Geodis Wilson Spain appoints new managing director

Geodis Wilson Spain has announced the appointment of Alain Reich as the new Managing Director. Based in Madrid, Alain Reich will be responsible for the freight forwarding activities, as well as for developing and expanding the business in the future.

Geodis Wilson is the Freight Management division of the global Geodis group. In Spain, Geodis has 200 employees and more than 80,000 m2 of warehousing space. The Freight Management division in Spain consists of 80 employees in 4 offices, with a turnover of approx. 40 Millions euros.

Alain started his career in 1981 in the freight department of Air France Cargo, where he was looking after sales towards freight forwarders. In 1991 he joined forwarders Bax Global as Sales Director, before moving on to Kühne & Nagel, where he worked until 2002 as Director of the airfreight division for France. He joined Geodis Wilson in 2002 where he was Sales Director for France and Regional Development Director for southern Europe, before taking up his new position at Geodis Wilson.

Freight markets in Spain were badly hit by the global economic downturn, with business declining by some 40%, but Alain remains confident that Geodis Wilson in Spain is well placed to take advantage of the recovery: “We are very well established in Spain, and we are well known for our expertise in handling high tech goods, textiles and industry. I will be pursuing new lines of business, particularly Industrial Projects for which we do have a very high level of knowhow and logistics operations in markets such as the Far East, South America and Morocco, which is a very important market right on our doorstep. We also wish to offer to new customers our integrated Solutions which are making us different from our main competitors.”

Alain is also keen to forge stronger ties with Geodis Wilson’s global network, and to raise the profile of the Spanish operation. “I will be working with my colleagues in other countries to make Spain one of our priority areas within the network”, he states. “We currently rank as about the 20th largest forwarder in Spain. My ambition is to put us in the top ten, and I firmly believe we have the tools available to develop quickly in the Spanish market. Our central sales departments both in Amsterdam and in Paris will definitely be a great support through their Key Account organizations.”