Just when you though it couldn’t get worse at Cargolux…
When Robert van de Weg resigned last week from his position as Senior VP Sales & Marketing and Member of the Executive Committee at Cargolux, it seemed that everything that could go wrong at carrier had gone wrong. (You can read our account of his resignation and its impact here.) With Mr. van de Weg’s resignation, three of the five top jobs at Cargolux were filled now filled on an interim basis:
- CEO: Following Ulrich Ogiermann’s move to Qatar Airways, the Cargolux CEO position was handed to Richard Forson, but only on an interim basis.
- CFO: Richard Forson had only just taken the CFO position when he was also made interim CEO. But the Cargolux Board has hired executive headhunters Spencer Stuart to find a new CEO, and is widely reported to have made it clear that Mr. Forson need not apply. Could he stay on as CFO? Possibly, but there must surely be a big question mark attached to that speculation.
- Senior VP Marketing and Sales: Following Mr. van de Weg’s resignation, Henning zur Hausen, the carrier’s Senior VP Legal Affairs & Compliance took over the Marketing & Sales job on an interim basis.
Which left just two of the top five positions occupied on a permanent basis: Mr. Hausen at Legal Affairs & Compliance, and Peter van de Pas as Senior VP & Chief Operating officer.
But that was last week. This morning Mr. van de Pas announced that he would follow Mr. van de Weg out the door. Not as immediately as Mr. van de Weg – he will remain as COO until the end of March – but reportedly for the same reason: a belief that the terms of the sale of 35% of Cargolux to Chinese investment company HNCA were against the carrier’s best interest.
For more on Mr. van de Pas’ resignation, and some interesting speculation on who might soon be in the CEO’s chair (and who might join him as VP Sales & Marketing), read this analysis by our European editor, Alex Lennane.
