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How the shipmanagement sector is changing, and offering solutions to shipping’s complex future formed an hour of debate at last month’s exclusive Maritime CEO Forum gathering held at the Monaco Yacht Club. On stage were five CEOs who between them look after more than 2,000 ships - each executive with diverse views on how they see the sector flourishing. It’s rare to attend an industry event where there is a clear frisson among panellists, but it was evident on stage at the yacht club. Take Mark O’Neil, for instance. The head of Columbia Shipmanagement is also president of InterManager, the sector’s global association. He found himself alongside many other leaders who have opted steadfastly to not be part of his association. O’Neil’s recently published general principles that he wants his members to adhere to were met with a lukewarm reception. Claiming the old days of third-party management were out, and that second-party management was a better description of the business these days, O’Neil said his association’s new general principles were designed to ensure managers deliver the same levels of quality in operation as large owners, to raise the standards of the management industry as a whole to make a compelling case to the naysayers. Seafarers need to have a life onboard that is commensurate with what is ashore Bjorn Hojgaard, the head of Anglo-Eastern Univan Group, the world’s largest shipmanager, and not an InterManager member, responded: “Shipmanagers are as different as shipowners are. It’s horses for courses, there’s no one size fits all. I like to spend my time with owners working out what is best for them.” He went on to say: “The job is to convince owners to use us through the delivery of supremely good services - that ought to be the benchmark rather than principles.” More conciliatory was René Kofod-Olsen, the CEO of V.Group, who said the principles were “great”. “We are not an island within shipping. It is up to us to prove to shipping we can run ships safe and reliably across the world,” Kofod-Olsen said. Dearth of talent There was much discussion between the panel and delegates from the floor on the perceived looming skills shortage among the global seafarer workforce. Finn Amund Norbye, the CEO of OSM Thome, warned: “The seafarer shortage is something we should be very worried about.” Nordbye said it was important to have a large global footprint to access seafarers from all over the place. “We cannot be complacent, we have to be on the front foot. We will see some new countries popping up in terms of sourcing crew,” he told delegates attending the by-invite-only forum. Columbia’s O’Neil argued that while there will always likely be enough crew for the world fleet, the problem is there are not enough qualified crew, noting the huge loss of seafarers post-covid. “We need to bring a more effective human resources management onboard in the same way our offices have. Shipping is so far behind other sectors on this,” O’Neill said. V.Group’s Kofod-Olsen conceded that getting the right crew to handle new fuels and digital tools would be a challenge, but it was up to the industry to make life at sea more comfortable. “We need to look into how we design ships,” Kofod-Olsen said. “We need bandwidth up. Seafarers need to have a life onboard that is commensurate with what is ashore.” Diversity issues The V.Group boss then pointed out that shipping had thus far failed to “crack the code” on 50% of the potential workforce. “We have not done well with how to deploy females at sea,” Kofod-Olsen said, neatly bringing the discussion to the floor where Heidi Heseltine, founder of the Diversity Study Group, hit out at the sector for its general lack of diversity. “It’s something we have to work on,” admitted Nordbye from OSM Thome, adding: “Gender is still a bit behind and I also see we are a bit too homogenous in terms of our onshore staff.” While agreeing fostering diversity was very important, Anglo-Eastern’s Hojgaard cautioned: “We have to remember to temper that drive with principles of meritocracy and equal opportunities. We are not hiring for specific genders or races.” Pricing The panel were in agreement that the old shipmanagement contract was increasingly redundant and that a more results-orientated type of pricing mechanism works better for clients. “Shipmanagement agreements will still be valid for many owners but we will need to be offering more types of contracts,” said John-Kaare Aune, the outgoing CEO of Wallem Group. “We have to give a non-commoditised service where as the traditional shipmanagement contract tends to be commoditised so it is outdated,” argued O’Neil. Collaboration and consolidation Giving his thoughts from the floor, Manish Singh, an ex-V.Group high-flier and current head of AboutShips, a boutique maritime investsment advisory, looked at the upcoming challenges posed by decarbonisation and digitalisation. “I can’t imagine how all of these operations can happen smoothly without greater collaboration among all of you,” he said to the panel in front of him. “The G7 - or better the G20 - of shipmananagement have a collective common obligation to each other because your ship does not operate in isolation,” Singh said, while also calling for more consolidation within the sector in order to help it move at greater scale. “Compare us to any other industry and we are woefully fragmented,” conceded O’Neill. The Maritime CEO Forum is the world’s most exclusive shipping gathering, taking place twice a year in Monaco and Singapore. The next Monaco forum is scheduled for October 22, 2024.

Competing visions for the future of shipmanagement

Splash Extra reports from the recent Monaco edition of the Maritime CEO Forum.

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