Keller Group plc announced on 18 July 2018 that James Hind, currently the Group's Finance Director, is appointed President of Keller's North America division, remaining an Executive Director, and Michael Speakman joins Keller as Chief Financial Officer and an Executive Director, both effective from August 20, 2018. The company announced that Chris Girling, independent Non-executive Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee, has decided to retire from the Board at the conclusion of the company's Annual General Meeting to be held in May 2019, having served on the Board for 8 years. Chris will step down as Chairman of the Audit Committee with effect from January 1, 2019. Paula Bell will join the Board as an independent Non-executive Director with effect from September 1, 2018, and succeed Chris Girling as Audit Committee Chairman on January 1, 2019. Paula has extensive international strategic, financial, commercial and M&A experience from large listed global companies and is currently the Chief Financial Officer of Spirent Communications plc. From 2013 to 2016 she was Chief Financial Officer of support services group John Menzies plc and between 2006 and 2013 was Group Finance Director of the advanced engineering group Ricardo plc. Previously, she held senior management positions at BAA plc, AWG plc and Rolls-Royce plc. Baroness Kate Rock also joins the Board on September 1, 2018 as an independent Non-executive Director. From 2014 until November 2017, Kate was a Non-executive Director and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee of Imagination Technologiesplc. Kate was appointed a Life Peer in 2015. She is currently a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Rural Economy. From 2017-2018 she was a member of the Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. She is a Non-executive Director of Real World Technologies Limited and Senior Adviser at Instinctif Partners. Kate has a strong international background in corporate communications and
business relations.