Effective Aug. 1, 2015, Rahul Chakkara will join the Costa Group leadership team as the new chief digital officer following the creation of the Costa Group Digital Unit in Hamburg earlier this year. He will report directly to Michael Thamm, chief executive officer of Costa Group.

"I am very pleased that, with Rahul, we have acquired a top leader with international experience who will successfully drive the continuing growth of our company by placing digital at the heart of the customer engagement, operations and service, and employee experience," said Thamm.

Before joining Costa Group Chakkara was at TalkTalk plc, a telecommunications company in United Kingdom, where he successfully led the digital transformation in the consumer division. Previously, he was general manager, future media, at the BBC, where he had a leading role in the development of BBC's iPlayer and Youview.

The Costa Group Digital Unit was founded in spring 2015 in Hamburg with the aim of supporting Costa Group brands Costa Cruises, Costa Asia and AIDA Cruises, using digital innovation, products and technologies to improve customer engagement and satisfaction and -- above all -- to further enhance the safety of our guests and crew through additional digitization and support of environmental, safety and security processes within the Costa Group.