Alcoa Re-aligns China Strategy to Support Expanding Footprint in Fast-Growing Market

-Alcoa (NYSE:AA) announced today that effective July 1, the Company’s Asia-Pacific regional headquarters will report to Alcoa’s Business Excellence and Corporate Strategy organization, part of an initiative to support the expanding footprint of Alcoa’s three business groups in the fast-growing and strategically important Chinese market.

As part of this initiative, Jinya Chen, Asia-Pacific Regional President, was elected a Vice President of Alcoa by the Company’s Board of Directors. While continuing to lead the region, Chen will report to Kay Meggers, Vice President, Corporate Initiatives, and will have overall accountability for Alcoa’s China strategy.

The Company also announced that Jiming Zhu will join Alcoa as President, China Rolled Products, with responsibility for managing all of Alcoa’s Global Rolled Products (GRP) operations in China. Zhu will succeed Mark Vrablec, who was earlier named Vice President, GRP Technology and Engineering, and will move back to the United States after a transition. Zhu will join Alcoa in mid-July, reporting to Helmut Wieser, Executive Vice President of Alcoa and Group President, Alcoa Global Rolled Products, and working closely with Chen.

“We expect Jinya and Jiming to be an unbeatable Alcoa team in China,” said Alcoa Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “Jinya helped build Alcoa’s strong foundation in China and now he also will be responsible for developing and driving all aspects of our China strategy as Alcoa expands in one of our most vital markets. Jiming will lead the operations and growth of our largest business in China, building on our solid market presence. Expanding our reach to customers in China’s automotive, packaging and consumer electronics markets, our rolled products business is targeting to grow three times faster than the market in the next three years.”