Mark Howard in the last ten years has opened up the European market to Rio Tinto Corporation, and will now reinforce the positioning of the Coeclerici Group on the European markets, including Turkey.
Another success for its business strategy, the Coeclerici Group has hired as senior advisor Mark Howard, who was head of coal and salt operations at the Rio Tinto Group for more than twelve years.
Mark Howard, who has extensive experience in the international markets of coal and raw materials, will work alongside the management of Coeclerici Coal and Fuels SpA and the other Coeclerici Group companies in marketing PCI (Pulverised Coal Injection), Met Coke (metallurgical coke), Pet Coke (petroleum coke), with customers based in Europe and Turkey.
Having joined the Rio Tinto Group in 2001, with the advantage of twenty years experience already built up in coal trading and agency activities on behalf of other leading international enterprises, Mark Howard enabled the British-Australian giant to develop an extensive client portfolio on continental Europe and to successfully penetrate the raw materials trading market.
While in Rio Tinto, Mark Howard was part of a team engaged in managing and formulating market strategies to maximise growth and he established new commercial relations with the main users of coal, from electric power stations to cement manufacturers, and other manufacturing industries.
Paolo Clerici, Chairman of the Coeclerici Group, had commented about the newcomer: "In his role as senior advisor, Mark Howard is an important acquisition for our group; he will help us strengthen existing relations and establish new contacts with the end-users of coal in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin".
"This step - added Paolo Clerici – is perfectly in line with our strategy which, even recently, has seen a further strengthening of our positioning on supply markets and in the transoceanic transportation of coal and coke".
The Coeclerici Group, founded in Genoa in 1895, with 2012 turnover of ? 600 million and 1,000 employees, carries out activities through the mining division extracting energy coal from proprietary mines; the trading division operating mainly in selling raw materials such as coal, anthracite, coke and iron ore; the logistics division where it operates in the integrated logistics sector, with activities ranging from cabotage to transportation and transhipment, and the ship owner division where it operates serving the trading division through time-charter contract vessels.