Tilapia producer Regal Springs Group has named Alois Hofbauer as its new CEO, the company said Monday. The change takes effect Jan. 1.

Hofbauer joins Regal Springs Group with a 30-year track record of large-scale operations, change management and delivery of commercial achievements in the consumer goods industry.

Most recently, Hofbauer was the CEO of Almarai Group in Saudi Arabia, one of the largest food manufacturing groups in the Middle East, where he designed the company's new business growth blueprint.

He was the CEO for Nestlé (Malaysia) for five years, a publicly listed company on the Malaysia stock exchange, overseeing Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei markets, where he built a highly regarded employee development culture that gained "Top 3 Places to Work" and "Company of the Year 2016" awards.

Prior to this, Hofbauer was managing director for Nestlé Sri Lanka and before that, managing director for Nestlé Taiwan over a 10-year period.

“I am delighted that Alois is taking up this important leadership role for us. He is a very experienced executive and brings with him the right blend of skills to continue our Regal Springs global strategy, commercial ambitions and will maintain our famous Regal Springs values," said Markus Haefeli, chairman of Regal Springs.

Hofbauer replaces outgoing CEO Achim Eichenlaub, who will leave the company at the end of December.

"In his 3 years with Regal Springs, Achim established our Singapore headquarters, shaped our transformation into a globally integrated commercially focused business that is now enjoying double digit sales growth. And we now also have a solid new product pipeline to build more continued success," Haefeli said.

In July, Eichenlaub announced he would be leaving Regal Springs, saying: "After 18 years living abroad, I have decided to return to Germany. I have had three very good years at Regal Springs where I was able to leverage my experience to lead and grow the business," Eichenlaub said.

In announcing the leadership change, Regal Springs said it has seen double-digit sales growth under the leadership of Eichenlaub.

In 2016, Regal Springs CEO and co-founder Rudi Lamprecht stepped down from his role as chief executive of the company.

The company appointed then Nomad executive Eichenlaub as his replacement. Eichenlaub served as member of Nomad's executive board and as managing director of its continental Europe division.

Before Nomad, Eichenlaub worked for 25 years for consumers goods company Reckitt-Benckiser, where his last positions were senior vice president of East Asia and senior vice president of central Europe.

At the time of his hire, Eichenlaub said he would be using his experience in the fast-moving consumer goods industry to push growth for Regal Springs in new markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

During his tenure he expanded the company's management team.

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