainability by setting up long term plans through comprehensive process in terms of people development, CAPEX and OPEX expenditures  Monitoring key financial indicators to generate, evaluate, and act on short term strategic options and opportunities.  Driving my team to develop and implement projects aimed at cost saving on high spending areas  Offering sound guidance and decisions to plant team in resolving problems using breakthrough thinking approach  Negotiating in tough situations with both internal and external stakeholders to arrive at acceptable resolutions without damaging stakeholder relationships  Keeping fellow Excom members well informed and advised about opportunities, risks, problems and solutions in clear and concise manner.



Holcim

• Switzerland
• Wholesale Building Materials
• 700 & Above Employee

• Production and Operations Manager at Lafarge Cement Malawi

  • Apr 2019 - Jul 2021

  I was responsible for running operations in two different plants, Makata Plant and Lunzu Plant. In Makata Plant I operated as Production Manager and in Lunzu Plant I operated as Operations Manager. I was operating in the two positions simultaneously and I was reporting to the Plant Manager. My responsibilities in general included:  Defining objectives for Production Department in areas of health and safety, quality of raw materials and products, CAPEX optimization and people development  Providing a safe working environment for all personnel under my responsibility through continuous review, improvement and effective enforcement of processes, safe working procedures and cleanliness of the plants  Generating production volume budgets and plans and operating within them  Generating fiscal budgets and operating within them  Coordinating and managing operations in order to make available on a day to day basis the required product within the required quality, cost and time  Managing and optimizing personnel and equipment in order to produce at minimum costs  Identifying and implementing cost reduction initiatives in the plants  Identifying training needs of personnel under my responsibility and arranging relevant training in conjunction with the HR department and the LafargeHolcim group training centre  Championing Plant Operating Model in operations through interdepartmental Daily Operations Meetings and training Process Technician for first level process inspections I had 8 LafargeHolcim full time employees reporting to me directly but I manage operations that have a combined total of 120 contractor employees under my care.



14Trees

• Switzerland
• Construction
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Production and Maintenance Manager

  • Apr 2017 - Mar 2019

  Reporting to the Managing Director of 14 Trees Ltd, my responsibilities include:  Providing a safe working environment for all production personnel through continuous review, improvement and effective enforcement of processes, safe working procedures and cleanliness of the plant  Generating production fiscal budgets and operating within them  Coordinating and managing production and maintenance activities in order to make available on a day to day basis the required product within the required quality, cost and time  Managing and optimizing personnel and equipment in production in order to produce at minimum operational and maintenance costs  Identifying and implementing cost reduction initiatives in production and maintenance  Identifying training needs of personnel in production and maintenance and arranging for relevant training in conjunction with the HR department I have 4 supervisors reporting directly to me but the department runs with a total of 55 full time employees who report to my direct reportees



Carlsberg Group

• Denmark
• Food and Beverage Services
• 700 & Above Employee

• Senior Shift Manager (Packaging Manager)

  • Aug 2014 - Apr 2017

  Reporting to the Plant Manager, my responsibilities included:  Taking charge of three production plants – two for returnable glass bottles and one for PET bottles  Providing a safe working environment for all Production personnel through continuous review, improvement and effective enforcement of processes, safe working procedures and cleanliness of the three plants  Generating production fiscal budgets and operating within them  Coordinating and managing production in order to make available on a day to day basis the required product within the required quality, cost and time  Managing and optimizing personnel and equipment in production in order to produce at minimum costs  Identifying and implementing cost reduction initiatives in production  Identifying training needs of personnel in production and arrange for relevant training in conjunction with the HR department I had 7 shift managers reporting to me directly but the department run with a total of 110 full time employees who were reporting to my direct reportees



