Torok retiring as Head of UPS Asia; Derek Woodward named as successor
Ken Torok, who for the past five years has guided UPS’s Asia Pacific operations, will retire this spring and be replaced by Derek Woodward, a long-time UPS manager who currently works as one of Torok’s top deputies.
Woodward, 45, is a Canadian native who joined UPS in 1985 as a part-time package sorter and then driver. Seventeen of his 23 years in the transportation and logistics industry have been spent working outside North America for UPS in a wide variety of marketing, business development and sales positions. He moved to Singapore last year to serve as a senior vice president to Torok, responsible for all staff functions for the Asia Pacific Region.
The succession will take effect on April 1.
Ken Torok, who for the past five years has guided UPS’s Asia Pacific operations, will retire this spring and be replaced by Derek Woodward, a long-time UPS manager who currently works as one of Torok’s top deputies.
Woodward, 45, is a Canadian native who joined UPS in 1985 as a part-time package sorter and then driver. Seventeen of his 23 years in the transportation and logistics industry have been spent working outside North America for UPS in a wide variety of marketing, business development and sales positions. He moved to Singapore last year to serve as a senior vice president to Torok, responsible for all staff functions for the Asia Pacific Region.
The succession will take effect on April 1.
Torok became the president of UPS Asia Pacific in 2003, assuming responsibility for all UPS package operations in more than 40 countries and territories. Prior to that move, he served as the South Florida District manager in the United States. South Florida is one of the company’s busiest and most diverse operations and is UPS’s gateway to Latin America.
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Torok graduated from North Carolina State University and joined the company in 1975 as a part-time package handler. He then moved through a variety of assignments in operations as well as employee relations, industrial engineering, labor relations and Corporate Schools before becoming District manager in Utah. Torok also spent several years in Europe, where he held various managerial posts and played a key role in the integration of the company’s ground and air operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Woodward, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is a graduate of the University of Phoenix who studied advanced management at the INSEAD in France. After joining UPS, he was promoted into management in 1986 and then advanced through a series of positions of increasing responsibility in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. He oversaw business development activities in both Canada and then Europe before becoming the vice president of international marketing.
