To continue the company’s growth in the American market, Camper & Nicholsons has a new USA Commercial Director, Cromwell Littlejohn (below). Littlejohn brings more than three decades’ worth of yachting experience to the role.
Camper & Nicholsons notes the appointment as the latest step in its restructuring. In 2014, its then-parent company, Rodriguez Group, liquidated, and it found a new owner. The buyer was Colosseum Services, a Swiss luxury-goods company. Colosseum Services continues to be the majority stakeholder, though Fincantieri acquired a minor share in May 2015.
Camper & Nicholsons says that in recent months, its American yacht-management and charter-marketing teams have expanded. Further benefitting its American presence (and its international presence), the company forged a strategic partnership this month with Air Partner, a global aviation-services group. The two companies will offer their specialties to each other’s client base. Littlejohn will oversee these growth strategies, as well as others.
Littlejohn knows both sides of the yachting industry. He grew up boating in Florida and was convinced at the ripe age of 13 that he’d make a career out of it. In 1981, he landed a job on the 82-foot (25-meter) Black Knight. She was the 1983 America’s Cup Committee boat. For some years after that, Littlejohn captained a large motoryacht, cruising the Bahamas, East Coast, and Great Lakes. With a family back on land, he became a yacht broker with Merle Wood & Associates, selling yachts and booking charters for 15 years. Most recently, he provided similar services for clients of Northrop & Johnson. Furthermore, Littlejohn is an 11-year board member of the International Yacht Brokers Association, and current board member of the American Yacht Charter Association.
Camper & Nicholsons’ managing director, Paolo Casani, comments, “We needed an individual in the USA who is strategically minded, forward-thinking, with extensive personal and professional experience in yachting.” He adds that Littlejohn will “help us realize the full potential of Camper & Nichols in the crucial USA market.”
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