EUROPE: Arriva Group has announced the appointment of Gianfranco Sgro as Chief Executive Officer with effect from October 1.
Previous CEO Mike Cooper stepped down following Deutsche Bahn’s sale of Arriva to I Squared in 2024. David Martin was appointed Executive Chairman and took on the CEO’s responsibilities on an interim basis while a new CEO was sought.
Sgro joins Arriva after almost 11 years at logistics company Kuehne+Nagel, where he is currently Executive Vice-President for Contract Logistics. Prior to this, he was Chief Operating Officer for Latin America at Pirelli for three years and had a varied career at Ceva Logistics where he ended his time as Chief Operating Officer for South Europe, Middle East & Africa.
‘I’m delighted that Gianfranco is joining Arriva at such an important time for our group’, said Arriva’s Executive Chair David Martin on September 3. ‘His wealth of experience running complex, high value operational businesses through periods of growth, innovation and change means he is ideally positioned to lead this company. He has an exceptional track record in growing and developing successful businesses and I’m confident that under his leadership we will strengthen our ambition to be the leading passenger transport partner across Europe.’
Sgro said ‘it is an incredibly important time for the public transportation sector, which plays a huge role in some of the big societal issues like decarbonisation and urbanisation that face the world today. I’m excited by the tremendous opportunity ahead of us and I’m looking forward to working with talented teams across the UK and Europe to deliver against the group’s ambitions.’
Arriva has four business units — UK Bus, UK Trains, The Netherlands and Mainland Europe — with passenger transport operations in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. It also operates a rolling stock leasing company in Romania.
