If there is any single industry where women
are under-represented it is Shipping. Traditionally male-dominated, shipping
has always been averse to increasing the participation of women.
Women account for just about 2% of over 1.5
million seafarers, about 50% of whom have experienced sexual harassment in the
workplace. Most do not even have access to a sanitary bin on board.
Furthermore, the mindset that women cannot
cut it in shipping is pervasive.
A Credit Suisse about the 2008 financial
crises, found that companies with at least one woman on their board
outperformed companies with all-male boards.
Shipping has the same testosterone-fuelled
environment as Banking. It is also an industry with serious problems, be they
environmental, technical or structural. We could use more women in shipping.
“1 out of 10 ocean startup founders is
female. This needs to change – it is stupidity to only leverage half the talent
pool in the world. We need all to solve some of the greatest challenges we face
today.” – Maren Hjorth Bauer, CEO & Co-Founder of Katapult Ocean
Despite the enormous challenges, some women
have gone on to leave an indelible mark on the industry (and they are just
getting started). Highlighting their achievements is important to remind us of
what we could be missing out on if they had chosen not to.
“The maritime industry is changing with times
and we need to focus on how we can attract and retain the brightest young
people. That can not be achieved without us being aware of the profile of an
old-fashioned male-dominated industry we are perceived as and purposefully
working to change that. Using role models is a great way of showing all facets
of the maritime industry and the interesting jobs available. Female role models
are attractive for both young men and young women, the people we need to make
it in the future.” – Lena Göthberg, Executive Producer of the Shipping Podcast
The list is in no particular order.
- Jenna Brown – CEO & Co-Founder of
Shipamax - Laura Theveniau and Alexandra Griffon –
Founders of BlueCargo - Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz – COO &
Co-Founder of bound4blue - Athanasia Panagiotopoulou – CMO &
Co-Founder of VesselBot - Maaike de Rover – Founder & Managing
Director of ShipSupport.com - Angelica Kemene – CEO & Co-Founder of
Optima-X - Deanna MacDonald – CEO & Co-Founder of
BLOC (Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration) & Co-Founder of BunkerTrace - Marianne Choo – CMO & Co-Founder of
CLARITECS - Danielle Doggett – CEO & Founder of
Sailcargo Inc - Birgit Marie Liodden – CEO & Founder of
The Ocean Opportunity Lab - Cathy Hodge – COO & Co-Founder of Smart
Maritime Network - Sofia Fürstenberg Stott – Owner & Chief
Advisor of Fürstenberg Maritime Advisory - Jaquelyn Burton – Technical Manager of
Product Harmonization of Kongsberg Maritime - Maren Hjorth Bauer and Ingrid Kylstad – CEO
and COO of Katapult Ocean - Julija Voitiekute – Chairman, Innovation
Committee of Danske Rederier and Innovation Portfolio Manager of Maersk Group - Najmeh Masoudi-Dionne – Global Technology
Leader-Smart Ships of Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore - Kate Bollanou – Executive & Women’s
Leadership Coach of Kate Bollanou Coaching - Ally Cedeno – Founder of Women Offshore
Jenna Brown – CEO & Co-Founder of Shipamax
Jenna Brown has been the central figure
behind the growth of Shipamax, the London-based startup and a graduate of Y
Combinator that enables data-driven communication for ship operators and
brokers.
Recently, Jenna and her co-founder raised
almost €3M in funding.
Jenna Brown started her career in commodities
before working for Adzuna, playing a fundamental part in the business, scaling
up to eleven countries and millions in annual revenue. Almost two years later,
Jenna was appointed Global Expansion Lead in GoCardless, a Fintech company
backed by €21M in funding. In 2018, Jenna Brown was listed in the top young
European entrepreneurs of the Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Technology category.
Laura Theveniau and Alexandra Griffon – Founders of
BlueCargo
Laura and Alexandra met each other at UC
Berkeley while earning their master degree. In 2018, they founded BlueCargo,
with a mission of “bringing visibility to optimise operations in seaport
terminals” and “achieving up to 50% savings in operational efficiency”.
The startup was incubated in the biggest
Silicon Valley incubator, Y Combinator, raised €2.7M. Both of them have
expressed their passion in geopolitics and emphasising ports as “the heart of
world traffic” and “sometimes the economic lungs of a city, a region or even a
country”.
“We wanted to use machine learning to help
the port industry, an old industry.” – Alexandra Griffon
Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz – COO & Co-Founder of
bound4blue
Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz is a young woman
and entrepreneur, who co-founded bound4blue – a company that develops a rigid
wingsail system for boats that can orient itself autonomously – reducing carbon
emissions, and saving up to 40% of fuel by exploiting wind power to boost its
engines.
Her passion and active participation on revolutionising
the maritime industry has earned her a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe 2019:
Manufacturing & Industry list.
“bound4blue is a turning point for its great
potential to make this world a better place by acting positively and at a
global scale on climate change.” – Cristina Aleixendri Muñoz
Athanasia Panagiotopoulou – CMO & Co-Founder of
VesselBot
Athanasia is one of the founders and the CMO
of VesselBot – an AI-powered digital chartering marketplace for the bulk
maritime industry. The company offers opportunities to expedite the whole
chartering process in a matter of minutes, with better and more up-to-date
results.
