Hapag-Lloyd CEO has Contract Extended
The supervisory board of Hapag-Lloyd has unanimously approved an extension of CEO Rolf Habben Jansen's contract for a further five years until March 31, 2024. Jansen was appointed member of the Hapag-Lloyd Executive Board in April 2014 and has been CEO since July 2014.
Additionally, in the wake of a reorganization of Hapag-Lloyd’s Executive Board in March, management changes have been made in Asia and the Middle East. Beginning April 1, Lars Christiansen assumed the position of Senior Managing Director of Region Asia, in Singapore. Christiansen replaced Joachim Schlotfeldt, who was appointed Chief Personnel and Global Procurement Officer on the Executive Board. Dheeraj Bhatia has been appointed Christiansen’s successor in this position as Senior Managing Director Region Middle East.
The reorganization in March came about following the mergers with CSAV (2014) and UASC (2017). The company's transport capacity and number of containers transported have more than doubled as a result. Revenue rose by the around 50 percent in the same period, and the number of employees increased by around 70 percent.
On May 2, Hapag-Lloyd opened a new office in Tema, Ghana, and will manage all its activities in West Africa from there. The GDP of West Africa has grown significantly in the last two years, rising by an average of six percent. Ghana numbers among the fastest-growing economies in the region. This growth is primarily driven by the trade in gold, but also in oil and gas products. Among Ghana’s most important export goods are cocoa, timber products and cashew nuts.
Hapag-Lloyd has massively expanded its presence in Africa over the last two years and established a fast connection from West Africa to Europe via what are now two services: the West Africa Express (WAX, Hamburg – Casablanca – Tangier – Dakar – Tema – Abidjan – Tangier – Antwerp – Hamburg) and the Mediterranean West Africa Express (MWX, Tangier – Algeciras – Cotonou – Lagos (Apapa & Pipan) – Tema – Tangier).
Both services call at Tema. Plans call for the port’s annual handling capacity to be tripled by mid-2019, from one million to three million TEU. Hapag-Lloyd is expecting additional growth opportunities from this capacity expansion.
Hapag-Lloyd has a fleet of 219 modern container ships and a total transport capacity of 1.6 million TEU. The company has a container capacity of 2.3 million TEU and operates 120 liner services worldwide between more than 600 ports on all the continents.