Shorn of digitalization duties, Maersk finance chief moves on

Moving on: Jakob Stausholm

MARCH 20, 2018 — Jakob Stausholm is leaving his job as Chief Finance, Strategy and Transformation Officer and registered director at A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S.

His decision came as the company said that it is accelerating its business transformation after what it calls “a year of solid progress in becoming the global integrator of container logistics.”

The areas Finance, Transformation, IT and Digital, currently organized in one function under Stausholm, will be divided into a fully focused finance function and functions focused on IT, Strategy, Digital and Transformation. That IT-function will now answer directly to CEO, Søren Skou, with execution power being increased to pave the way for further speeding up the business transformation.

Stausholm’s departure seem to be amicable enough.

“I have had the pleasure of working closely with Jakob for more than six years and I have always valued Jakob’s enthusiasm and support. Jakob inspires as well as challenges the organization,” said Skou. “Jakob has led the first part of our digital transformation and has done a great job in driving our strategy and managing the CFO-areas. I would like to thank Jakob for a good partnership and his contribution and I wish him all the best in the future.”

“It has been an honor and a pleasure to work for Maersk,” said Stausholm, who will step down from the Executive Board of the company by the end of his month. “Søren Skou and the company has shown great confidence in me and I have been offered some of the most exciting job opportunities. I very much agree with the new organizational design. It is the right solution for the company, however as a consequence of the change, I have requested to pursue other opportunities.”

“Digitalization is changing our business model and the way in which we drive and implement our strategy. With this organizational change, we expand our management capacity within digitalization to accelerate the transformation. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I thank Jakob Stausholm for his many excellent contributions to A.P. Møller – Maersk,” said Chairman of the Board Jim Hagemann Snabe.

Investors were apparently less than impressed by all this. Financial newspaper Børsen says that the B share in the company fell by 1.6 percent while the A share fell by 1.9 percent of its market value.