With more than 15 years of working and
managing well-known global, premium and luxury FMCG brands, Athanasia has
gained strong commercial acumen and significant professional experience in both
traditional marketing techniques and new digital marketing tools.
Maaike de Rover – Founder & Managing Director
ShipSupport.com
Maaike de Rover has dedicated her entire
career in the maritime industry. She spent more than 8 years, actively
participating in managing business development and marketing department for
Royal IHC, which significantly shaped her path towards founding ShipSupport.com
later in 2016.
ShipSupport.com is the “worldwide digital
eCommerce platform that opens up the maritime aftermarket. It brings ship
owners, operators, MROs and suppliers together for trading parts and sharing
expertise.”
She is passionate about business
opportunities and driven by the promises that lie ahead in the dredging and
offshore industry.
Angelica Kemene – CEO & Co-Founder of Optima-X
With more than 12 years of active experience
in the international maritime and commodities industry, Angelica Kemene is the
head of Marketing Analysis and Intelligence department at Optima Shipping
Services, covering dry cargo, oil and gas tankers, container shipping and
shipbuilding.
In early 2019, she founded Optima-X – a
MaritimeTech Hub in Athens, hosting the Enso XL accelerator for maritime
startups.
Angelica is a highly analytical, industrious
professional with strong capabilities in data science and management
principles. She is a polyglot, fluent in English, French, Spanish, Greek,
Italian, and Chinese.
Deanna MacDonald – CEO & Co-Founder of BLOC
(Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration) & Co-Founder of BunkerTrace
Deanna MacDonald is the co-founder of two
fast-scaling startups, BLOC (Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration) and
BunkerTrace.
BLOC is the leading community and platform
for maritime and energy blockchain-based solutions with a focus on
anti-corruption and decarbonisation. BunkerTrace, on the other hand, was
founded to enhance marine fuel traceability and reporting in the bunker fuel
supply chain by combining digital and forensic technologies.
Deanna is also a political economist, a
global speaker, an educator at numerous executive leadership programs in the
private sector, and a guest lecturer at multiple esteemed universities – such
as MIT, Columbia Business School, and Wharton.
Marianne Choo – CMO & Co-Founder of CLARITECS
Marianne Choo has more than 25 years of
experience in maritime sector, specialised in corporate and marketing
communications. After spending 10 years in Maersk and becoming Regional
Marketing Manager, she spent another 10 years with Singapore Shipping
Association (SSA) as the General Manager.
Together with her co-founder, Marianne
founded Claritecs at the end of 2017. The company develops algorithm-based SaaS
platform, BunkerMAESTRO, which provides insights for bunker scheduling clarity
to increase work efficiencies and optimise bunker fleet.
Claritecs was a top 3 winner at the PIER71
Smart Port Challenge 2018 for BunkerMaestro and named as a finalist of the
Lloyd’s List Asia Pacific Awards 2019 – Excellence in Data and Technology
Innovation.
Danielle Doggett – CEO & Founder of Sailcargo Inc.
Growing up just north of Kingston, Ontario,
Danielle Doggett began her sailing career at a very young age. With 15 years of
experience on traditional ships and managing projects for sail-cargo
initiatives, she was perfectly positioned to found Sailcargo, Inc. in October
2015.
Sailcargo, Inc. is an emerging company with a
mission of making freight transportation more sustainable by using a
carbon-neutral system. They are currently in the process of building the first
sailing cargo vessel that has a 100% electric engine powered by solar and wind
power, as well as self-charging batteries.
“Our mission is to create a functioning,
thriving organism, that meets the ecological and economical requirements of our
rapidly changing, modern world. Our long term vision is to create a successful,
combustion-free cargo sailing fleet; inspiring change while preserving
traditional ship building and sailing techniques.” – Danielle Doggett
Birgit Marie Liodden – CEO & Founder of The Ocean
Opportunity Lab
Birgit Marie Liodden is an activist for
transparency, diversity and entrepreneurship. She is an admired spokesperson
for young professionals and women in the shipping industry.
With over 13 years of dedication and active
participation in the industry, Birgit has led numerous movements over the years
– disruptive sustainability, where she challenges the young generation to come
up with ideas and solutions to solve societal problems caused by the
ocean-related industry; fuel diversity by setting up the first female mentoring
program; the ‘Waves of Change’ conference, focusing on diversity leadership for
sustainable maritime industry; even fronting #MeToo in global shipping.
“My key motivation comes from being useful
and help making a difference towards a better society and improving the
maritime industry.” – Birgit Marie Liodden
Cathy Hodge – COO & Co-Founder of Smart Maritime
Network
Cathy Hodge has been working in the maritime
sector since 2000. Prior to Smart Maritime Network, she worked for Lloyds List/
Informa and some of the world’s largest publishing and conference groups –
including Thomson and EMAP. In 2009, she founded her first company, Port
Finance International, which she sold in 2017.
