Jo Vanhoren was appointed president and chief executive officer of Alfa Laval. In addition, he was named president of Alfa Laval’s North American “cluster” which includes its sales and service organizations in the USA and Canada.

The company said Vanhoren is responsible for leading Alfa Laval in North America, driving profitable growth, and expanding market share by leveraging the company’s main technologies of heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling — through a sales network of direct and indirect channels.

Vanhoren joined Alfa Laval in 1991 as a heat exchanger sales engineer for Alfa Laval Benelux (Belgium and Luxembourg). From 1996 through 2006, he held several progressive positions within the Alfa Laval Benelux organization ultimately becoming charged with sales and marketing of all Alfa Laval products and solutions to the local markets.

In 2007, Vanhoren was named general manager for Alfa Laval’s Air Business Center, where he was responsible for the overall growth strategy and profitability of the operation. In 2012, he was appointed managing director of Alfa Laval Iberica (Spain and Portugal), driving the sales and marketing efforts for Alfa Laval’s business in those markets.

Alfa Laval enacted a new strategic direction in 2016-2017 based on a structure of three industry-oriented divisions, containing twelve differentiated business units, and eight geographical sales “clusters.” In addition to his role as managing director of Alfa Laval Iberica, Vanhoren was named president of the Southern Europe “cluster” in 2017, which includes Iberica (Spain; Portugal), France and Northwest Africa, as well as the Adriatic (Italy; Greece; Israel; Malta; Monaco).

Vanhoren holds a degree in electromechanical engineering as well as a post-graduate degree in business management. He has also completed sales and marketing training at the Ashridge Business School. He is based at the Alfa Laval facility in Richmond, VA.