APL Undergoes Strategic Restructure

APL has announced an organizational realignment to a functional structure to drive its business forward. APL will move from the current geographically-organized structure to a functional one. The functions will be in the areas of Trade, Commercial, Operations, Procurement and Planning & Strategy.

“The container shipping industry is undergoing profound changes, characterized by low growth and intense competition. We recognize there is a need for APL to respond more quickly to the market and to our customers. We are pushing ahead with our strategy to sharpen our competitive edge through cost efficiency and organizational agility while building on our strong reputation for service quality,” said Kenneth Glenn, president of APL. 

“APL has significantly improved its cost position through operational efficiencies, as well as the continuing introduction of large fuel-efficient ships and the return of expensive chartered tonnage. We want to now take our speed of decision-making, market responsiveness and cost management to the next level by adopting a function-led management approach.”

APL said its approach is derived from a broad and in-depth study of its current business model and roadmap, as well as feedback from extensive customer engagement.

A new APL leadership team has been formed to ensure the successful execution of APL’s objectives, effective 10 February 2014. Members of the new team, led by Kenneth Glenn, APL President, are:
Peter Jongepier, chief commercial officer
Calvin Leong, chief trade officer
Nathaniel Seeds, chief operations officer
Jason Wong, chief procurement officer

As part of the realignment, the role of current regional and country leads will be organized into commercial and operations functional leads.