Executive team

Chris Leon
Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director

Chris Leon joined Cement Australia as CEO in June 2003. A professional engineer, Chris has extensive senior management experience in large scale industrial, manufacturing and marketing operations in Australia and Asia. Prior to joining Cement Australia, Chris was Managing Director and CEO of Pivot Limited and held senior positions at Thai Industrial Gases, York International Australia and BOC Gases Australia.

Melinda Horton-O'Callaghan
General Manager- People and Performance
 

Melinda joined Cement Australia in January 2005 in the role of People Development Manager, part of the Human Resources – Knowledge & Capability function.  Two years later as part of the Marketing & Sales division, she moved into the role of Customer Support Services Manager, to create the national service centre to support Cement Australia’s customers.

In January 2009 Melinda was appointed to the Executive team as General Manager Human Resources and Business Improvement.

Prior to Cement Australia, Melinda ran her own businesses for some 10 years, with particular focus on Training, Communication and Change Management services to organisations embarking on major projects and in the IT space.

Greg Blackford
Chief Financial Officer

Greg Blackford joined Cement Australia as GM-Strategy & Business Development and moved to the role of CFO in June 2004. Greg is responsible for the Finance, Accounting, Strategy, Company Secretary, IT and Internal Audit areas of our business.  Prior to the merger, Greg spent over 20 years with CSR and latterly as CFO of Australian Cement Holdings. 

Greg's background is in Economics, having done an honours degree which also included a major in Japanese language, and led to a period as a student in the Economics Faculty at Kobe University, Japan. His initial career in CSR was in minerals (iron ore, alumina and aluminium) with a stint in CSR's Tokyo office before moving onto Building Materials New Business and then a variety of corporate roles. His first involvement in cement was on the team that implemented the takeover bid for Goliath Cement by ACH in 1989. Subsequently he has had a number of years as a CSR nominated director of ACH before being seconded into the role of CFO of ACH in 1998. 

André Caluori
General Manager – Manufacturing

André joined Cement Australia from Holcim Zurich in November 2005, bringing many years' cement experience including expertise in working with Alternative Fuels and Raw Materials. Most recently André was Plant Manager at Holcim (Romania) S A Ciment Alesd.   André has been with Holcim since 1984 and has worked in a variety of key roles at a number of plants during this time.

Colin Zeitlyn
General Manager - Marketing and Sales  

Colin Zeitlyn is responsible for the national sales of Cement Australia's bulk cementitious products, and Packaged Products. Colin also oversees the Lime business, as well as market and product development, research, branding and end use performance analysis of company products.

Born and educated in the UK, Colin moved to Australia in 1982. Colin has many years' experience in various roles with the BOC Group and a strong industrial marketing background as well as strong general management experience gained in the Asia-Pacific region where he lived and worked in Thailand and Indonesia, and in the UK, where he most recently held the position of global Managing Director of BOC's Medical Gases business. Colin is married and has one teenage daughter.

Constantine Gionis
Company Secretary & General Counsel

Constantine joined Cement Australia as Company Secretary and General Counsel in August 2007. Prior to joining Cement Australia, Con spent seven years with ADI Limited (trading as the Thales Group), a major electronics and engineering company and prior to that spent six years with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Paul McNay
General Manager - Safety, Health, Environment and Compliance (SHEC)  

Paul McNay joined Cement Australia in March 2004, initially in the role of Manager, Knowledge and Capability. He was appointed to the Executive in the capacity of General Manager - Safety, Health, Environment and Compliance in September 2008. 

Prior to Cement Australia, Paul worked for Boral Limited as well as in the consulting, banking and public sectors.  With a strong grounding in the Learning & Development arena, Paul has presented programs and change initiatives not only Australia wide but also in the United States, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

His responsibilities at Cement Australia include all facets of Safety, Health, Environment and the related compliance and training activities. 

Murray Adams

Murray Adams joined Cement Australia in June 2004 as Corporate Strategy and Business Development Manager before moving into the Packaged Products Business as the Business Manager. In January 2009 Murray took on the new role of General Manager for Customer Delivery Services where he was responsible for leading and improving the road, rail and terminals network of the Supply Chain.   Effective 1 December 2009, the Sales and Operations Planning team, along with Shipping were integrated with the Customer Delivery Services division with Murray’s title changing to General Manager Supply Chain.

Murray has extensive experience of profitability and business improvement within a variety of industries.  The move into strategy and business improvement work came when Murray joined Bain and Company in Sydney during 1998 after working for ICI plc in the UK for eight years as a professional Chemical Engineer designing, operating and improving chlorine related chemical plants.  Immediately prior to joining Cement Australia in 2004, Murray worked with Goodman Fielder where he led the consolidation of the Uncle Toby’s manufacturing operation and developed marketing and manufacturing strategies for a number of other product categories.

Andrew Ward

Andrew Ward is responsible for Cement Australia’s Geocycle and Cornwall Coal businesses, in addition to Projects & Engineering, Procurement and Strategy.  Andrew joined Cement Australia in 2006 and since then has held management roles in Strategy, Alternative Fuels and Manufacturing.  He was appointed to the Executive team in January 2010.

Andrew has a strong background in corporate strategy, capital management and business improvement, with a particular focus on the manufacturing sector over the past 10 years.  Prior to Cement Australia, Andrew worked in a number of strategy and management roles at James Hardie and in banking at Rothschild Australia.

Andrew holds a B.Ec (Hons) from the University of Sydney and an MBA with Distinction from The Wharton School.