FTSE100 DS Smith Appoints New Sales Director for Paper in Europe and North America

Paper division announces changes to senior management team.

We have announced the appointment of Johan van Baarle as Sales Director of the Paper Division. Reporting to Niels Flierman, Managing Director for Paper, Van Baarle will be responsible for the division’s paper sales across Europe and North America – managing around 5 million tonnes of paper produced at DS Smith’s mills annually.

Van Baarle joins DS Smith from Cargill, the global food, agricultural, finance and industrial products provider, where he has worked since 2003. During his time at Cargill Van Baarle gained a wealth of experience holding a series of senior customer focused and sales manager roles. Most recently he has been Sales Director Global Accounts in Cargill’s Cocoa & Chocolate division

Based in The Netherlands, Van Baarle will be tasked with further growing DS Smith’s paper sales across Europe and the U.S. Van Baarle will also be focused on managing the service portfolio to customers, ensuring the delivery of high quality, high performing papers to meet changing demands in packaging and other sectors. 

I am excited to contribute to DS Smith’s purpose to redefine packaging for a changing world. I look forward to sharing my experience with the global teams to focus on continued growth by understanding and meeting the demands of our customers. These demands are shifting towards lighter but stronger paper that is both innovative and sustainable in production and product.

— Johan van Baarle, Sales Director, Paper Division

I welcome Johan to the team, and look forward to him bringing some of his extensive experience to the role. He joins at an exciting time as DS Smith, along with the whole paper packaging sector, has an opportunity to play a huge role in replacing hard to recycle and single use plastics. Making sure we can provide the right packaging papers to our customers is a key part of ensuring we realise that opportunity.