Aggreko Announces the Appointment of Chris Weston as Chief Executive Officer

LONDON, May 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Aggreko, the world leader in the provision of power generation and temperature control services, is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Weston as Chief Executive Officer.

Chris has extensive experience in senior leadership roles in world-class businesses. He is currently Managing Director, International Downstream at Centrica plc, where he is an Executive Director running the Group's largest division. In this role Chris is operationally responsible for both British Gas in the UK and Direct Energy in the USA, with revenues of £22bn, profits of £1.3bn and over 35,000 employees.

He joined Centrica in 2001 after a successful career in the telecoms industry, working for both Cable & Wireless and One.Tel. Before that, Chris served in the Royal Artillery before earning a BSc in Applied Science, as well as an MBA and PhD from Imperial College London.  

He is expected to join Aggreko next year once he has completed his commitments at Centrica.

Angus Cockburn, Aggreko's Interim CEO, will continue this role. Angus had previously indicated to the Board that he had decided not to apply for the role on a permanent basis and that, after 14 years at Aggreko principally as CFO, he was keen to seek fresh challenges. Accordingly, he will step down from the Group later in the year.

Aggreko is also pleased to announce that Carole Cran, currently Interim CFO, is appointed as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director of Aggreko plc and will join the Board with immediate effect. Carole joined Aggreko in 2004 and has worked closely with Angus Cockburn as Group Financial Controller and more recently as Director of Finance.

Commenting on the announcement, Ken Hanna, Chairman of Aggreko, said: "I am delighted to welcome Chris to Aggreko on behalf of all the Board and the Company. Chris brings senior experience of the energy industry and proven leadership skills in a large international business. He has consistently succeeded in driving performance and growth in his career and we believe he has the skills and vision to continue Aggreko's growth and lead the Group to the next level.

"In addition I would like to thank Angus Cockburn so much for the immense contribution he has made to Aggreko over the last 14 years. We can understand his desire to seek a fresh challenge and wish him every success in his future career. He has an extremely able successor in Carole Cran who has many years of experience with the Group."

Chris Weston said: "Aggreko is a fascinating business and I'm very excited to be taking on this role. I have watched and admired Aggreko's tremendous growth over recent years and I look forward to working with Carole and the entire management team to develop the company further in the coming years."

Editor's Notes  

Aggreko plc is the world leader in the supply of temporary power and temperature control solutions. Aggreko employs over 6,000 people operating from 202 locations. In 2013 we served customers in about 100 countries, and had revenues of approximately GBP 1.6bn (USD 2.5bn or Euros 1.9bn). Aggreko plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (AGK.L), is a member of the FTSE-100 index, and is headquartered in Scotland.

Aggreko provides power and temperature control solutions to customers who need them either very quickly, or for a short or indeterminate length of time. Examples would be the supply of power to an industrial site which needs to service its permanent power supply, supplying a whole city in times of power shortage, or providing a major sporting event with power and cooling systems. We serve our customers either through our 202 service centres, which we call the Local business, or globally through our Power Projects business.

In the Local business, which accounts for about half of our revenues, we hire our equipment to customers, who then operate it for themselves, although we retain responsibility for servicing and maintaining it. In the Power Projects business, which also accounts for about half of our revenues, we operate as a power producer. We install and operate power plants and we charge our customers both for providing the generating capacity, and for the electricity we produce. We design and manufacture equipment specifically for these requirements in our factory in Dumbarton, Scotland.

Recent customers include the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Ryder Cup and Cirque du Soleil and the power utilities in over 50 countries including the UK, France, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil and the USA.

In 2013 we fulfilled almost 48,000 customers' assignments and 72% of those who responded to our research gave us a recommendation of 9 or 10 out of 10.

For more information, please visit our local website at: http://www.aggreko.com