Kirby Adams to succeed Philippe Varin as Corus CEO

23 January 2009

The board of Tata Steel has appointed Kirby Adams to succeed Philippe Varin as CEO of Corus and of Tata Steel Europe, the holding company of Tata Steel's European operations.

Varin is stepping down on 6 April 2009, after six years as CEO during which time he led the turnaround of Corus.

When Tata Steel acquired Corus in January 2007, Varin had agreed to continue as CEO for at least two years.

''I pay tribute to Philippe Varin for his outstanding contribution as chief executive of Corus and welcome Kirby Adams to an exciting and challenging assignment," said Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, who is also chairman of Tata Steel.

Deputy chairman of Tata Steel and chairman of Corus, Jim Leng will also step down some time this month to become the chairman of the world's third largest mining group, Rio Tinto. (See: Tata Steel loses Corus chairman to Rio Tinto)

Leng has been the chairman of Corus since 2003 and subsequently became the deputy chairman of Tata Steel in India after it acquired Corus in 2007 for $12 billion.
An international manager, the US-born Adams was founding managing director and CEO from 2002 to 2008 of Austrlia's third-largest steel maker BlueScope Steel, with whom Tata Steel has an equal joint venture in India since 2005, Tata-BlueScope Steel.