Edenville restructures board as it plans to expand Rukwa project

5th July 2022 By: Tasneem Bulbulia - Senior Contributing Editor Online

Aim-listed Edenville Energy, operator of the Rukwa coal project, in Tanzania, has announced the restructuring of its board as the company plans to expand the project to benefit from the increased demand and pricing for coal, together with exploring other opportunities to broaden the company’s operations.

Alistair Muir and Jeff Malaihollo have stepped down with immediate effect from their roles as CEO and nonexecutive chairperson, respectively.

Malaihollo has agreed to stay on as a consultant to the company for the next three months to ensure a smooth transition.

Noel Lyons has been appointed as the company’s new CEO and Paul Ryan as an executive director.

Nick von Schirnding has been appointed nonexecutive chairperson.

Moreover, Andre Hope will join the board as a nonexecutive director.

It is the intention of the incoming executive board members to spend significant time in Tanzania and retain and relocate certain experienced personnel from other existing African coal operations, which it is associated with, to Tanzania.

Lyons is an operational executive with over 30 years of direct experience in the oil, gas and mining sector, mainly in Africa and the Middle East.

His experience is primarily on the operational side, including strategic management, operations, project management, funding and value creation generally with listed companies.

He is the founder of Clean Invest Africa, a company focused on delivering an attractive return through acquiring stakes in clean energy companies, remediation technologies, waste-to-energy technologies and other clean energy-related projects.

Ryan has over 20 years of commercial, regulatory and advisory experience. He has acted as a consultant, primarily on strategy and public policy, to a range of clients. He previously held a variety of board positions with mobile operator Vodafone Group.

Ryan has many years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa including in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana, where he lived for a number of years.

Since 2018, Ryan has been involved with a clean coal project through Clean Invest Africa, whose subsidiary CoalTech has an operational coal facility in South Africa. He is a qualified solicitor in the UK and graduated from Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland.

Hope has considerable experience as an adviser and consultant to governments and major corporates across Africa over the last 30 years. During this time, he has developed an extensive network of relationships throughout Africa.

He holds a degree in law from Brunel University and was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1981.

Hope previously served as nonexecutive chairperson of Ecobank, an affiliate of African bank Ecobank Transnational, and he currently serves as a nonexecutive director of Rokel Commercial Bank.