Our Leadership

Jump to section
    James E Thompson
    Chairman and Founder

    James E. Thompson is Chairman and founder of Crown Worldwide Group. After graduating from San Jose State University with an Aeronautical Engineering degree, Jim arrived in Asia in 1963. Within two years, and with just US$ 1000, he established Crown in Yokohama, Japan. 

    Jim moved to Hong Kong in 1978, where he held numerous roles on trade and advisory organisations, including the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Chairman of HKTDC Logistics Services Advisory Committee and Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce. 

    In 2013, he was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star for his lifelong contribution to Hong Kong, the region’s second highest award, recognizing distinguished service to the community and highly merited public or voluntary services. Jim and his wife Sally are passionate about helping underserved communities, working with various children’s, health and education charities.

    Jennifer Harvey
    CEO
    Executive Board Member

    Jennifer started her career at investment bank Sherman Lehman Brothers, and since joining Crown in 1993, has held several key positions.

    These include sales management roles in the USA, Singapore and Japan, Global Marketing Director and Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. In this post, she led our innovation to deliver on environmental commitments, while benchmarking progress in annual sustainability reports.

    In January 2016, she was appointed Regional Managing Director of North America, and later Chief Executive Officer for the Americas, leading and facilitating Crown’s brand strategies across the US, Canada and South America. She joined the Executive Board in October 2016, providing ongoing strategic guidance for the company.

    Jennifer is a notable industry figure and has spoken at conferences held by the United Nations, the Federation of International Movers (FIDI) and on major broadcast news networks.

    Tze Shen Kong
    Tze Shen Kong
    CEO, Asia
    Executive Board Member
     
    As CEO Asia, Shen leads Crown Worldwide Group’s family of businesses throughout Asia Pacific and India. In his role as Group Financial Controller, he continues to remain responsible for the accounting and financial matters of the entire Crown Group. 

    Since joining Crown in 1998 as Financial Planning and Analysis Manager in Hong Kong, Shen has been responsible for many projects involving financial and legal issues as well as business acquisitions. He led the successful effort to form a Global Financial Shared Services Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that supports the Crown Group in areas of finance and accounting, internal audit and legal and compliance. 

    A native of Malaysia, Shen earned his Bachelor of Business (Major in Accounting and Minor in Business Law) from Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He has been a member of CPA (Certified Practicing Accountants) Australia since 1994 and speaks English, Cantonese, Malay and Mandarin. 
    Barry Koolen
    CEO, EMEA
    Executive Board Member

    Barry is CEO of EMEA: the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and a member of Crown’s executive board. 

    He is responsible for the deployment of the vision and strategy throughout the business, the guiding principles of which are the roadmap for ensuring Crown is making it simpler to live, work and do business anywhere in the world. 

    Barry has had a long and successful career with Crown, starting in 1996 when he joined as the General Manager for Central Scotland. Prior to leading the EMEA region, Barry served as Managing Director, UKI and Northern Europe – where he drove significant growth.  

    Educated at St Johns College Hamilton in New Zealand, Barry holds a Global Mobility Specialist certification with the ERC® and is an active member of London’s New Zealand community. 

    Norah Franchetti
    Group Vice President for Marketing 

    Norah is the Group Vice President for Marketing, working to develop and implement the company’s business strategy. She is responsible for defining Crown’s global marketing strategies to some  3,000 staff and business partners to ensure alignment and consistency across all the Crown brands. 

    Scottish-born Norah joined Crown some 30 years ago and has held a wide range of business development, learning and development, and general management positions. In 2011 she led Crown in repositioning its various brands and managed internal and external initiatives to embed the Crown brand message, values and behaviors within the company. 

    Norah has worked for Crown in Hong Kong, mainland China, Europe and the United States, and now lives in Dubai, UAE. 

    Magali Delafosse
    Group Vice President of Human Resources 

    Magali is the Group Vice President of Human Resources for Crown Worldwide, having been with the company since 2011. She has over 15 years’ experience in talent acquisition, talent management and leadership development, working for multinational companies in the Asia Pacific and EMEA regions. She has an in-depth understanding of what is required to be a successful human resources business partner. 

    Magali is a French national, after several years of working for Crown in Hong Kong she is now based in Barcelona. She is also active in the human resources industry as a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and speaks at industry conferences. 

    She earned a Bachelor Honors Degree in European Business Administration and Languages from the University of Preston, U.K., and a Master Degree in Human Resources and Management from Sheffield Business School, U.K. 

    Sherry Liu
    Group Vice President for Moving Services 
     
    Sherry Liu is the Group Vice President for Moving Services. She is responsible for ensuring that the organization’s moving services business is empowered with the technology and operational capability and driving greater efficiency and consistency across moving services delivery globally. Sherry joined Crown in 1999, after relocating internationally several times with the business. Sherry is a proven leader and an expert in her field. 

    She has held key roles in the company driving innovation to improve and refine Crown’s services as our customers’ needs evolve. 

    An American, born in Taiwan, Sherry graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Chinese and Asian Studies from Georgetown University, Washington DC. She lives in Hong Kong with her family.  

