Piedmont Lithium (NASDAQ:PLL) Inc (ASX:PLL, NASDAQ:PLL, XETRA:)'s board has voted to expand from five to seven directors.
Accordingly, the company has added two new directors, effective from January 3 – Christina Alvord and Michael Bless – who will provide additional executive, operational and strategic guidance to the company as it advances in its mission to supply the US with lithium hydroxide from a global portfolio of projects.
Highly qualified
Alvord began her career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. after graduating from Harvard Business School.
She most recently served as the president of the Central Division of Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE:NYSE:VMC), the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates.
She previously served as Vulcan’s president of the Southern and Gulf Coast Division and vice president of Corporate Planning and Performance Improvement.
Prior to this, Alvord held various executive management positions at GE Aviation, including serving as president of GE Aviation-Unison Industries and GE Aviation-Middle River Aircraft Systems.
Alvord also serves on the boards of Apogee Enterprises (NASDAQ:APOG) and Albany International.
Extensive knowledge and expertise
Bless is a graduate of Princeton University who served as president and CEO of Century Aluminum Company, a US-based, publicly-held, global producer of primary aluminum, for nearly a decade, and was a member of the company’s board.
Prior to becoming CEO, he held the roles of executive vice president and chief financial officer for five years.
Bless has held a range of executive positions with several companies including Maxtor Corporation and Rockwell Automation (NYSE:NYSE:ROK), Inc.
In addition to serving as a board member for Piedmont, Bless also is a board member of CNA Financial Corporation and Enact Holdings.
“We are honoured to welcome Christy and Mike to the newly-created directorships,” said chairman Jeff Armstrong.
“Their extensive knowledge and backgrounds will be key as we and our partners look toward our targeted timeline of bringing lithium production online in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
President and CEO Keith Phillips echoed Armstrong’s remarks, saying: “Christy and Mike both have strong strategic leadership experience and have successfully led substantial integrated mining businesses.
“We are pleased to have these respected industry leaders join our board and lend us their invaluable expertise as we work to become a large, low-cost, sustainable producer of lithium hydroxide and a prime contributor to US energy national security.”