8 executive moves that will impact air cargo in 2019

An injection of international youth in DB Schenker’s board
Germany’s DB Schenker AG has already made its claim on the future of supply chain logistics, with October’s announcement that it is making a major push to automate its warehouses with IAM Robotics.  But on Tuesday, Jan. 1, the company began transforming its management board, as well, to make it more youthful and international with the naming of three new members: Xavier Garijo, Christian Drenthen and Thorsten Meincke.

Garijo formerly held management positions at several French, British and American companies, including Reckitt Benckiser, Revlon and Elizabeth Arden, giving the board valuable insight into the customer perspective in logistics. Drenthen has been with Schenker AG since 2015, most recently serving as the head of global land transport. Garijo, who is Spanish, and Drenthen, who is Dutch, assumed their new roles on Jan. 1, becoming the first-even non-German members of Schenker’s management board.

Meincke, who is expected to join the board sometime before June 2019, most recently served as head of global oceanfreight at Kuehne + Nagel, has been appointed to serve as board member for air and oceanfreight. Land Transport will become its own division, raising the total number of Schenker’s divisions from six to seven.

The new board appointments come on the heels of a statement from Schenker’s parent company – the state-owned rail company, Deutsche Bahn – that it was reviving discussions about possibly selling off parts of Schenker sometime this year, following poor performance in 2016. According to the Financial Times, Deutsche Bahn is €20 billion in debt and is considering a sell-off to raise funds to modernize its rail infrastructure.