About Us

Magomet is a Russian national who has held the position of Managing Director since co-founding the business in 2002. He has a Business Administration degree from Washington International University.

He is primarily responsible for leading the successful establishment of the Group's entire supply chain from the plantations and extraction facilities to the multi-functional plants around the world. As Managing Director, he further establishes the Group's business direction and strategies along with his management team and is responsible for managing the growth and development of the Group's business.

Peter is a British national and joined the group in December 2006 as Vice President Commercial of PureCircle Malaysia. He originally qualified as an Applied Scientist from Birmingham University and has held a variety of senior posts in international specialty chemicals management.

At ICI, he was a member of the Executive Management team for Uniqema, a global manufacturer of specialty chemicals, where he held the position of Vice President Asia. Prior to joining ICI he was a divisional director of Unichema, the Unilever oleochemicals company. From 1992 to 1995 he was Managing Director Unichema Australia and from 1988 to 1992 he was the Head of Fragrance Division for Quest Brazil. He then founded Perfume Lab.com a French registered perfumery house in 2004.

Peter is primarily responsible for providing leadership relating to the global and regional sales and marketing and the business development functions of the Group. He is also responsible for developing product strategies, benchmarking and competitor analysis to better position the Group’s products in the marketplace and to develop the group’s distribution channels.

William is an FCA who trained with PriceWaterhouse London, brings a wealth of relevant experience to the PureCircle team having worked extensively across the food and beverage as well as technology industries.

He was from 1995 to 1999 first Group Planning Director and then UK Finance Director of Tetley Tea, the world’s number-2 global tea brand with a turnover of £450 million and a presence in 14 countries. On leaving Tetley, William was involved in two potential LBOs in the food production sector, firstly a £400 million bid for Hazlewood Foods and a £575 million bid for a part of United Biscuits.

Most recently, William was Finance Director of EnQii Holdings PLC, a global market leader in the fast-growing digital media industry. From 2002, he was CEO of Digital View Group, from whom EnQii acquired the Digital View Media business in March 2007.

Olivier is a French national and originally joined the group as a director of PureCircle Malaysia in November 2006. He has an MBA in Commercial Studies and is presently the Managing Director of General Biscuits Benelux, a biscuits and cereals based product leader of Belgium.

He has more than 20 years of experience in the dairy, beverages and biscuits sectors in Western Europe and Asia where his responsibilities included sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, industrial and supply chain development, as well as the expansion of its production operations.

John is a US national and originally joined the group as a director in November 2006. He holds degrees in Economics from Columbia University in New York and Cambridge University in England.

John has been an Executive Director of Swire Pacific Limited since May 2006 and is responsible for the company’s Beverages Division. He joined the Swire Group in 1980 and worked with the group’s Aviation Division in Hong Kong, the United States and Thailand. He was appointed Managing Director of Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. Ltd. in 1996. In July 1998, he was appointed Managing Director of Swire Pacific’s Beverages Division. In 2000, he joined the board of John Swire & Sons (H.K.) Ltd, and in March 2007 he was appointed the Chief Operating Officer of Cathay Pacific Airways.

Peter has more than twenty years experience in financial industry including central banking, investment banking, private banking, stockbroking and venture capital. In that time, he has held a number of senior positions at various blue-chip financial institutions including Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, SocGen-Crosby Securities, Citigroup Private Bank and OCBC Private Bank and is presently Managing Director, Tembusu Partners Pte Ltd, a private equity investment firm in Singapore.

Mr Sunny George Verghese is the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Olam International Limited (“Olam”). Sunny holds a post graduate management degree from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and has also completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) from the Harvard Business School. Sunny worked for the Unilever Group in India before he joined the Kewalram Chanrai (KC) Group in 1986. In 1989, the KC Group mandated Sunny to start a greenfield agricultural products export business for the Group, Olam.

Sunny is responsible for setting the direction and providing the leadership to steer the Company through its expansion and growth plans. He is responsible for the strategic planning, business development and overall management for the Olam group of companies worldwide. He is also a member of the Olam Board’s Finance & Investment and Risk Committees. Olam is listed on the main board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX) and ranks amongst the top 40 companies in Singapore in terms of market capitalization (as of February 2008) and is a component stock in the 30 stock benchmark STI Index)

In the short span of 18 years, Sunny and his team have built this business to S$5.46 billion in Sales Revenues for the year ended June FY 2007. Today, the Company has operations in 56 countries, delivering 17 products to more than 4,000 customers in 60 destination markets. Olam employs over 8,500 people worldwide.

Olam is today a leading global supply chain manager of agricultural products and food ingredients. The Company offers an end-to-end supply chain solution for various agricultural raw materials to its customers, which includes many of the world’s internationally recognized packaged food brands, offering them reliability, consistency, trust, traceability and other value added services. This unique brand of supply chain management has earned Olam a global reputation as the Brand behind the Brands”. Olam enjoys a leadership position in many of its businesses, including cocoa, coffee, cashews, cotton, rice, sesame and teakwood.