BANGKOK, Thailand — NSF International has opened a new regional headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, to oversee its operations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The new office will be home to NSF’s water and product certification division and the NSF-CMi food safety division.
The new office will provide technical assistance, inspection and certification services to manufacturers and retailers in the Asia-Pacific region. The move is a strategic response to the region’s fast growing need among multi-national corporations and small- to medium-sized enterprises to meet global regulatory requirements and best practices.
“Our Asian office in Thailand will expand the reach of our service portfolio to meet the increasing regional demand for brand protection through third-party auditing, testing and certification,” said Koen Bontinck, NSF vice president of international operations. “It will also enable us to provide our global customers in this emerging market with faster, more cost-effective, regional solutions.”
Export-related product certification has, to date, been the largest and fastest growing sector for NSF in this region of the world. NSF recently was presented with an Export Achievement Certificate from the U.S. Department of Commerce for increasing export sales and expanding into new global markets, including Asia.
Two new executives have been appointed to oversee the increasing growth of the company’s health and safety services in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Pierre Sbabo will serve as managing director, NSF Asia-Pacific. Most recently, Sbabo served as the international business leader for the residential/commercial group of General Electric (GE) Water & Process Technologies, a division of GE that provides water treatment solutions to the residential and commercial markets. While at GE, Sbabo led GE water residential and commercial’s operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Sbabo has a master’s degree in marketing and international business from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Chambery in France. He is fluent in French and English, with intermediate levels of spoken and written German, Italian and Spanish.
Peter Bracher will serve as managing director, NSF-CMi Asia-Pacific, where he will be responsible for expanding food safety business in the region. Returning to CMi, where he spent the early part of his career, Bracher has more than 20 years of food safety, sustainability and public health experience with a successful track record in entering new markets within Asia and Europe. He held the post of head of operations for Reliance Retail, as well as director of public affairs and corporate responsibility for ASDA Stores Ltd, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart. He also served as head of international corporate affairs for Tesco PLC, the UK’s largest retailer, responsible for press, media and government relations. Bracher received a bachelor’s degree in environmental health from Aston University in Birmingham, UK.
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“There are major opportunities for us to help our international clients who are sourcing food products from the region and to support retailers seeking to develop in Asia with their attendant supply chain requirements,” said Mike Thomas, chief executive of NSF-CMi. “Equally, we are now well placed to assist in the development of local retail and supply chain operations within these fast, growing economies.”
In particular, the company believes that the appointment of Peter Bracher, with his considerable experience of international retailing and latterly, will be highly relevant in India.
“We are very excited to welcome Pierre and Peter to NSF’s global team,” Bontinck said. “Their broad regional experience and outstanding professional track record will help to expand NSF’s services throughout the region, while continuing our commitment to protecting public health worldwide.”