JLG has appointed Rogerio dos Santos as vice president for the Europe, Middle East, Africa and India region, replacing Karel Huijser. He will also be responsible for global strategy mergers & acquisitions.
Rogerio dos Santos
Karel Huijser, has also been president of IPAF - the International Powered Access Federation - since March. He will formally remain with JLG until April, serving in an advisory role until then. He has managed the European regional operation since joining the company in 2012.
Karel Huijser Rogerio dos Santos
Educated in Brazil dos Santos joined JLG in 2003 following a 10 year career with Case New Holland (CNH) having been recruited in 1993 as a design engineer with the company in Brazil. After six years in the role, he was transferred to the group’s Italian base as a project engineer.
In 2003 he landed a job as a senior project engineer with JLG’s telehandler group in Ohio. Two years later he was transferred to the company’s operation in Leicester, UK as project manager and in 2009 he moved back to Ohio as director of engineering, leaving after two and half years for a similar role at Oshkosh sister company Pearce Manufacturing in Florida.
In 2013 its was back to JLG as senior director of engineering at JLG headquarters in Hagerstown, Maryland. In 2021 he was promoted to global vice president of telehandler engineering, and in 2022 took up his current role as vice president of strategy and portfolio management where he has been responsible for managing the integration of the Hinowa and Ausa acquisitions
Oshkosh Access president Mahesh Narang said: “We look forward to the substantial contributions Rogerio will make in this position, bringing to the role his proven track record as a strategic leader and his extensive global experience.”
“Karel built a strong and diverse team in the region who confidently drove success and managed through challenges. This foundation provides us a strong pathway to the future. We are grateful for his years of leadership.”
dos Santos added: “We will continue to grow a strong regional base in the region through investments in our team members, our customers and our products, delivering purpose built products best suited to the regional needs.”
Vertikal Comment
Rogerio dos Santos brings huge JLG/Oshkosh experience to his new role, both in terms of skills, working with various divisions of the business and a wide geographic experience. He is also well placed/well known within the wider Oshkosh corporate entity. This will give him tremendous power and capability to make changes and face the challenges that new competitors have introduced. Assuming his new role goes well, don’t be surprised if he pops up in a few years as JLG president.
Karel Huijser brought a change to JLG Europe in 2012, bringing together the European, African & Middle East/India regions into a single coherent operation. Under his watch the company acquired Power Towers in the UK in 2015, taking it into the low level and ‘push around’ access markets, managing it for several years as a stand alone operation.
While some might argue he might have achieved more during his tenure, and that perhaps he could have been more radical in some areas, he has always been thoughtful, considered, measured and carried out his role with decency and professionalism - at least from the outside looking in. Working in a division of a company that is part of a multi-level publicly quoted group is never easy, and often limits rapid changes and innovative management moves on a local level.
Hopefully he might stay within the wider industry, we do know now that he will service out his two year terms as president of IPAF. We learnt of this news a couple of weeks or so ago but were unable to confirm it beyond all reasonable doubt. Huijser declined to comment on the ‘rumour’ and as a result has not yet spoken of his future plans.
Interestingly Huijser took over the European operation from Wayne Lawson who was also the president of IPAF at the time. Advice to dos Santos? Don’t seek the presidency of IPAF.
Comments