The board of directors of the airline SAS has appointed Dutchman Anko Van der Werff as President and CEO. Last fall, he was in a storm due to high management bonuses in the bankrupt company he was leading at the time.
Anko Van der Werff will take office no later than July 15, according to a press release on Wednesday afternoon.
The current CEO Rickard Gustafson will hand over his duties to an acting CEO in May, namely Karl Sandlund, Commercial Director of SAS, to take over as CEO of SKF, where CEO Alrik Danielson is about to leave.
Anko Van der Werff has been CEO of Colombian airline Avianca since 2019, after five years in a similar position at a Mexican company. In September 2020, attention was drawn to Reuters Avianca for paying out millions in bonuses to the CEO and CFO during the pandemic while the company was declared bankrupt.
The company defended itself by saying that the bonuses were necessary for management to continue providing the company with services.
The press release from SAS does not mention this. Instead, the new recruit is described as ”a 45-year-old Dutchman with an outstanding career from the global aviation industry.”.
According to his Linkedin profile, he was the head of Dutch airline giant KLM in Sweden, Finland and the Baltics from 2006 to 2009, and at the same time chairman of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce in Sweden.
During 2005-2006, he was marketing manager for Northern Europe, stationed in Stockholm, and managed to acquire basic knowledge of Swedish.
Anko Van der Werff says she is honored to have been appointed as the new CEO.
”"SAS is Scandinavia's leading airline and has a strong brand and a long and proud history in the aviation industry, which has meant a lot to connect the region, both domestically and with the rest of the world," he says in the press release, and continues:
”"It will be fun to return to Scandinavia. I have many fond memories from here, both professionally and also with regard to my family, since our two oldest children were born here."”
He then touches on SAS's ongoing "sustainability journey", which he believes is crucial for the transformation of the aviation industry.
”"Now I'm looking forward to getting to know the team and all parts of the company, and getting started. Without a doubt, Covid-19 has hit the entire aviation industry hard, but SAS has a strong foundation to build on," says Anko Van der Werff, and concludes:
”I am convinced that by collaborating across the company, we will create an even stronger SAS.”
Anko Van der Werff was one of three candidates named by the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv a little over a week ago, as reported by Di at the time. The others were former British Airways CEO Alex Cruz and Alexis von Hoensbroech, CEO of Austrian Airlines.
