Yancoal Australia has appointed long-time executive Sharif Burra as CEO, effective September 8, ending an interim leadership period led by Ning Yue.
Burra, 51, has nearly three decades of mining experience and has been with Yancoal for 12 years in senior roles spanning operations, procurement, safety and business improvement. He also sits on the company’s executive committee.
The board said Burra’s “broad experience, as well as existing knowledge of Yancoal’s operations, will provide continuity to the CEO role and enable him to effectively implement the company’s operational and strategic priorities”.
Chairperson Gang Ru praised Yue, who stepped in as acting CEO at the start of the year, crediting him with navigating a coal market downturn and delivering the company’s “best first-half operational performance of the past five years”.
“On behalf of the board, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Yue,” Ru said. “The recruitment process to appoint Yancoal’s next CEO was thorough, with many highly capable internal and external candidates considered. The decision to fill the role internally speaks to the calibre of the Yancoal management team.”
Ru added that the board expects Burra to build on the company’s operational performance, cost control and fiscal discipline.
Burra holds a mining engineering degree with first-class honours from Auckland University and an MBA from Oxford University. He chairs the Low Emission Technology Australia industry project assessment committee and serves on several coal industry research and safety bodies.