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Former Wärtsilä CEO Jaakko Eskola Becomes Meyer Turku Chairman

Jaakko Eskola
Former Wartsila CEO Jaakko Eskola becomes Chairman of Meter Turku (Meyer Turku)

Published Feb 13, 2025 5:37 PM by The Maritime Executive


Meyer Turku one of the handful of shipyards in the world with the expertise to build large cruise ships announced the appointment of the former CEO of Wärtsilä Jakko Eskola to lead the shipbuilder. Eskola has more than 20 years of experience before retiring from Wärtsilä in 2021 and held leadership positions at other Finnish companies including Cargotec, Kalmar, Suominen, and Varma, and he holds a Master of Science in Engineering.

“By handing over the chairmanship of the board to Jaakko Eskola, we are once again sending a strong signal of our commitment to Turku Shipyard, in which we as a family have invested heavily for over ten years,” said Bernard Meyer.

He becomes chairman as the shipyard continues a solid orderbook with Royal Caribbean International but also looks to attract new projects. A long-term relationship with TUI’s Mein Schiff Cruises came to an end in 2024 when the yard delivered Mein Shiff 7. Carnival Corporation built four of its large LNG-fueled cruise ships at Turku but the latest orders went to the sister yard, Meyer Werft, in Germany.

Meyer Turku is currently building the second of Royal Caribbean International’s mega cruise ships, Star of the Seas, which at 250,000 gross tons will be the largest cruise ship in the world. It is due to enter service later this year. Work has also begun on the third cruise ship of the class, rumored to be named Legend of the Seas, with the first blocks lowered into the dry dock in October 2024. The ship is due for delivery in 2026. Royal Caribbean also ordered a fourth vessel of the class for delivery in 2027 and took options to build a fifth and sixth Icon Class ship. 

The yard is also building two new Turva class patrol vessels for the Finnish Border Guard. The first will be delivered in 2025 and the second in 2026.

Meyer took ownership of the Turku shipyard in 2014 from STX Europe and the following year increased to 100 percent ownership. The yard trades its origins to 1737 and came to fame in the 1960s till 1990 as part of the Wärtsilä shipbuilder along with the facility in Helsinki. Historically, it built cruise ships including the first in the modern cruise industry for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, car-passenger ferries, and special vessels including icebreakers. It encountered financial difficulties in the 1990s. Meyer recently had to cede ownership of its yard in Germany as part of a rescue package from the German state.

“We have implemented several measures to turn our operations profitable again,” said Tim Meyer, CEO of Meyer Turku. “We have developed our organization, streamlined our processes, implemented a new enterprise resource planning system, and launched a development program.” While the yard delivered the Icon of the Seas in November 2023 as the world’s largest cruise ship, reports indicate as the lead of the class the company lost money on the construction due to the complex nature of the project.

Eskola joined Wärtsilä in 1998 with a background in international projects and corporate finance. He advanced at the company becoming President of Wärtsilä Marine Solutions and as of November 1, 2015, CEO and President of the company. Eskola was replaced in the spring of 2021 by Håkan Agnevall but continued as a senior advisor to the board and executive team until retiring on June 30, 2021.

Tom Johnstone, Chairman of the Board of Wärtsilä Corporation, credited Eskola with developing Wärtsilä into a smart technology company for the marine and energy markets.