UPS names Cindy Miller to head Europe; Derek Woodward to run new emerging markets unit

UPS Inc. said today it has named Cindy Miller, who ran the company's massive logistics effort for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, to head the company's European operations.

Miller, 50, currently runs Atlanta-based UPS' operations in the U.K., Ireland, and the four Nordic countries. Miller assumes her expanded role on April 30. She succeeds Jim Barber, who at that time will take over UPS International. Barber will succeed Don Brutto, who is retiring.

In addition, UPS named Derek Woodward to the newly created post of president, emerging markets. Woodward will head a team that will work with all UPS regions in an effort to expand the company's opportunities in fast-growing countries and regions.

Woodward, 51, currently heads the company's global integration planning operations. Before that, he spent four-and-a-half years as president of UPS Asia. He has been with UPS for 28 years.

In October 2010, Miller took over the company's London Olympic effort, believed to be the largest peacetime logistics initiative in history. By the time the Olympics began July 27, UPS had handled about 30 million items of endless variety from myriad origin points to 172 venues in and around of London.

Miller, who has been with UPS for 24 years, will head up the region during a time of severe monetary and economic turmoil. In addition, she will take over the reins in the aftermath of the company's failed takeover attempt of Dutch delivery company TNT Express. UPS abandoned its $6.8 billion bid for TNT Express in mid-January after the European Commission, the regulatory arm of the European Union, said it would veto the transaction on antitrust concerns.