Northbridge shuffles up board and management team

Industrial services and rental company Northbridge Industrial Services announced a number of board and operational management changes on Tuesday, including the appointment of Nitin Kaul as a non-Executive director with effect from 1 May.

The AIM-traded firm said Kaul was bringing a “wealth of experience” relevant to Northbridge's business.

“He has considerable experience of the oil and gas and marine industries, and also of working in important geographies to Northbridge, most notably, EMEA, Asia Pacific and in emerging markets,” the board said in its announcement.

It said Kaul had held a number of senior roles, most recently for four years as president of oil and gas/marine and president of emerging markets at The Gates Corporation and previously as an executive director, corporate development at Tomkins.

The board also confirmed that Michael Dodson, who became a shareholder and then a non-executive director at the time of the Northbridge IPO in 2006 following its acquisition of the original Crestchic business, will - after 11 years of “valuable service” - be leaving the board with effect from 7 June.

“These changes have led to a reorganisation of the responsibilities of the non-executive directors,” it explained.

With effect from 7 June, David Marshall was appointed senior non-executive and was stepping down as chairman of the audit committee.

Ash Mehta, already a non-executive director of Northbridge, would assume the role of chairman of the audit committee, and Nitin Kaul would take over as chairman of the remuneration committee.

The operational management of Northbridge was also undergoing some changes, which the board said would “better reflect” the structure of the group following its recent reorganisation in preparation for the expected recovery in Northbridge's business and focus on future growth.

Ian Gardner, who is an executive director, would become managing director of the Tasman Group of Companies, which operates Northbridge's global oil tools operations.

Chris Caldwell, a senior manager but not a board member and currently UK rental director, would become managing director of Crestchic's global loadbank and transformer operations.

“We are delighted to welcome Nitin Kaul to the board as he has huge experience in many of our markets, which will be of tremendous benefit to Northbridge,” said chairman Peter Harris.

“On behalf of the whole board I would like to thank Michael Dodson for his considerable input and advice over the last 11 years, and we are sorry to see the departure of our longest serving non-executive director of Northbridge.

“We believe that the restructure of the board and senior management best positions the group to benefit from the anticipated recovery in our existing markets and to exploit emerging new markets for our products and services.”