Smart Maritime Network is a cross-industry
platform, offering free access to relevant industry news, interviews with
thought leaders, white papers and presentations outlining new technologies and
processes, as well as a range of additional podcasts and video content, to provide
the most comprehensive knowledge bank on maritime innovation in the sector.
Sofia Fürstenberg Stott – Owner & Chief Advisor of
Fürstenberg Maritime Advisory
Sofia Fürstenberg Stott is, as described by
Lena Göthberg, a true Scandinavian, a female leader from Sweden, living in
Denmark and working for a Norwegian company. She currently owns Fürstenberg
Maritime Advisory and works as Business Development Manager at Nor-Shipping.
After over 10 years serving in many of the well-known organisations in
the maritime industry – such as Maersk and DNV GL, she started her advisory at
the end of 2016, through in-house consulting and innovation management.
“With hands-on experience from all kinds of
possible and impossible issues involving change and “things never done before”,
I know the common pitfalls, and how you need to plan to avoid them, or how to
effectively deal with them.” – Sofia Fürstenberg Stott
Sofia is also the brain behind ‘Opening
Oceans Conference’ and ‘Blue Economy’ exhibition.
Jaquelyn Burton – Technical Manager of Product
Harmonization of Kongsberg Maritime
Described as a smart and unstoppable force,
Jaquelyn Burton has certainly made her mark in the maritime industry. In 2019,
she was selected as one of the 10 Women to Watch in the industry, announced by
YoungShip during Nor-Shipping in Oslo.
Apart from being a Technical Manager of
Product Harmonization at Kongsberg Maritime, Jaquelyn also acts as a mentor for
early-stage startups in the Techstars Energy accelerator program in conjunction
with Equinor and the next generation of Mariners through Women Offshore.
Maren Hjorth Bauer and Ingrid Kylstad – CEO & COO of
Katapult Ocean
Maren Hjorth BauerMaren and Ingrid have
together steered Katapult Ocean to become a leading force in ocean technology
impact investments. With their passion in making an impact on the ocean,
entrepreneurship, modern technology and commercialisation, they have made 23
investments in exciting ocean tech companies from 14 countries.
Together they have built a trusted platform
to push sustainability in the ocean-based industries, pipelined more than 1000
ocean technology startups all over the world. “Katapult Ocean‘s vision is a
thriving ocean in harmony with economic development.” They have recently
launched the ‘Blue World Perspective’ report, giving an overview of the global
ocean impact startups landscape.
Julija Voitiekute – Chairman, Innovation Committee of
Danske Rederier and Innovation Portfolio Manager of Maersk Group
According to Julija, what aspires her the
most is the ability to drive positive impact across different groups of people,
technology and businesses. She also believes that innovations come from people
empowerment, by letting employees “draw an organisational structure”, and that
means, in general, “we need to write less and draw more”.
With a demonstrated history of working in the
maritime industry, Julija has fronted a number of meaningful and successful
programmes – such as fuel efficiency program, cost leadership strategy,
customer-centric innovation,…
Najmeh Masoudi-Dionne – Global Technology Leader-Smart
Ships of Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore
Najmeh is based in Paris where she serves as
the Global Technology Leader-Smart Ships at Bureau Veritas, a position she’s
held since 2017.
In this role, she oversees a growing
portfolio of cyber safety, security and performance initiatives. From connected
vessels to autonomous ships, Najmeh provides timely guidance about a variety of
tech-related matters.
She is also a global speaker on asset safety
and cyber protection in the maritime industry.
Kate Bollanou – Executive & Women’s Leadership Coach
of Kate Bollanou Coaching
Kate is a personal leadership coach and an
admired advocate of women empowerment while breaking down gender, background
and cultural stereotypes.
With her mantra being “Rise and lead your
life!“, she has set her mission to help and guide women through their
transformation from feeling constantly constrained, to feeling empowered, and
confident to take ownership of their life.
She also helps shipping companies improve
collaboration and communication amongst their teams and clients by overcoming
cross-cultural differences.
Ally Cedeno – Founder of Women Offshore
Ally Cedeno is founder of the influential and
inspiring organisation called Women Offshore. She graduated from US Merchant
Marine Academy and is licensed as a chief mate. Her experience on the water
spans both the maritime and offshore energy industries over the last 10 years.
Being one of the few women serving in
operations in vessel operations, she was determined to change that with Women
Offshore – an online organisation and resource centre for a diverse workforce
at sea.
Women Offshore shines a light on women in
operations, provides resources to foster long-term careers, and shares the
latest efforts on gender diversity and inclusion in the offshore and maritime
industries.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. There
are thousands of women who are toiling on the front lines of the industry, in
conditions that are far from welcoming. They deserve a shout-out. Let’s raise a
toast to all the women out there – to a world of diversity and equality, where
every day is Women’s day.
“Equality is not only about creating a fair
and trusting society. It is also about the power of diversity. Through
diversity, we can create a better understanding of the problems we need to
solve, and the solutions needed for solving them. Thus, we need to promote and
actively work with equality in everything we do – also in the maritime
industry.” – Ingrid Hagberg, Emerging Technology & Strategy Advisor at
DareDisrupt in Copenhagen.
(Source: Nautix Technologies)
Sea News Feature, March 13
