Panalpina appoints CIO

Panalpina, has appointed Rod Angwin (52) as its Chief Information Officer (CIO). Angwin has over 30 years of IT experience in a number of major retail and consumer brands. One of the CIO’s most important tasks at Panalpina will be to define and roll out industry-specific customer facing IT solutions.
 
“Rod Angwin is experienced in defining and leading major systems programs in large global firms. He has a good grasp of technology but also sees the bigger picture and understands the commercial implications of IT”, said Panalpina’s CEO Monika Ribar. Angwin will take on his role as Panalpina’s CIO on September 3, 2012. He will report directly to the CEO and be a member of Panalpina’s extended management body, the Executive Committee (ExCom).
 
30 years of IT and leadership experience
 
52-year-old and UK-born Angwin started his career in 1981 as a programmer at British Telecom. He then worked for a decade in different IT functions at Mars Inc. Other assignments in leading roles in UK based companies including the retailers Safeway and B&Q followed. His most recent permanent role was as Group CIO for the international multi-brand builders’ merchant, Wolseley.
 
Customer facing IT solutions becoming increasingly important
 
One of Angwin’s most important tasks at Panalpina will be to define and roll out industry-specific customer facing IT solutions. “This is all about improving connectivity between us and our customers. Today, having direct connections between IT systems and live or near live access to all sorts of information about the transported goods is just as important for our customers as receiving the goods themselves”, explained Ribar, who was the company’s CIO from 2001 until 2005.
 
Guenther Denk to fully dedicate himself to SAP TM and Operations Transformation
 
With the arrival of Angwin, Guenther Denk, who has acted as Panalpina’s Corporate IT Officer since 2005, can now fully dedicate himself to SAP TM, an integrated operations application landscape for the transport industry. Denk, who has been with Panalpina for twenty-six years, has an enormous know-how of the company, the freight forwarding industry and SAP. SAP TM development and roll-out as well as SAP TM related projects are part of Panalpina’s extensive Operations Transformation Program (OTP). OTP will be managed by Denk, who will report directly to the COO, Karl Weyeneth. It was called into life to re-engineer Panalpina’s business processes and information systems across the entire organization. The ultimate objective is to improve productivity on a global scale.