Crew will step down from the Golden Star board and take over from current chief operating officer Daniel Owiredu as COO until the end of 2019, when he then takes over as president and Owiredu becomes company chairman.

Crew, to be based in London, has more than 25 years of mining operational, technical and corporate experience. He was most recently general manager mining for Barminco, a global underground mining contractor now owned by ASX-listed Ausdrill.  He previously was general manager at Bulyanhulu with Acacia Mining and was also operations manager for La Mancha's Australian operations.

The mining engineer is a former graduate of the Western Australia School of Mines.

Martin Raffield is also leaving Golden Star at the end of September. He is currently executive vice president and chief technical officer.

Golden Star president and CEO Andrew Wray said Crew had the "skillset to build on the company's strong existing platform and to take the company to next phase of its development".