MOSCOW- Russia's largest steelmaker NLMK said on Monday it had appointed Elena Lobodina as head of its trading department which manages NLMK's exports.

* Prior to joining NLMK, Lobodina was general manager at Gazprom's marketing and trading department, where she was responsible for business development

* Lobodina will be in charge of development of NLMK's customer service across global markets and the introduction of best practices in sales business processes

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Jason Neely) ((Polina.Devitt@thomsonreuters.com; +7 495 775 12 42; Reuters Messaging: polina.devitt.reuters.com@reuters.net))