K Line gets new CEO  

Yukikazu Myochin has been appointed the new Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Japanese shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. (K Line).

Myochin will take over the role from the current CEO Eizo Murakami on April 1, 2019. Murakami will continue his career at K Line as Chairman of the Board, taking over the position from Jiro Asakura.

The reshuffling of management comes in anticipation of the company’s 100th anniversary in April 2019.

“K Line has developed its business foundation for the future under the current management to rebuild a stable earnings structure, including the establishment of the integrated containership company, in addition to priority themes set in its medium-term management plan “Revival for Greater Strides”. Therefore, K Line has decided these changes to solidify the foundation under the new management by undergoing a rejuvenation with its 100th anniversary,” the company said.

The integrated containership company launched jointly by K Line, NYK and MOL in April 2018, the Ocean Network Express,expects its teething problems to have a USD 400 million impact to the company’s bottom line for the fiscal year of 2018.

The teething problems, which mostly relate to booking reception and documentation operations, were caused by unexpected regulatory delays that tightened the time window for the company to ready for launching, as explained by ONE’s CEO Jeremy Nixon.

Namely, the regulatory framework was pushed considerably with the final clearance secured at the end of October, leaving ONE with only four months to prepare the organization to go live with bookings.

One of the key issues during the transition period were inadequate human resources and delays in uploading the required data. According to Nixon, the teething problems are behind the company.

For the full fiscal year, ONE anticipates to book a loss of USD 600 million, a major downgrade from the expected profit of USD 110 million.