Aggreko CFO takes interim chief post

TEMPORARY POWER PROVIDER Aggreko has promoted its chief financial officer Angus Cockburn to interim CEO.

The chartered accountant joined the business in 2000, initially as finance director. Before Aggreko he was managing director of Pringle of Scotland, a division of listed luxury textiles business Dawson International. Prior to that, he spent five years at PepsiCo in various positions, latterly as regional finance director for central Europe where he was based in Budapest. Cockburn may have developed a taste for international work when he served at KPMG, where he worked in both the UK and US offices for the firm.

He is currently a non-executive director at global engineering group GKN and sits on its audit committee. He is the former chairman of the Group of Scottish Finance Directors.

Cockburn succeeds Rupert Soames, who leaves the company after 11 years to take up a CEO role at Serco.

The two seemed to be a great working duo, with Soames paying tribute to Cockburn in 2012, claiming he had “technical skill, inspiring leadership and sharp intelligence and human qualities of utter integrity, loyalty and kindness”. The comments came after the company announced a profits rise of 6% to £324m for 2011, The Evening Standard reported.

The CFO role at Aggreko is not left vacant, with group finance controller Carole Cran taking the role on an interim basis. She joined the business nine years ago, having previously spent three years at BAE.

Ken Hanna, group chairman, said: “We are delighted that Angus has agreed to become interim CEO whilst we identify a permanent CEO, from strong internal and external candidates. Angus has the support of an extremely able interim CFO in Carole and an excellent management team, who will continue to drive the business forward.”

The company also announced in its final accounts, published in March, that former SSE FD and Southern Electric FD Ian Marchant had joined the board as a non-executive director.