UASC announces executive appointments

   United Arab Shipping Co. (UASC) has named Lars Christiansen as chief trade officer and Uffe Østergaard as chief commercial officer.
   “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 chief executive officer, in a statement. “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”.
   Lars Christiansen has been with UASC for seven years and most recently was vice president for the Asia region. Earlier in his career, he worked at A.P. Moller-Maersk and IKEA.
   Uffe Østergaard joined UASC after 20 years at Maersk.
   UASC said it is making structural and organizational changes “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.”
   “We are setting ourselves on the right course to take on the challenges of the future”, Hinge said. “These two appointments represent the start of a reorganization to meet our strategic plan. We are actively looking to attract further talent for many opportunities at UASC.” – Eric Johnson