Operail management board to continue in office

Added on 05.02.2019

The supervisory board of state-owned international railway and logistics company Operail, which finished last year with almost 10 million euros in profits, has decided to extend mandates of management board members Raul Toomsalu and Paul Lukka to ensure the continued development and business growth of the company. The term of office for the two-member management board is the next three years.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board Kuldar Leis strongly supports the extension of the current management board’s term of office. “The decline in Russian transit forced Operail to operate in new business areas, and the traditional railway company is becoming a customer-centric service company. A very good job has been done by the workforce, led by managers Raul Toomsalu and Paul Lukka, and I am very pleased that they will continue to lead Operail in a profitable way,” said Kuldar Leis.

Before being appointed chairman of Operail’s management board on 29 February 2016, Raul Toomsalu worked as a technology advisor for various manufacturing companies based in Russia. In addition, he has led Olam Grupp’s Russian branch and the Trigon Agri agricultural group in Russia and Ukraine. From 2004 to 2008, he led SEB Leasing in the same country, and later, as a member of the board of the SEB Group’s Russian branch, Toomsalu managed the corporate banking unit.

“I am very grateful to my supportive team, who has helped bring this company out of what seemed to be a hopeless situation. When starting to manage a loss-making company, difficult decisions had to be taken. Today, Operail is in a very good financial position, and is a rapidly developing, modern company. We have great potential that we can realise,” said Chairman of the Operail Management Board, Raul Toomsalu.

Operail board member and chief financial officer Paul Lukka joined the company on 1 February 2013. Prior to that, he had worked as the head of Baltic investments and asset management at Mandatum Life. From 2005 to 2007, Paul Lukka worked as an investment consultant in Finland at Danske Capital Finland/Amber Trust.

Operail is an Estonian state-owned railway company whose main business areas are freight transport, locomotive and wagon maintenance and construction, and rolling stock leasing. The company employs 690 people.