Mission accomplished: GAC Director General Aïssata Béavogui steps down after leading company through successful construction and ramp-up

Kamsar, Tuesday 6 April 2021 — Guinea Alumina Corporation today announced that Director General Aïssata Béavogui is to step down later this month after leading the company through its construction and successful ramp-up of production.

Ms Béavogui, the most senior woman and the first female Director General in the history of the Guinean mining industry, joined GAC in 2014 as Director of Compliance and has served as Director General since 2016. At the time, GAC was just a project and plans on a drawing board. To make it a reality, it took nearly $ 1.4 billion, which makes GAC the largest mining investment in Guinea in the past 40 years, as well as more than 4,600 workers at the height of the construction phase. Today, GAC directly and indirectly employs more than 2,600 people and provides significant economic benefits to the country. In 2020, GAC’s first full year of production, the company shipped some 9.56 million tonnes of bauxite ore, making its parent company Emirates Global Aluminium the second largest third-party seller of bauxite in the world.

Abdulla Kalban, Chairman of GAC and Managing Director of Emirates Global Aluminium, said today: “Aïssata has made an outstanding contribution to the development of GAC. She joined us when GAC was just a project. She is now leaving a major and well-established bauxite producer that will create value for Guinea and for Emirates Global Aluminium for decades to come. I will always consider Aïssata as part of our EGA family and I wish her every success in her next endeavour, which I am sure will continue to further Guinea’s progress. I will follow her future achievements with great interest.”

Ms Béavogui said: “I am proud of everything we have achieved at GAC. After years of effort by thousands of people, GAC is now an established bauxite producer and an important part of our national economy. That makes it the right time for me to pass the reins to the next Director General whom I wish every success. As for my future, I will announce what it will be made of sometime soon and when it is the right time.”

Ms Béavogui has over twenty years of experience in audit, finance and accounting in both the United States and the Republic of Guinea and holds a BS in Accounting from the State University of New York. She is also a certified leading practitioner in Ethics and Compliance, and established at GAC the first anti-corruption hotline in Guinea free to callers. In 2018, she participated in the founding of the Guinean Bauxite Environmental Network, a group of mining companies that are members of the Chamber of Mines and whose mission is to minimise the ecological footprint of bauxite extraction on the environment. Last year, her achievements were recognised internationally when she received the prestigious “Gender CEO Awards 2020” awarded annually by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). This award recognises business leaders who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of women and gender equality while contributing to the World Bank Group’s goals of reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity.

About GAC

Guinea Alumina Corporation S.A. (GAC) mines and exports metallurgical-grade bauxite. A wholly owned subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), based in the United Arab Emirates, the company operates a mining concession located in the northwest of the Republic of Guinea, in West Africa. Once mined, the ore is sent by rail to the company’s port facilities at Kamsar, on the country’s Atlantic coast, and then shipped by sea to world markets. GAC employs directly and indirectly over 2,600 people and produces 12 million tonnes of bauxite a year. Its current mining plan provides for operations up to 2040. For more information, please visit www.gacguinee.com.

Information:

Abdourahamane Diallo
Superintendant, External Communications
T +224 628 15 58 87