    Jurgen Zyderveld
    Group Vice President for Crown World Mobility 
     
    As Group Vice President for Crown World Mobility, Jurgen is responsible for driving our customer-centric solutions forward and implementing business unit strategies to drive revenue growth and portfolio mix. 

    Jurgen brings a wealth of industry experience, having 25 years at Crown. He joined the Company as Residential Sales Manager in Singapore, opened our operations in Seoul, South Korea in 1998 and subsequently helped integrate the Italian operations in Milan and Rome upon their acquisition in 2000. His role prior, as Managing Director of Crown’s European businesses, saw him responsible for a territory spanning 12 countries – a testament to his strong and inspirational leadership skills. 

    Jurgen is a Dutch national with a bachelor’s degree in General Management, Economics and Marketing from The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He graduated from the first Crown University Program (our internal management program) in 1997, and speaks five languages fluently. 

    Gary Maguire
    Group Chief Risk Officer  
     
    As the Group’s Chief Risk Officer since 2013, Gary's responsibility is to manage and oversee all quality and risk, compliance and supply chain management related processes for Crown Worldwide Group. 

    Gary joined Crown in 1991 and has an in-depth knowledge of the industries that Crown operates within. He continually monitors the Group’s quality performance and publishes reports on related statistics against its set measures. In addition, Gary ensures customer expectations have been identified, met or exceeded. 

    Gary is based on the west coast USA, has achieved a number of professional industry specific certifications from Worldwide ERC, National Alliance and Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics. 

    Robert Foote
    CFO for EMEA and Americas
     
     As Chief Financial Officer for the EMEA and AMER regions since 2000, Robert is responsible for overseeing all areas of finance for over 25 countries. He manages all aspects of Crown’s accounting and financial reporting requirements, supporting group, regional and local operating business units. 

    Having started in the Americas  head office in the US  in 2000, he worked to update group financial processes and support growth initiatives. After relocating to the United Kingdom in 2003, then to Luxemburg followed by the Czech Replublic, Robert took on the EMEA region, which involved redesigning reporting for the region. In 2017, Robert relocated to Canada to support the AMER and EMEA finance teams. 

    Robert is originally from Canada and has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration (Hons) and holds CPA / CA designations. 
    Chris Davis-Pipe
    Chris Davis-Pipe
    Group Vice President of Information Technology
      
    With his global team, he manages all aspects of Crown’s information technology, supporting over 3,000 employees in more than 45 countries.

    He develops and oversees the company’s global IT strategy, including digital transformation, data and analytics, APIs, IT security and our transition to the cloud. In addition, Chris manages the procurement and implementation of best-in-class applications to support Crown’s business and customers such as Oracle Fusion ERP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, providing a single global platform to drive innovation and growth for the Group. 

    Originally from the UK, Chris joined Crown in 1997 and has spent the last 25 years living in Hong Kong. He has a Bachelors in Computer Science and Masters in Finance. In 2013, Chris was part of a Crown team that summitted Mount Kilimanjaro, raising more than $50,000 for CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation, a South African children’s charity.
    Stephen Hardie
    Stephen Hardie
    Managing Director - UKI & Benelux
      
    As Managing Director for UK, Ireland and Benelux, Steve is responsible for providing strategic direction for the region and delivering growth across all brands. In recent years, Steve has significantly diversified the business portfolio, most notably with the acquisition of Premier Moves Ltd (now part of Crown Workspace) in 2018. 

    Having joined Crown in 2013 as the regional Finance Director, Steve was instrumental in developing in the finance function, initially in the UK, and then across the wider Northern Europe region. His role increased to take on responsibility for the property, infrastructure, and compliance activities in the UKI leading to year-on-year improvement in terms of effectiveness and efficiencies. 

    Steve has a wealth of experience prior to joining Crown in senior finance leadership roles across the logistics and private equity sectors. Steve is based in London, UK and is a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA)
    Srinivas Krishnan
    Srinivas Krishnan
    Managing Director – South Asia

    As Managing Director for South Asia, Srinivas is responsible for overseeing the strategic business development of our operations in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh and driving exponential growth.

    Srinivas joined Crown Indonesia as Financial Controller in 1997 and was responsible for turning around the business in less than a year. He has since worked on many strategic financial initiatives for the group such as change management for a facility in Jakarta. After 13 years in Indonesia, Srinivas went on to head the India business.

    He was awarded the Chairman’s Award for Outstanding Individual Excellence in 2016. Srinivas is based in Mumbai, India and has a host of Business degrees including CGMA (Chartered Global Management Accountants), MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business and Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA).
    Leon Hulme
    Leon Hulme
    Managing Director – New Zealand

    As Managing Director for New Zealand, Leon is responsible for all aspects of Crown’s core brands across its 13 locations nationwide.

    Leon may well hold the distinction of having worked in more Crown operations in his 22-year Crown career than anyone else in the group. He started his career in Crown Malaysia in 2000 and has worked at Crown's businesses in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and New Zealand, with the last 16 years in Managing Director roles. Leon has been integral to acquisitions and the construction of some of the group’s flagship facilities.

    Born in Australia, raised in the UK with a Japanese wife and having such long and diverse experience of different people and culture, Leon is passionate about developing and promoting the group’s strategy around its values, purpose, and people initiatives.