It has also promoted established employees Paul Mohan and Jim Yerkess to director level. Paul Mohan becomes sector director for rail and Jim Yerkess is now operations director in the north.
The company said that Russell Kellett would lead the development of its specialist contracting and service delivery streams. He will be in charge of planning, productivity and project controls capabilities and will be the executive sponsor for Murphy’s directly employed workforce.
His appointment follows the retirement of James O’Callaghan last month, who spent more than 40 years at Murphys – and 25 of them as a main board director.
Russell Kellett is a former operations director for Laing O’Rourke in the Middle East. More recently he has been overseeing the design and build of the new £270m Dumfries hospital, which is due to complete in 2017.
Paul Mohan joined Murphy in 1993 as an engineer and has progressed to hold various management roles, most recently as project director for Network Rail’s CP5 framework.
Jim Yerkess joined in 2010 as framework construction manager as part of KMI Plus – a joint venture between Kier Infrastructure & Overseas, Murphy, Interserve Construction and Mouchel– on a £490m water sector framework for United Utilities in the northwest of England. He has been tasked with growing the business in the north. He will also direct and oversee projects to get them delivered on time and to budget.
Murphy chief executive Steve Hollingshead, who previously worked with Russell Kellett at Laing O’Rourke, said: “I look forward to working with Russell, Paul and Jim to explore new ways that will help our business grow and develop. There are many exciting changes happening in Murphy and these new appointments show not only that we already have excellent and experienced people working for us but also that Murphy is attracting the best industry talent.”
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