Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Company, the Saudi Exchange-listed miner known as AMAK, has appointed Savas Sahin as Managing Director. The board approved the change after mutually agreeing to end the contract of chief executive Geoffrey MacDonald Day, with the new arrangement taking effect in mid-August.
Sahin is a familiar figure at the company. He served as AMAK's chief executive from 2017 until the end of 2021 and has sat on its board since early 2022. His move to an executive Managing Director role returns day-to-day leadership to an engineer with deep knowledge of the company's operations, at a time when Saudi mining is being pushed up the national economic agenda.
Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Company operates base and precious metal assets in the Kingdom's southwest, producing zinc, copper, gold and silver. Mining is one of the pillars of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 diversification drive, with the government treating minerals as a third pillar of the economy alongside oil and petrochemicals and courting investment across exploration, processing and downstream industry.
Returning a former chief executive to hands-on leadership signals a preference for operational continuity and technical depth over a fresh external search. For a mid-cap miner navigating volatile metal prices and an ambitious national expansion, an experienced insider can move quickly on production, cost and project decisions without a long ramp-up. It also concentrates institutional memory at the top at a moment when the sector is competitive for talent.
The orderly, mutually agreed exit of the outgoing chief executive gives the company a clean transition rather than a disruptive one. Sahin inherits responsibility for sustaining output at existing mines while positioning the company to benefit from the Kingdom's mining push, including any expansion of reserves, processing capacity or partnerships. His early priorities will centre on production performance, cost discipline and the company's growth pipeline.
The appointment adds to a steady flow of leadership changes across Saudi Arabia's listed industrial and resources companies as the sector scales up. The board will look to the returning executive to translate his familiarity with the business into momentum on delivery.
