DP World has named Morten Johansen chief executive of its Americas region, putting a 25-year ports and logistics operator in charge of terminals, logistics parks and maritime services across North America, South America and the Caribbean.

Johansen announced the move himself, in a LinkedIn post on Oct. 13. He succeeds Brian Enright, who had held the dual role since Oct. 22 of the prior year. The handover is clean, internal and fast — no interim leadership, no outside hire.

Who is Morten Johansen?

A Dane by origin, Johansen joined Dubai-based DP World in 2011 and ran DP World Dominicana as CEO before stepping up to chief operating officer of the Americas. In the COO seat he carried responsibility for ports and terminals, logistics services, economic zones and maritime operations across the Western Hemisphere.

His résumé before DP World includes senior roles at APM Terminals, Maersk and Sociedade Gestora de Terminais. He has been based in Charlotte, N.C., for the Americas leadership job, which gives the region a chief who already knows the assets he now owns.

What does this change for shippers and carriers?

In his COO role, Johansen pushed one idea consistently: bolt the physical infrastructure together with inland transport, customs processes, economic zones and digital platforms. That integration thesis now runs the whole region. For shippers moving cargo through DP World gates in Latin America or the Caribbean, it signals continued investment in door-to-door product rather than pure stevedoring — the same playbook the company applies globally.

For carriers, the more immediate question is capacity. DP World is not standing still in the hemisphere, and Johansen inherits a pipeline with real numbers attached:

• Corpus Christi. DP World entered exclusive negotiations with the Port of Corpus Christi in June 2026 to design, build and operate a container terminal under a long-term lease. If it closes, the project would mark DP World's first container-terminal development on the U.S. Gulf Coast — and its first U.S. container-terminal development in roughly two decades. The proposed facility could ultimately handle about 1 million TEUs annually. No construction start date, final capital commitment or definitive lease terms have been announced.
• Dominican Republic. The company is backing a $760 million port and free-trade-zone development there, which DP World says is intended to raise cargo capacity and catch nearshoring-related investment flows.

Both projects fit the same logic. Nearshoring keeps shifting volume into Gulf and Caribbean lanes, and a terminal operator that already controls logistics zones and inland links can capture more of that box's journey than a pure port operator can.

Why the timing matters

The Americas appointment lands while DP World is negotiating its most consequential U.S. project in 20 years. Whoever holds the CEO chair will steer the Corpus Christi talks through the hard part — lease terms, capital sign-off and a construction schedule that still don't exist on paper. Johansen's COO tenure already covered that file, so the region gets continuity at the exact moment the deal needs it.

The Corpus Christi math is what makes this more than a personnel note. A terminal that tops out near 1 million TEUs a year would add a serious new Gulf Coast gateway option for shippers now routing through Houston or Gulf-intermodal corridors via East Coast ports. Carriers would gain a fresh call option. Forwarders would get another origin-destination pairing to price.

None of that is built yet. The negotiations are exclusive, not final, and DP World has not committed capital or a start date. But with a $760 million Dominican Republic build running in parallel and a veteran integrator now running the region, DP World has put itself in position to move quickly once the lease terms land — and Gulf Coast capacity planning just got one more variable to watch.