Arild B Iversen

Oslo, Norway
After six years as president and CEO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), Arild B Iversen is moving into a new role as consultant to the parent companies and WWL. Christopher J Connor, former deputy CEO and chief commercial officer, took over on 21 June. Leif Løddesøl, chairman of the WWL board of directors, says the company has grown to be a "global leader in logistics, with a network that spans the globe over land and sea" under Iversen's leadership.


Connor, who has over 32 years of experience in the logistics industry, has relocated to the company's headquarters in Lysaker, Norway. He has held a range of positions, including president of WWL Americas and CEO of WWL Vehicle Services Americas, based in Woodcliff Lake, USA; chief operating officer Ocean Services and global head of commercial, based in Oslo, Norway; as well as commercial and executive positions in Asia and Europe.

Latham, NY
Eric Prades, CEO of Air Liquide Advanced Business, will join Plug Power Inc's board of directors. Prades has over 20 years of international strategic and operations leadership from his work at Air Liquide, especially in hydrogen energy markets. He also oversees the Horizon Hydrogen Energy (H2E) program, an ambitious EUR200 million (USD263 million) research and development program working to build sustainable and competitive hydrogen-energy solutions in France from 2009 to 2016. The program, led by Air Liquide, involves 19 other French companies and is funded by Oseo, the French agency for innovation. Before joining Air Liquide, Prades was at Thomson Group, where he had extensive operations experience in Europe and Asia through a variety of positions, ending as the general manager of operations for Thailand.
Prades joins the Plug Power board as part of a strategic USD6.5 million investment that will help fuel the company's strategy to grow its hydrogen fuel cell business for forklifts and other markets.

Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Seegrid Corporation, the leading manufacturer of vision-guided robotic industrial trucks, has promoted materials handling automated guided vehicle expert John Hayes to vice president of US sales and marketing. Hayes joined Seegrid as national account manager in 2012 to expand its US sales efforts. He will be responsible for overseeing sales, business development, applications engineering and marketing services for Seegrid.