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Marine fuel trading firm BMS United Bunkers has named George Kounalakis as its new managing director in Asia. He will be responsible for the firm's offices in mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore, and is due to begin his new role on Monday, December 8.

In an emailed statement, BMS United Bunkers said: "George has over 10 years of experience with an international career in sales, commercial and strategic development, as well as asset management. Recently he has held trading and management positions with well known [sic] broking and trading companies."

"George's knowledge will greatly benefit our organisational development. George will work closely with the senior staff and traders in Asia as well as the management in Argentina, Cyprus and Greece in developing our Asian activities."

Mikael Haestrup, who has been employed in Asia for the last six months, is to return to Greece "to take up new challenges within our organisation", the company said.

Prior to the BMS United Bunkers announcement, Kounalakis had been employed as senior trader at Integr8 Fuels in Singapore since July 2013. Before that, he held two roles at LQM Petroleum Services between 2010 and 2013: Manager, Far East Sales / Fuel Oil Broker, where he was based in Singapore; and International Sales and Marketing / Marine Fuel Oil Broker, where he was based in the United States.

Before joining the bunker industry, between June 2005 and June 2009 Kounalakis worked as Asset Management Vice President for Columbia Management / Riversource Distributors; Assistant Vice President Regional Sales for J&W Seligman / Riversource Distributors; and as an internal sales professional for J&W Seligman. He was also financial consultant / mutual fund analyst at WR Financial Managment between August 2002 and May 2005.

Kounalakis was educated at the Santa Clara University (SCU) Leavey School of Business in California, where he studied business, finance, economics and international business between 1998 and 2002.

The appointment of Kounalakis comes five months after the announcement that BMS Bunkers and Asian bunker trading specialist United Bunkering and Trading (UBT) were merging their respective brands to form BMS United Bunkers.

As a merged firm, BMS United Bunkers Group combines the offices of BMS Bunkers in Greece and Argentina with the offices of United Bunkering and Trading located in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Taiwan.