JOC Staff | Sep 07, 2012 11:00AM EDT
Global maritime and logistics company Rickmers Group named Robert Sappio, a former longtime executive at APL, president and CEO of Rickmers America as president and CEO.
Sappio will be responsible for all aspects of Hamburg, Germany-based Rickmers Group’s business in the Americas, including Houston-based Rickmers-Linie (America), and the Maersk-Rickmers U.S.-flag joint venture, which operates multipurpose heavy-lift cargo ships. He also will be responsible for regulatory matters in the U.S. trades.
He will report to Ronald D. Widdows, the former APL chief executive who now is CEO of Rickmers Holding.
For the Rickmers-Linie business, Sappio will also report to Ulrich Ulrichs and Rüdiger Gerhardt, managing directors of Rickmers-Linie, who are responsible for the global operations of the group’s heavy-lift and breakbulk business.
Sean Carney, former head of Rickmers-Linie in the U.S., will continue to have responsibilities within the heavy-lift/breakbulk business, the company said.
Sappio has been managing director at Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting in San Francisco. He previously spent 29 years with APL, where he held a series of positions, including senior vice president, and was senior trade and marketing executive responsible for all of APL’s commercial activities in the trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic and Latin American trades.
“Bob brings a breadth and depth of experience serving customers and managing large and diverse organizations in Asia and the Americas that is critical to the Rickmers Group as it grows its business in this important region,” Widdows said.
Contact Joseph Bonney at jbonney@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @josephbonney.
