Svein Steimler first made his name in the shipping industry helping to restructure John Fredriksen’s business after a particularly difficult time for the legendary shipping tycoon in the 1990s.
Having earned his spurs in the fast-moving Fredriksen empire, his next appointment in 1998 as an executive at the staunchly Japanese corporate culture of Nippon Yusen Kaisha’s (NYK) European offshoot was viewed as a career stopgap.
But nearly 20 years on and he is still at the Japanese giant and last month was named the first non-Japanese chief executive of an NYK regional company, NYK Group Europe, in the company’s 131-year-long history.
