Lesley Knox and Helen Weir have agreed to join the SABMiller board as independent non-executive directors with effect from today, 19 May 2011, SABMiller plc announced.

Lesley Knox is the Chairman of Alliance Trust PLC and is both the Chairman and a Trustee of the Grosvenor Estates. She is currently the Senior Non-Executive Director of Hays plc, although she will be retiring from the Hays’ board later this year. Lesley originally qualified as a solicitor and then spent 15 years with Kleinwort Benson from 1981 to 1996, first in corporate finance, where she became a director in 1986, and then as Chief Executive of the institutional asset management business. In 1997 she moved to the British Linen Bank, becoming Governor in 1999, and was subsequently a founder director of British Linen Advisers from 1999 to 2003. She has held a variety of non-executive directorships with international and British companies, recently with an emphasis on the retail sector, and is involved with a number of arts and charitable organisations.

Helen Weir, CBE, was Group Executive Director – Retail at Lloyds Banking Group plc until May this year. She originally joined Lloyds as Group Finance Director in 2004, and took over responsibility for the Retail bank in 2008. From 2000 until 2004, she was Group Finance Director of Kingfisher plc, and before that Finance Director of B&Q, which she joined in 1995. Helen spent her early career at Unilever and McKinsey & Co. She has previously held a number of non-executive directorships, including Royal Mail Holdings and the City of London Investment Trust. She is a member of the Said Business School Advisory Council, and was previously a member of the Accounting Standards Board. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Both new directors have been appointed to the audit committee, and Lesley Knox will also join the remuneration committee.

Mr Meyer Kahn, Chairman of SABMiller plc, said:

“I am delighted to welcome Lesley Knox and Helen Weir to our board. We are extremely fortunate to have secured the services of two such excellent and well qualified candidates, with such a wealth of strategic, financial and international experience. Their appointments reflect our continued commitment to the process of progressive renewal of the board, and to the benefits of diversity of background, gender and experience at board level. With these appointments, one-third of our independent non-executive directors will be women, and we will be well positioned in terms of the future balance of the board.”