Herndon, Va.-based Lafarge North America's cement division added a new marketing executive and promoted another as part of an initiative to refocus its business.

Manuel de Miranda joined Lafarge's cement division efforts to move toward a customer-based business model. As vice president of strategic marketing, he will oversee the implementation of the sales and marketing plans surrounding Lafarge's global performance improvement initiative, Advance. Accordingly, De Miranda is charged with promoting management systems that will lead the company from a traditional production-oriented business model to a flexible, customer-responsive model.

Lafarge Cement's former vice president of strategic marketing, Al Zollo was named vice president of marketing and sales for the Southwest Region, based in Alpharetta, Ga. Zollo is responsible for the marketing and sales efforts of cement operations in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and portions of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi. He joined Lafarge in 2001 during the integration of his former company Blue Circle Cement, where he was vice president of market development and strategy. He began his career with Lone Star Industries in West Nyack, N.Y., where he was a technical services representative.