GEFCO’s Air & Sea division takes off with new commercial leadership

GEFCO, a world leader in multimodal supply-chain solutions, has announced a new leadership in its Air & Sea Division. This reorganization will boost customer-centricity and accelerate business in three key sectors: industry, automotive and life science/healthcare.

Since February, Paul-Henri Fréret, Executive Vice President has been leading GEFCO’s Air & Sea division. With broad experience at GEFCO, Paul-Henri has managed all areas of the business in Asia and Latin America in addition to Groupe PSA operations at Group headquarters. He has also held global corporate management functions at GEFCO in warehouse logistics and road transport.

In May, Cyril Lefebvre was promoted to Global Sales and Marketing Director for the Air & Sea division, from Managing Director of French operations. With in-depth experience in Air & Sea operations at GEFCO and other Freight Forwarding companies, Cyril will shape and drive the division’s commercial and marketing strategy worldwide.

Adrian Draghici is Market Line Manager for Automotive. With a big experience inside company, he coordonated in the past operations from medical division.

Serge Kisselevsky is now Industry Market Line Manager, while Karin Van-Den Brekel will continue to lead the Life Science and Healthcare business, a role she has occupied since 2019. These areas will be strongly supported by a new trade lane manager, Amer Benouda and tender center manager, Romain Bérard.

“I am very pleased to be leading the organization in this new phase of growth,” commented Paul-Henri Fréret, Executive Vice President, GEFCO Air & Sea. “With presence in 116 countries, our new organizational structure is focused on meeting customer needs in all freight forwarding areas. We will deploy our robust Air & Sea expertise in synergy with other GEFCO divisions to offer unique integrated solutions.”

Air & Sea has also reinforced its organization to drive business in three key sectors: industry, automotive and life sciences/healthcare.

Strong air charter demand during the COVID-19 epidemic

Since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, GEFCO’s Air & Sea Division has successfully deployed its Time Critical solutions to help keep customers’ supply chains moving. For two major European automotive players, GEFCO handled shipments of 750 tons of key automotive spare parts from China to France, including turbo compressors, pistons, control panels and doors in eight chartered flights to prevent production stoppages.

For a worldwide medical diagnostics leader, GEFCO also transported 30 tons of medical equipment, including COVID-19 testing kits, from France to destinations in Algeria, Tunisia and the Antilles to help hospitals and private laboratories manage increased demand. Similarly, GEFCO transported around 1,000 medical beds weekly to destinations across Europe for a leading European manufacturer of medical devices and surgical equipment to cope with particularly high demand for medical beds and devices during the COVID-19 crisis.