Board of Directors

Mr. Flemming Jacobs is the Chairman of our Board. Mr. Jacobs started his career in the shipping industry in 1960 when he joined AP Moller. He helped to build up Maersk Line into one of the world’s leading container lines and in 1996 he became a partner of AP Moller. Between 1999 and 2003 he was President & CEO of Singapore based Neptune Orient Lines, owners of American President Lines and APL Logistics. He is a member of the Board and Credit Committee of DVB Bank SE in Germany; Member of the Board and Audit Committee of Inchcape Shipping Services in the UK, and a Member of the Board of Scandlines GmbH. Furthermore, he is a  Member of the Advisory Board of the Panama Canal,  Rickmers Group in Germany and Arshiya International in India, and a Senior Advisor to the Ultramar Group in Chile.  He is also a Member of the General and Nominating Committees of Lloyd’s Register. He attended the Harvard Business School and brings a wealth of business and strategic development experience to his position as Chair of our Board. He is known for seeking extraordinary growth, organizational development and proper governance.

Mr. Per Norret is our Vice-Chairman. Per is the former President for Danish subsidiary of Bombardier Transportation Denmark. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several Danish private and exchange-registered companies. He has developed major competence within strategic processes and business development. He also has a business specialization in recruiting of board directors and members of Executive Management.

Mr. Torben Vestergaard Frandsen has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with the company since 1968. He became CEO of the company in 1972 and oversaw its profitable expansion as a traditional textile business. In 1997 Torben handed control of the company to his son, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, but remained very active in product development then as a Member of our Board of Directors. Torben has also been active in Danish politics for many years.

Ms. Julie Meyer is a Board Member. Ms. Meyer is an American-born entrepreneur, investor, business adviser, networking expert, broadcaster and business commentator. She is the founder and Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital and the Managing Partner of Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE). She is the founder of Entrepreneur Country and was the co-founder of First Tuesday which she sold in July 2000. Meyer is also one of the two dragons on the BBC’s Dragons' Den online and is a regular regular business and economics commentator in the media. She has won awards including the World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and a place in the Wall Street Journal’s 30 most influential women in Europe.

Mr. Ashutosh Varshney is a Board Member. He is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and Social Sciences, and Director, India Initiative, Brown University.  PhD (MIT).  Formerly taught at Harvard and Michigan.  Author and editor of several books, including Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India; India in the Era of Economic Reforms; Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. Occasional columnist for Financial Times and Indian Express. Recipient of the Guggenheim, Carnegie, MacArthur and Ford Foundation awards for research.  Served as advisor/consultant to the World Bank, UNDP, Club of Madrid.  Also served on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Task Force on Millennium Development Goals.

Mr. Bill Burns is a Board Member. Mr Burns has spent his entire career in the Healthcare sector, working for Beecham Pharmaceuticals and then with Roche Pharmaceuticals where he retired from his position of CEO, Pharma Division, at the end of 2009. He continues as a member of the Board of Roche and Chugai, the majority Roche-owned public company in Japan. He is also an non-executive director on the boards of Shire Pharmaceuticals and Biotie Therapeutics, and is Chairman of Masters Pharmaceuticals and of Okairos. He also chairs a funding committee for the Wellcome Trust.