Two Canadian gold miners shuffle top ranks

TORONTO (Reuters) - Two Canadian gold miners shuffled their executive ranks on Friday, as Goldcorp Inc promoted a senior vice president to replace Chief Operating Officer George Burns, hired by Eldorado Gold Corp as chief executive officer.

The shake-up came as a number of global mining CEOs are at or nearing retirement age amid a shortage of top talent with the right skills and experience to steer the sector out of troubled times.

Burns, the COO of Goldcorp since 2012, will take leadership of Eldorado in April from Paul Wright, who had been appointed president and CEO in 1999. Wright will become chairman of Eldorado's board of directors and current chairman Robert Gilmore will move to vice chairman.

Burns will head a growth phase at Vancouver-based Eldorado, overseeing development projects in Greece on Olympias Phase 2 and the construction of Skouries, along with the likely development of Tocantinzinho in Brazil. Eldorado also has operations in Turkey, Serbia and Romania.

Burns, who will also join Eldorado's board, has 30 years experience in the mining sector with gold, copper and coal miners and was COO at Toronto-headquartered Centerra Gold before joining Goldcorp.

Goldcorp, the world's third-biggest gold producer by market value, appointed senior vice president Todd White as COO, starting Jan. 1.

White, previously senior vice president South America at Newmont Mining, joined Vancouver-based Goldcorp in 2014 and has two decades of mining experience.

(Reporting by Susan Taylor; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)