Greek woman in shipping

Thursday 4 March 2010

MORE than 400 guests were present at the Wista Hellas annual dinner last week to see the Greek branch of the women in shipping association present its yearly Handshake award to the country’s first female shipping minister — Louka Katseli, the minister of economy, competitiveness and shipping.

Anna-Maria Monogioudi, the organisation’s president, said high-level appointments of women in the sector made the membership proud.

The minister underlined the government’s policies of engagement with the industry and the attraction of young people to the seafaring profession, while she hailed the presence of women in shipping which “is growing stronger and stronger every year”.

The event also highlighted the Wista International conference that will be hosted this September in Athens, while the dinner raised money for Argo, a charity for children with special needs from seafaring families.

Efkranti personality awards

MORE leading Greek shipping personalities and entities received recognition in a separate event last week, and this time it was the boys’ turn. Numerous leading personalities were in the Piraeus Port Authority auditorium for the presentation of the Efkranti awards for the personalities of the year, organised by the publishers of long-established shipping journal Naftika Chronika.

“Even the chauffeurs outside were smoking cigars,” said one attendee, who saw the collection of luxury four-wheel drives and limousines in the PPA car park as underlining the event’s A-list character.

Among the winners, Louis Group chairman Costakis Loizou received the award for contribution to the Greek economy, while Marilena Laskaridou received the award for social contribution by a shipping personality.

John Platsidakis, managing director of Anangel Maritime Services, won the award for best manager. Intercargo chairman Nicky Pappadakis won for inter­national promotion of Greek shipping.

Other awards included Minoan Lines’ prize for best communication strategy and Diana Shipping’s award for best performance, while Restis Group shipmanager Enterprises Shipping & Trading won the Innovation Leader award.

A highlight of the proceedings was the award made to shipowner Pericles Panagopulos for overall contribution to the industry.

Box Club maintains exclusivity

MAERSK Line boss Eivind Kolding is undoubtedly one of the best communicators in the business as he demonstrated this week when he gave a 30-minute presentation packed with industry facts and figures, as well as insight and analysis, without seemingly referring to any notes.

But when it comes to the Box Club, he has no intention of lifting the veil on one of the world’s most exclusive organisations, whose membership is restricted to those individuals running the big deepsea container lines.

Kolding, chairman of the Box Club, will be in the hot seat later this month when members meet in Taipei at the invitation of Yang Ming.

So is it time for the club to come out of the closet? Kolding thinks not.

“It is a good forum for talking about issues of common interest, so that we can get a line on them. If we went public at the start of the discussions, it would be counter-productive,” he said. The Box Club, he maintained “is more the back end than the front end of the industry”.

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