Holcim

• Switzerland
• Wholesale Building Materials
• 700 & Above Employee

• Production Manager

  • Feb 2013 - Jul 2014

  Reporting to the Plant Manager. Responsibilities: Defining objectives for Production Department in areas of health and safety, quality of raw materials and products, CAPEX optimization and people development Providing a safe working environment for all Production personnel through continuous review, improvement and effective enforcement of processes, safe working procedures and cleanliness of the whole plant Generating production volume budgets and plans and operating within them Generating production fiscal budgets and operating within them Coordinating and managing production in order to make available on a day to day basis the required product within the required quality, cost and time Managing and optimizing personnel and equipment in production in order to produce at minimum costs Identifying and implementing cost reduction initiatives in production Identifying training needs of personnel in production and arrange for relevant training in conjunction with the HR department Championing Plant Operating Model in Production Department through interdepartmental Daily Operations Meetings, training Process Inspectors for first level process inspections7 direct reportees but the department runs with a total of 113 personnel comprising of Lafarge employees and contractor employees

• Process Engineer

  • Mar 2008 - Feb 2013

  In the first three years at Lafarge Cement Malawi I combined both Process Engineering function and Production Engineering function. My responsibilities ranged from doing process engineering measurements and reports as well as managing production schedules and generating production reports. I was responsible for managing a section of the production function with a total number of 20 people as well as a contractor with a total number of 17 people.Between 2011 and 2013 I was still Process Engineer but was in charge of running the Production Department at Lafarge Cement Malawi. My responsibilities ranged from generating and managing cement production volume budgets, management of department fiscal budgets and management of employees in the department which comprises of cement milling as well as cement dispatch. I was acting in the capacity of Production Manager since June 2011 and I was reporting to the Plant Manager. I was managing a total of 44 employees in production and two contractors with a total of 55 contractor employees. In the first year of my employment I was caretaker for the Laboratory and Quality with a total of 12 people reporting to me and I was also responsible for managing a contractor with a total of 8 people.I was also responsible for generating process and production reports and for training a Graduate Process Engineer who joined the company in January 2012.



University of Cape Town

• South Africa
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Research Assistant

  • Mar 2001 - Dec 2001

  I worked as a research assistant for the head of chemical engineering department at the University of Cape Town, Professor Sue Harrison. My work varied from searching for reading material for Professor Harrison in libraries to carrying out some of the bioprocess experiments for her research. The experiments included sterilisation, preparing inoculums, growing cells in an incubator and carrying out different dilution and staining methods to determine viable cells in batches. There were some continuous process experiments where I was required to determine the mass of solids in given volumes of medium solution using centrifugation methods



Sugar Milling Research Institute, SMRI

• Durban Area, South Africa

• Vacation Student

  • Nov 2000 - Feb 2001

  At the research institute, my job was to design and to carry out filtration experiments that would establish the best experimental conditions needed to accurately determine the filterability of raw sugar samples from sugar mills in Durban. I submitted my findings in a report in which I highlighted the trends in and correlations between temperature, pressure, molality of sugar solutions and the rate of filtration as well as the volumes of filtrate collected. At the research institute, my job was to design and to carry out filtration experiments that would establish the best experimental conditions needed to accurately determine the filterability of raw sugar samples from sugar mills in Durban. I submitted my findings in a report in which I highlighted the trends in and correlations between temperature, pressure, molality of sugar solutions and the rate of filtration as well as the volumes of filtrate collected.



Illovo Sugar Africa

• Food and Beverage Manufacturing
• 700 & Above Employee

• Vacation Student

  • Nov 1999 - Feb 2000

  I worked in the process department of an industrial sugar plant. I was rotated between different sections and given different tasks in the process department to get me acquainted with the calculations and practices involved in chemical engineering at industrial level. My tasks included carrying out extensive overall mass and energy balances on the back end process as well as carrying out mass and energy balances on heat exchangers. Other tasks involved calculating the amount of seed required for crystallisation to produce desired sizes of sugar grains. During scheduled maintenance, I was involved in work on a diffuser, boilers, evaporators, pumps, heat exchangers and centrifuges as well as being involved in plant start up and shut down.