Capital Equipment News March 2019

INTERVIEW

Pekka Vauramo, CEO and President of Metso.

Dries Lottering, manufacturing renewal executive at Bridgestone South Africa.

Four months into his new role as CEO and President of Metso, Pekka Vauramo has hit the ground running and one of the very first of his strategic decisions was to declare Africa an independent market area within the Metso organisation. Africa was previously managed from the Middle East office as part of Metso’s Middle East Africa market area. Munesu Shoko recently had a one-on-one with the new Metso leader during his visit to Metso South Africa. Hitting the ground running

Munesu Shoko [MS]: You have been in your new role four months now. What have been some of your key priorities? Pekka Vauramo [PV]: Learning all corners of the Metso business has been my major priority. The Metso business is people focused and is spread across 50 countries and, consequently, I have embarked on extensive travel for the first few months to get to meet the various teams on the ground. There is still more travel to be done as I get myself acquainted to the various market areas of our business. A background in a fairly similar business, having previously worked for Sandvik for many years, has helped considerably. However, the industry has moved on quite significantly during the past 12 years I have been away from it. There are lots of technological trends in the industry that didn’t exist in those days, for example, automation and Industry 4.0, among others. It is important to understand where our customers are in their journey towards these trends and what their needs and requirements are.

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS MARCH 2019 24