22.09.2011

New chief executive for Lavendon

UK based international rental company Lavendon has appointed Don Kenny as chief executive, with effect from 1st October.

Kenny, 56, is a qualified accountant and joins the company from contractor Carillion, where he was group managing director of Carillion Business Services, the facilities management division of the company, with revenues of £1.2 billion and 15,000 employees. He has also been a main board director since 2006.
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Don Kenny

Before joining Carillion in 2002, he was managing director of Johnson Controls IFM UK, the UK-based facilities management arm of the US-based business. Before that he was a vice president of Sulzer Infra, part of the Swiss based Sulzer Corporation.

Kenny started his career with SGB scaffolding as group accountant and was there in 1986 when the company was acquired by contractor John Mowlem. During his time at SGB/Mowlem he worked both in the UK and overseas in a number of financial management roles, including spells living and working in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Norway and Denmark,.

With Kenny’s appointment, John Standen - acting chief executive, will resume his prior role as non- executive chairman and Jan Astrand acting continental European operations chief executive will resume his prior role as a non-executive director. Both took over from Kevin Appleton who left the business at the end of June.

Talking of his appointment Kenny said: "I am delighted to be joining Lavendon at this stage in its development, and look forward to working with the board and the executive management team to further the Group's potential, leveraging its strong market positions and improving its return on capital employed."

Standen added: "We are delighted that Don is joining Lavendon. He brings a wealth of experience of improving operating performance and growing businesses successfully both in the UK and internationally, together with a deep understanding of our industrial end markets. He is the ideal candidate to lead the group through the next phase of its development and I am confident that he will deliver significant shareholder value."

Vertikal Comment

This is a highly interesting appointment and something of a surprise. Given the statements made when Appleton left, if looked as though the two non-executives planned to spend at least six months in their respective executive roles before making an appointment and handing over to a permanent CEO. A January appointment seemed most likely.

With a strong senior management ‘talent pool’ within the company, an internal appointment also looked most probable, at least to an outsider.

Having said all this Kenny is an excellent candidate in every way, he started his career in the access business, he has lived and worked in a wide variety of countries, he clearly has a deep understanding of what contractors and facility management companies – big users of powered access – want and his financial background ought to put him in good stead when talking to analysts and investors.

It also brings fresh blood into the access industry – no bad thing - and the internal candidates are mostly young enough to be in line to take over when Kenny retires.

All in all a pretty good succession plan as long as the new man. ‘gels’ with the existing management team of course.