UASC announces expansion plans and new executive appointments
United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) announced two senior executive appointments to further position the company for its next phase of growth. Lars Christiansen was appointed as Chief Trade Officer of UASC and Uffe Østergaard took office of Chief Commercial Officer of UASC, the UACS press release said.
“UASC is preparing for significant changes on the back of new capacity coming into service with a major program of new vessel acquisition”, said Jorn Hinge, UASC President and CEO.
“We are repositioning our offering to the market, recapitalizing our business and optimizing our trades. We are structuring our executive talent so that we can leverage their exceptional professional capabilities to deliver long-term value to our shareholders”.
The existing executive management team of Waleed Al Dawood as Chief Operating Officer, Basil Al-Zaid as Chief Financial Officer and Jorn Hinge as President and CEO will be complemented by these new senior colleagues providing a comprehensive leadership team to drive the business, the Company said.
Lars Christiansen, a 7-year UASC veteran, has broad based experience and was until his appointment the Vice President Asia Region, responsible for all UASC activities in Asia. He also spent 20 years with A.P. Moller-Maersk and has served as Management Consultant and as Transport Director with IKEA on their Global Transportation Management Team.
Uffe Østergaard joins UASC to take on the newly created role of Chief Commercial Officer. Uffe comes to the role with deep knowledge of container shipping having spent 20 years with A.P. Moller Maersk focusing on strategy, sales and marketing, and business development.
The structural and organizational changes being implemented at UASC are designed to bring the business closer to the customer and to understand and serve their needs better. The new structure will see Trade Management Units managing round trip trades and Clusters managing Agencies in their geographical proximity. This change will also see the establishment of a new office in Hamburg as the center of European operations, a move away from London in order to be closer to the customer base, as well as the establishment of an office in Istanbul to capture the growing Mediterranean business.
