Mr Hjort, who took over from Ian Goodfellow at the beginning of April as MD of SITA UK, was responsible for merging several Swedish waste companies with SITA Sweden over the past few years.
Writing in SITA's in-house journal, he said: “A new MD inevitably means change and I am sensitive to your concerns. The UK is the fastest growing waste market in Europe. My mission is to consolidate SITA UK's position in this market and focus our efforts on profitable growth. It is important that we don't just grow for growth's sake, we need to generate money going forward.”
SITA has developed into the UK's largest waste management company over the past few years, but has faced stiff challenges in absorbing the former United Waste business and other acquisitions. It has also had some municipal difficulties, including contract problems in Brighton.
Even though he has been in the job less than three weeks, Mr Hjort has already identified a number of areas of the company that need changes. These include administrative and financial procedures, internal communications, customer relations, productivity and effectiveness.
Mr Hjort told his employees: “SITA UK is the second biggest business unit in SITA Europe. My ambition is, with you, to transform SITA UK into the best business unit with regards to profit, quality, customer and personnel satisfaction. In the process, if we took over the leading role from SITA France, this wouldn't go amiss either! Not an impossible task considering the rapid growth of the UK market.”
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