Goddy Egene
Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc yesterday announced that its its pioneer managing director/CEO, Mr. Austin Avuru will be retiring in July 2020 after 10 years of leading the company. He will be succeeded by the Mr. Roger Brown, who is currently the chief financial officer(CFO).
Seplat said in a statement that in these 10 years, Avuru led the development of a strong organisation, the deployment of agile systems, processes and stakeholder relationships that allowed the organisation to grow rapidly from a gross production of 22,700boepd as at December 2010 to peaks of 111,368boepd gross production as at December 2018 through major drilling campaigns and major new Oil and Gas plants development.
The board of Seplat expressed gratitude to Avuru for the accomplishments and is looking forward to his continued service at the board level.
According to the company, it plans to position itself for a next phase growth ambition which would see the expansion of its footprint in terms of energy business activities, a plan to pursue offshore assets as well as opportunity driven entry into different geographies.
“The company believes that such a corporate transition would require a different kind of organisational structure, people skills set and mentality to compete well in the expanded space. In view of this, Seplat will be reviewing its current organizational and systems structure,” it said.
Meanwhile, Brown is bringing to the CEO role, a deep knowledge of the company in his six years as the CFO and a member of the board.
“He has strong financial, commercial and merger and acquisition (M&A) experience as well as proven people skills which will be an asset as the company embarks on the next phase of its growth plan,” Seplat said.
