BHP Billiton loses key CIO to overseas port

The CIO of BHP Billiton Stainless Steel Materials in Perth, Frits de Vroet, has resigned from the company to take on a new role as a chief process officer (CPO) in Europe.

de Vroet will start a new role as CPO with Damco Logistics (part of AP Moller Maersk) based in Copenhagen, Denmark from July 5.

Damco is one of the world’s largest providers of freight forwarding and supply chain management solutions.

During his 20-year career, de Vroet has worked in various business and IT roles across many regions, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Before joining BHP Billiton he was with DHL/Deutsche Post World Net in 2001 and in 2006 de Vroet was appointed CIO (for EMEA) for DHL’s Logistics division based in Brussels. That position managed 35 countries and some 1200 IT staff.

At Damco de Vroet will report to the CEO and become part of the company’s global leadership team.

His primary role will be to support company’s growth aspirations with a “stronger underlying IT platform” that optimises data and business processes. He will lead a team in Copenhagen consisting of IT, business process improvement, master data and various other projects.

Damco CEO, Rolf Habben-Jansen, said IT represents a key competitive differentiator and Frits will “strengthen Damco’s position even further in this field”.

Frits de Vroet holds a Master of Business degree from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a PhD in strategic management from the University of Queensland.

The CPO role has been emerging over the past few years and aims to bring IT and business processes together, which should help reduce barriers between business sand IT.

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