Glyn Lewis is back on Northam’s board

Former Northam Platinum CEO Glyn Lewis is back at the company, this time as a nonexecutive director, replacing the experienced Ralph Havenstein who is retiring.

Northam has one of the strongest, most experienced mining boards in SA, with a number of former and serving CEOs as nonexecutive directors.

Lewis, who was CEO for eight years and who stepped down in an early retirement from Northam in 2014, is a hard-bitten miner with years of experience in an operating environment.

“Mr Lewis brings extensive engineering and mining expertise to Northam, which will further strengthen the board’s technical competency,” said chair Brian Mosehla.

Havenstein was the CEO of Anglo American Platinum until 2007 when he resigned unexpectedly, with many in the market pointing to a fallout with then Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll over the safety record at the platinum miner.

Havenstein has been on the Northam board for 17 years. He will be replaced by Lewis, who was once the general manager of Northam’s Zondereinde mine, for years the single asset within the company, and he was involved in establishing the Tarkwa gold mine in Ghana. Gold Fields owns Tarkwa.

David Brown, the former Impala Platinum CEO, takes over from Havenstein as the lead independent at the Northam AGM on November 1.

Brown is the chair of Great Dyke Investments, which wants to start platinum group metals (PGM) mining in Zimbabwe.

seccombea@businesslive.co.za