Diego Pistone has left his position head of Fiat Chrysler’s Parts and Service division for the Europe Middle East and Africa region (EMEA) to take up a new role as CEO of Fiat Services and Holdings, the adminstrative arm of the Fiat Group. He has been replaced by Luc Billiet who for the last two years has been head of Shared Training Services in the Precision Agriculture business unit at CNH, the majority owned subsidiary of Fiat Industrial that makes agricultural and construction machinery. He had formerly head of supply chain at Case New Holland, and prior to that held logistics roles at Fiat as well as Volkswagen.

In his new role, Billiet will be head of supply chain management, with responsibility for inbound and outbound logistics (excluding service parts) in the EMEA region for Fiat Chrysler.

Pistone was the first to take up the position in September 2011 when Fiat restructured its regional operations as part of its integration with Chrysler.

The reorganisation affected supply chain functions in the EMEA division, which was put under the remit of Parts & Service, Supply Chain & Network Development. Pistone took over the reorganized remit following the earlier departure of Paola Petrone (read more here). Pistone had also lead the supply chain management and logistics functions prior to Petrone.

The CEO and president of Mercedes-Benz US International, Markus Schaefer, is moving back to Mercedes’ headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany to take up a new role as head of production planning for the all of the carmakers’ passenger cars.

Jason Hoff will replace him at the Tuscaloosa plant in Alabama, which makes the M-Class, R-Class and GL-Class SUVs. Hoff moves over from Stuttgart where he has been in charge of car and van procurement and has overseen preparations for the next generation of C-Class sedans, which will be produced in Tuscaloosa in 2014 for sale in North America.

Both appointments are effective at the beginning of July this year.

Schaefer has been president of MBUSI since July 2010, though he first went to Vance in 2002 as vice president of Engineering, returning to Germany to Germany as director of strategy for production at Mercedes-Benz cars.

Schaefer joined Mercedes-Benz in 1990 as a trainee at the Sindelfingen plant. He served as an operations engineer, planning engineer and production officer at Sindelfingen before becoming head of planning for passenger cars. He also served as plant manager for Mercedes' Egyptian German Automotive in Cairo.

Penske Logistics has appointed Jeffery Bullard as senior vice president of Operations in the company's Central region. Bullard is based at the company’s office in Warren, Michigan.

Prior to joining Penske Logistics, Bullard was with the private equity firm, Transportation Resource Partners (TRP) where he served as CEO of Versant Supply Chain.

Bullard has more than 25 years of experience in the transport and logistics industry. He was director of North American logistics for General Motors between 2001 and 2004 and has held positions at IBM, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Deloitte Consulting and Alaris Consulting.

Penske has also appointed Joe Carlier as senior vice president, Global Sales. Carlier moves from his previous role as vice president of Sales and Business Operations in the company’s Central region. Carlier has 25 years of sales and operations experience in transport and logistics.

During his 17 years with Penske Logistics, Carlier held several sales and operations leadership roles including vice president of Sales, vice president of Operations, director of Sales and general manager of Operations. He is a three-time winner of Penske’s highest sales achievement award and a two-time recipient of the company’s field operational excellence award.

Logistics provider Gillhuber Logistik, a subsidiary of Imperial Logistics International, has appointed Srecko Mühling as managing director for Automobile, Supplier and Consumer Goods. Mühling was previously on the management board of the company. Prior to that he spent six years at DB Schenker in Mannheim, Germany where he held positions as production manager and general manager in the automotive segment.

Imperial bought the contract logistics operations of the Gillhuber Group in 2005. Panopa was originally a Krupps Group logistics division bought by nestrans Logistik in 1990 before nestrans itself was bought by Imperial Holdings in 1999.

Meanwhile, Peter Lowet has been appointed managing director of Gillhuber subsidiary Gillhuber Logistics (UK), and will be responsible for expanding logistics activities in the country and developing new business segments.

Lowet is a qualified freight forwarding specialist and joined joined Gillhuber in Neufahrn, Germany as operational logistics manager in June 2008. He will continue to perform this function, which includes responsibility for the facilities in Neufahrn, Garching, Regensburg and Unterhollerau, near Dingolfing.

The UK’s Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) has appointed Jim Steer to be its next president, a position he will take up in May this year when present encumbant Graham Inglis steps down.

“I’m delighted that Jim Steer has accepted our invitation to become the Institute’s president-elect,” said Inglis. “His appointment comes at a critical time in the expansion of Britain’s transport network; the development of the North-South High Speed Rail link, the £37 billion planned expansion by Network Rail and the on-going debate around London’s airport capacity make it an ideal time for him to take the helm. I know that Jim will continue to focus on the Olympic transport legacy and champion road safety as I have during my term in office, and no doubt bring his own ideas to the role.

As well as being a former vice president of CILT, Steer is a co-founder of the renowned transport planning company, Steer Davies Gleave (SDG), which began operations in 1978.  He took a three-year secondment to the Strategic Rail Authority as a member of its senior executive team with responsibilities for all of its strategic planning activities.
 
In 2005, he re-joined SDG’s Board. He is now the director of Greengauge 21 which campaigns for a high speed line in Britain and he has also served as vice president of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. Jim is also a well-known speaker on transport topics and a regular contributor to industry publications.

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