Hans Günther Kersten, formerly UIC freight director, has been selected as Deputy Director General of FIATA, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA), and started his mission on 1 June 2017. Kersten will succeed Fiata’s director general and and CEO Marco Leonardo Sorgetti when he retires in September.
A true international personality, Kersten studied business administration, economics and law at the University of Cologne (Germany). Besides German he speaks fluent English and French and has a good understanding of Spanish and Dutch.
For the last 18 years Hans Günther worked for Deutsche Bahn in various senior management positions, four and a half years of which seconded to the international railway association UIC in Paris, where he held the position of director of the freight department. In this capacity he also had the opportunity to work together with FIATA, in its long standing cooperation with UIC, even before taking today’s central position in the association.
About FIATA
FIATA, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, was founded in Vienna, Austria on May 31st 1926. It is a non-governmental organisation that today represents an industry covering approximately 40,000 forwarding and logistics firms, employing around 10 million people in some 160 countries. FIATA has consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (inter alia ECE, ESCAP, ESCWA, etc.), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) as well as many other UN related bodies, e.g. the World Bank. It is recognised as representing the freight forwarding industry by many other governmental organisations, governmental authorities, private international organisations in the field of transport and logistics, such as the European Commission (through CLECAT), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Union of Railways (UIC), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), the World Customs Organization (WCO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), etc.
(Source: FIATA)
