Chris Scott to succeed John Lauer as Matson EVP and CCO

L to R: John Lauer, Chris Scott. [Image: Matson]

Honolulu-headquartered Matson Inc. (NYSE: MATX) reports that John Lauer, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, will retire on July 1, 2026, having led the sales, marketing, pricing and customer service activities of the company for 19 years.

Chris Scott, senior vice president, Transpacific Service and corporate pricing, will be promoted to succeed Lauer as EVP and CCO when Lauer retires in July.

“John is a role model for leadership at Matson. He embodies values to which we all aspire – teamwork, mutual respect, integrity, accountability and innovation – and lives them every day. During his tenure, John has influenced the evolution of virtually all of our business processes and made them better,” said Matt Cox, Matson’s chairman and CEO. “I want to express my deep gratitude to John for his years of dedicated service and many contributions to Matson’s success.”

“As a result of our longstanding bench development and succession planning efforts, we have a dynamic veteran Matson leader in Chris Scott, who is well prepared to take the baton,” said Cox. “Chris will bring 34 years of broad industry experience to his new role – the majority of which has been in leadership roles across Matson operations and commercial departments. Working alongside John and Qiang Gao, our SVP, Asia, he has been integral to the successful growth of our China services over the past decade.”

Under Matson’s succession plan Tony Crisafulli, currently director of trade, Transpacific Service, will then become vice president, Transpacific Service .Crisafulli, a 30-year industry veteran joined Matson in 2025 and in his current role is responsible for key commercial aspects of Matson’s China service, including assisting in management of the trade relating to overall strategy, customer relationships, and allocation management. In his new role, he will be responsible to lead the commercial efforts for Matson’s China services, reporting to Scott.