Neil Palomba, SVP of hotel operations & product development, is promoted to chairman of Costa.
Neil Palomba was promoted to President of Costa Crociere in Genoa and Budhy Sin Bok to President of Costa in Asia, Shanghai, while the Costa Group plans to develop a maritime operations center in Hamburg that could affect about 160 jobs in Genoa, according to Italian sources.
Palomba is currently Senior Vice President of Hotel Operations and Product Development, while Bok is Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific and China. Both will report directly to Costa Group CEO Michael Thamm, as does AIDA Cruises Chairman Michael Ungerer.
Palomba will be responsible for managing the Costa brand, as well as product structure and design, sales, and customer service. Bok's promotion reflects the significant importance of Asia to the Costa Group, especially given the rapid growth of the Chinese market.
“These appointments will help us strengthen our Costa and Costa Asia brands and bolster the development of our global activities, especially in Europe and Asia,” said Thamm. The new maritime operations center in Hamburg will be called “Carnival Maritime Costa Group” and will be headed by Jens Lassen, currently Senior Vice President of Maritime Operations for AIDA Cruises, who will also report directly to Thamm. With the support of Lufthansa Technik, the center is creating, in Costa’s words, “a state-of-the-art, digitized unit” for fleet operations. This unit will oversee 25 ships. “The Hamburg location gives us excellent access to technology and expertise in the maritime sector. We are confident that close cooperation with Lufthansa Technik will allow us to transfer the airline’s know-how to continuously improve the quality of our fleet operations,” said Thamm.
