IOG appoints interim chair as MacAulay announces retirement

IOG announced the retirement of its chair Fiona MacAulay on Friday, as she had chosen not to stand for re-election as a director at its 2023 annual general meeting.

The AIM-traded firm said MacAulay first joined the board in July 2018, and was appointed as chair in December of the same year.

It said that following the AGM, MacAulay would retire as chair and resign as a director.

After her retirement, IOG's board said it had decided to appoint Esa Ikaheimonen as its new chair on an interim basis.

Ikaheimonen had been the company’s senior independent non-executive director since March 2019, and currently chaired the audit committee.

With 30 years of oil and gas industry experience and strong board level expertise, it noted that he is currently chief financial officer at ADNOC Drilling Company and non-executive director of Averda International.

Ikaheimonen previously served as the public company chair of US-listed Transocean Partners and Helsinki-listed Lamor Corporation.

His previous experience in the energy sector included serving as CFO and executive director at the London-listed exploration and production company Genel Energy, executive-vice president and CFO of Transocean, and as a non-executive director at offshore drilling contractor Vantage Drilling International.

Before his work with Transocean, he enjoyed a 20-year career at Shell, culminating in the role of vice-president of finance for Shell Africa E&P.

The company said it had also started a process to recruit two further non-executive directors to provide further board strength in depth for the next phase of the business.

At 1438 GMT, shares in IOG were down 4.1% at 5.03p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.