PD Ports has named Paul Foreman as its new CEO, effective September 1, 2026, promoting the current chief operating officer to succeed Frans Calje after almost a decade at the helm.
The handover at the Teesport operator arrives with a board reshuffle attached, and it lands while the company pushes an investment-led expansion plan. Both moves come from Brookfield, which controls PD Ports and ran an external search before settling on the executive already sitting one seat down.
Foreman becomes PD Ports CEO after a competitive search
Paul Foreman steps up from chief operating officer to chief executive on September 1, closing a recruitment process the company calls competitive. An external search that ends with the internal candidate is usually a search for reassurance rather than change.
Brookfield operating partner Becky Lumlock credited Foreman’s strategic thinking as central to the company’s long-term planning, and framed the choice as continuity of a growth agenda already in motion. Foreman pointed to what Calje built before him: a transformed container and bulk business, better safety performance, and a materially stronger balance sheet.
PD Ports has ambitions it does not intend to slow, from faster growth to more automation and expanded customer services. The appointment reads as a decision to keep executing rather than start over.
Calje leaves the £1.4bn Teesport operator on his own timetable
Frans Calje steps down after nearly ten years as chief executive and more than 18 years with PD Ports in total. He had set ten years as the right tenure before fresh leadership would better serve the business, then left on exactly that clock. A CEO departing on a schedule he set himself is rare enough to notice.
The company he hands over carries real weight in the north-east. PD Ports contributes £1.4 billion a year to the Teesside economy, supports 22,000 jobs across the wider supply chain, and directly employs more than 1,400 people across 11 UK sites. Teesport is the largest port in the north-east of England.
Calje called the exit timely and said he was leaving the business safer, stronger, and on stable financial footing. The balance sheet backs the claim.
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Brookfield shifts Hopkinson to a non-executive chair
Executive chairman Jerry Hopkinson moves to a non-executive chairman role on the same date, stepping back from daily executive work while staying on as a strategic adviser. He continues to chair the PD Ports board as Brookfield’s operating partner.
The timing is not incidental. Swapping an executive chairman for a non-executive one at the exact moment a new chief executive takes over hands Foreman operational control while keeping Brookfield’s oversight intact at board level. Give the operator room to run, keep the owner close.