Vilhelm Mar Thorsteinsson heads management shake-up at Eimskip

Eimskip has made a rash of changes as part of a management shake-up, headed by the appointment of Vilhelm Mar Thorsteinsson as its new chief executive.

Mr Thorsteinsson joins the Icelandic carrier from bank Islandsbanki, with Gylfi Sigsusson moving from CEO to take the reins of Eimskip’s activities in Canada and the US.

Chief financial officer Hilmar Petur Valgarosson (pictured) has been appointed chief operations officer at the helm of a new operations division, created by merging vessel operations and sailing systems.

The new chief financial officer will be senior manager of finances Egill Orn Petersen.

Meanwhile, the business process and management division will be merged with IT as a single department to be led by Hilmar Karlsson.

Under these changes, the company’s sailing system will be streamlined, with weekly sailings in Iceland becoming bi-weekly, and the number of vessels active in Norway reducing by one.

It will also increase services to fresh fish customers in the Faroe Islands, with a weekly schedule of a reefer and container vessel between the islands and the UK and add a bi-weekly schedule between Faroe and the Netherlands.

However, the company warned that the changes would mean the loss of 10 other employees, “either through layoffs or meaningful change of responsibilities”, it said.

“Most of these full-time employees are in the middle management layer of the company.”