Christian Brown was previously CEO of engineering company Kentz, before it was taken over by Canada’s SNC Lavalin in 2014. He was then corporate development officer for SNC Lavalin, a role that saw him involved with the £2.1bn acquisition of WS Atkins in 2017.
He has also worked for Kellogg Brown & Root and Foster Wheeler.
EnerMech has 3,500 staff across 40 locations around the world. It was taken over by US venture capitalists The Carlyle Group in December 2018.
EnerMech founder Doug Duguid stepped back after the takeover but returned to the CEO role in September on an interim basis after his initial replacement, John Guy, stood down from the role for personal family reasons.
Chris Brown’s appointment as EnerMech CEO is effective from 1st January 2020.
Doug Duguid, who will leave the Aberdeen-headquartered business following a planned transition period, said: “Chris Brown was the stand-out candidate to take on the role of CEO and to drive our business on to the next level of international growth. His credentials are impeccable and include 30 years’ experience in the LNG, oil and gas, refining, and petrochemicals industries, where he has consistently delivered high growth and positive shareholder returns.
“Chris is intimately familiar with the market that EnerMech operates in, and there are many strong parallels between his time as CEO of Kentz and our planned growth strategy. He shares our company culture, which is centred on entrepreneurship and on putting the client central to all we do, and I am confident EnerMech will thrive under his leadership and realise its potential as a global services provider to the energy and infrastructure sectors.”
EnerMech chairman John Kennedy, who led the search process on behalf of Carlyle, said: “After a thorough and rigorous search process we are delighted that Chris Brown has agreed to join EnerMech as its CEO. Chris has an exceptional track record in growing and improving international service based businesses with an emphasis on customer relationships. He is a people and customer centred individual with a strong history of creating highly engaged teams, which ideally suits him to EnerMech’s entrepreneurial culture. I am personally very pleased that we have been able to attract someone of Chris’s calibre and track record to lead the business as it enters its next phase of development."
Chris Brown added: "I am excited to lead the second phase of EnerMech’s development and to build on the strong foundations established by Doug Duguid and his management team. The company has been through a period of rapid growth over the past 10 years and with the support of The Carlyle Group there are no limits to our future ambitions.”
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