Karina Deacon to succeed Torben Carlson as CFO at DFDS

DFDS has appointed Karina Deacon (pictured above) its new chief financial officer, following the promotion in May of Torben Carlson to president and chief executive.

Ms Deacon, CFO of Danish cleaning equipment supplier Nilfisk, will join the Danish ro-ro operator on 1 January 2020.

Mr Carlson said of his successor: “I am very pleased to welcome Karina. Her experience from successful listed companies and significant international career fit perfectly with her new role at DFDS.

“Together with Karina I look forward to achieving the ambitions of our new Win 23 strategy. In this respect, Karina’s experience with efficiency and transformations will be of great value.”.

The 50-year-old has extensive strategic and financial management experience from various management, finance and accounting roles at PWC and ISS and as group CFO at Landic Property and Saxo Bank.

“I am really excited to join a team that has succeeded in creating impressive results over many years. I look very much forward to contribute to this,” she said.

Yesterday also saw freight industry veteran Dirk Reich (pictured below) join the DFDS board of directors at an extraordinary general meeting.

Dirk Reich

Mr Reich had a 17-year career at Kuehne + Nagel in a variety of management roles, before moving to Luxembourg to become chief executive of Cargolux.

He left the airline in 2016 and the following year was appointed to Panalpina’s board of directors, a position he is expected to relinquish. This year he was also appointed chairman of German digital start-up freight forwarder InstaFreight.