Johan de De Smet-Van Damme has been appointed the SKOL Africa general manager. Johan, who has been the brewer’s commercial director for Africa, took office last week on April 15. His appointment followed the resignation of the firm’s former boss, Thomas Weingarten, who has been at the helm of the company’s management team since 2010. Johan has for the past 20 years gathered a lot of experience as a managing director of different breweries companies across the world.“We would like to thank Thomas Weingarten for the work he has done over the past three years of his tenure in office. We also appreciate his intercultural competence and professional and human qualities,” Thibault Relecom, the CEO of the Brussels-based UNIBRA SA, the parent company of SKOL, said in a statement. “Thomas worked with energy and succeeded as general manager since the founding of the brewery in Rwanda in 2010.” The brewer first operated under the name Brasserie des Mille Collines. However, last year, Brasserie des Mille Collines sold its 51 per cent stake in the firm to Unibra, a Belgium-based brewery, giving the latter 100 ownership and, thereafter, renamed the company SKOL Brewery.
