Two of the top management seats within shipping company
Hapag-Lloyd will be filled by different people in mid-2014; Chief Executive
Officer Michael Behrendt and Chief Operating Officer Ulrich Kranich are both
stepping down next year.
Behrendt is expected to depart the company June 30, 2014. He
was appointed Hapag-Lloyd’s executive board in 1999 and has been Chairman of
the Executive Board since the beginning of 2002. During his tenure, Hapag-Lloyd
became one of the five biggest liner shipping companies in the world in part as
a result of the successful takeover of the liner shipping company CP Ships.
Behrendt’s successor is Rolf Habben-Jansen, 47, who has been
appointed to the Executive Board of the Company effective April 1, 2014 and
will assume the position of Chairman of the Executive Board on July 1, 2014.
Habben-Jansen, an experienced manager in the logistics
sector, previously held positions at the Royal Nedlloyd Group and at DHL. He
became CEO of the freight forwarding group Damco NV in The Hague in 2009.
Kranich will leave the company June 30, 2014. He has been a
member of the Executive Board since July 2006, where he has also held the
position of COO since 2008 with responsibility for the operational management of
the company’s global shipping business.
His replacement, effective July 1, 2014, is Anthony J.
Firmin, 59, who has worked at Hapag-Lloyd for 18 years. Currently, Firmin is a
member of Hapag-Lloyd’s Executive Committee – the extended circle of management
below the Executive Board – and is currently in charge of Yield Management
& Network.
In a statement, Jürgen Weber, Chairman of Hapag-Lloyd’s
Supervisory Board called the appointments of Habben-Jansen and Firmin “a superb
choice” for the company.
“Both of them have many years of experience in the logistics
and shipping sectors,” Weber said.
