DHL Express is merging its Asia Pacific and EEMEA (Eastern Europe Middle East Africa) operations aspart of a wide-ranging restructuring to streamline its business. The region will be led by the
current EEMEA CEO John Pearson.Pearson, who becomes Executive Vice President Asia Pacific/EEMEA and also Chair of theCustomer Service Executive Committee of the DHL Global Express Board, replaces the previous DHLAsia Pacific CEO Dan McHugh. The company is currently reviewing suitable roles for McHugh, who hadbeen regional CEO since 2007, as he works with Pearson on combining the Asia Pacific and EEMEAorganisations, DHL Asia Pacific said in a statement.
Under the new structure, DHL Express has been re-organised geographically into threeoperating areas – Asia Pacific and EEMEA, Europe, and the Americas, together with structuralchanges within operating functions at a regional and global level.
The restructuring was announced by the new DHL Express CEO Ken Allen at the recent DeutschePost DHL Capital Markets Day. He said that DHL Express would streamline its organisation byreducing from five to three geographical regions and would halve the global management board to sixmembers. DHL Express aims to achieve €460 million worth of cost savings this year in response tothe dramatic downturn in the express market as a result of the worldwide economic slowdown.
A veteran of the express industry, Pearson joined DHL in the Middle East in 1986. In 2008, hewas appointed as CEO, EEMEA, after a successful tenure as Executive Vice President, Commercial, DHLExpress USA. Pearson also spent three years serving as Commercial Director for DHL Asia Pacific,based in Singapore. He previously held senior positions in sales, marketing and general managementin international regions including Saudi Arabia, Oceania (comprising Australia, New Zealand, andthe Pacific Islands) and United Arab Emirates.
Under McHugh, DHL Express’s intra-Asia volume from Hong Kong grew at an average 16% per yearbetween 2003 and 2008, compared with a 3% annual growth on other trade lanes. Similarly, inSingapore, its intra-Asia volume grew an average of 5% a year between 2003 and 2008, compared withan average of 4% growth on non-intra-Asia trade lanes, the regional newspaper The Shipping Timesreported.
