Global medical technology company Smith+Nephew has announced that Jeremy (Jez) Maiden and Simon Lowth will be joining the board as independent non-executive directors. Maiden will serve as a member of the audit committee and remuneration committee, while Lowth will sit on the audit committee and nomination & governance committee.

Additionally, Rupert Soames will, as planned, assume the role as chair of the board on 15 September, having joined the board as chair designate in April this year, in succession to Roberto Quarta.

Maiden retired earlier this year as group finance director at Croda International, the FTSE-100 global speciality chemicals company, and before that held similar roles at National Express Group and Northern Foods. He is currently senior independent director at Travis Perkins plc and a NED at Intertek Group plc.

Lowth is currently group chief financial officer of BT Group, a role he has held since 2016, having previously held the same position at BG Group (now part of Shell), AstraZeneca and Scottish Power.

Soames commented: “We are delighted to be able to announce two such strong appointments to our board. Simon and Jez bring deep executive and non-executive experience of serving on boards of companies which have had to address strategic and operational challenges across a number of different industries, including life-sciences and healthcare. They both have experience of supervising large operations in the US, Europe and Asia and of working in highly-regulated industries.”