Lufthansa has appointed Remco Steenbergen to the role of chief financial officer.

Taking up the position at the start of January, Steenbergen will also take a seat on the executive board.

After the resignations of Ulrik Svensson and Thorsten Dirks, Carsten Spohr, chairman of the executive board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, took over the responsibilities of the chief financial officer on an interim basis.

With the appointment of Steenbergen, the finance division will be re-established.

It will include controlling and risk management, corporate finance, accounting and balance sheets, taxes, and purchasing, as well as mergers and acquisitions.

“With Remco Steenbergen, we will have a distinguished financial expert with extensive experience in the capital markets joining us as the new Lufthansa Group chief financial officer,” said Karl-Ludwig Kley, chairman of the Deutsche Lufthansa AG supervisory board.

“Remco Steenbergen brings with him excellent financial expertise from various companies as well as industries and has also impressed the supervisory board with his personality.

“Especially now, when the pandemic is having such serious consequences for air travel, an internationally experienced and well-respected chief financial officer is more important than ever for Lufthansa Group: not only to overcome the current crisis but also for the coming years, when we have to – and want to – pay back government stabilisation funds.”

Most recently, Steenbergen was chief financial officer of Barry Callebaut Group based in Zurich, Switzerland and prior to that, worked at Philips and at KPMG.

Throughout his career, he has held a wide range of global leadership and financial management roles at numerous companies in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Belgium, Ireland, the United States and Switzerland.