Keith Adams — Revenue Plus

Mehdi Al Abduwani – National Ferries Company, Oman

Mehdi Al Abduwani is Chairman of the Board of the National Ferries Company of Oman and Director General of Development Planning in the Ministry of National Economy. He obtained a B.A (Economics) from Yarmouk University in Jordan in 1989 and a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Planning Techniques from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands in 1993. He has also completed a number of professional training courses including ones with the World Bank and the IMF. Mr. Al Abduwani serves on a number of Boards of Omani companies.

Faris Al Balwi – Al Blagha Group, Saudi Arabia

Stuart Ballantyne – Sea Transport Solutions, Australia

Stuart Ballantyne is the Managing Director of Sea Transport Corporation, a company he founded in 1976. The company has sold ship designs into 43 countries and it also owns and operates vessels. Stuart spent seven years at sea as a cadet and then deck officer on passenger-cargo ships. He studied naval architecture in Glasgow and is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. He received a Royal Humane Society Award for Bravery and has won six international awards for services to the marine industry. Stuart is also an author and has published three books: How To Do It and Get It, by One Who Has Done It, Got it and Can’t Get Rid of It, Bluff Your Way to Sea, and Secret Seamens Business.

John Bertell – Hogia, Finland

John W. Bertell, with 15 years of experience from the ferry and shipping industry, has been with Hogia Ferry Systems since 2001 and now holds the position as Sales Manager. The Hogia Group is involved in IT solutions for the transport industry both on land transports, port operations and seagoing transports. Since 1987 Hogia has provided the ferry industry with reservations and selling systems. John has held various positions in Hogia, both in project management and implementation and has had a good insight in both the day-to-day business processes and the management strategies within many of the ferry operators on the global ferry market. John has been one of the key persons behind the extra-ordinary growth of the company during the last few years when the amount of employees engaged in systems and services for ferries as well as the revenue on this sector has more than doubled.

Steve Chamberlin – Revenue Technology Services, USA

Steve Chamberlin is part of the dibonRTS team which has been providing pricing, revenue management (passenger and freight) and analytics solutions to the transportation industry for over 25 years. His responsibilities span strategic development, service delivery and  overall growth of RTS including business development. Steve’s passion is to provide leadership for cultivating new clients, delivering outstanding services and ensuring they achieve their optimal profit optimization potential from the RTS solutions. His contributions have resulted in international recognition for excellence in Client Services, Relationship Management, and Innovation.

Katia Cok – FORTHcrs, Greece

Sean Collins – Thames Clippers, UK

Sean Collins is Managing Director of Thames Clippers, the river ferry operation in London, which he co-founded in 1999. Sean has spent his career working on the River Thames. He was apprenticed to the Company of Watermen and Lightermen in 1984 at the age of16. He was Captain with Thamesline/River Bus which pioneered fast ferry services on the River Thames. In 1995 Sean bought his first vessel, a workboat, and established Collins Waterage which continues trading to date. He saw the opportunity to build a professionally run, high-speed passenger ferry service and launched Thames Clippers in 1999. Sean has built the operation to a fleet of 13 vessels carrying in excess of 2 million passengers a year. Sean’s other great passion is rowing, a sport in which he has competed since the age of 12. At a senior level he has represented Great Britain at many international regattas and for 5 years was a member of the Great Britain National Rowing Squad. Sean was appointed Waterman to Her Majesty the Queen in 2008.

Mathias Dafur – CityLink Marine, Nigeria

Robert Dane – Solar Sailor, Australia

Robert Dane is CEO of Solar Sailor Holdings Limited. He was born in Sydney and grew up sailing and rowing on Sydney Harbour. In 1997 Robert designed and built a successful solar and sail powered prototype ‘solarsailor’ which won the 1997 Advanced Technology Boat Race in Canberra. In 2000 he formed a company which launched a commercial tourism ‘solarsailor’ ferry on Sydney harbour and won the 2001 Engineering Design Award of the Year. Solar Sailor is now commercialising patented ‘solar sail’ and hybrid marine power technology globally. The patented ‘solarsail’ technology is a single device that can harvest wind and solar energy. The company has contracts from ferry operators in Hong Kong and the company’s American subsidiary has a US Navy contract for unmanned ocean vehicles.

Tom Docherty – Red Funnel, UK

Tom Docherty has held a number of senior positions in the marine industry including the domestic ferry business, global towage operations and the ports industry. His career commenced as a marine engineer officer with Esso Petroleum rising to management positions in fleet engineering and operations. Whilst with Esso Petroleum Tom also managed the marine terminal at the UK’s largest oil refinery at Fawley.  The only diversion from the marine industry saw Tom as an operations auditor for Exxon Corporation working on a variety of projects from wild cat wells in the Yemeni desert to petroleum distribution issues in Tanzania to major refinery construction projects. In the ferry sector as Chief Executive with Red Funnel Group, Tom participated in the management buyout process and ultimate share sale into the infrastructure market. Tom’s interest in the marine industry continues with his participation as a consultant offering a broad range of services from general management issues to feasibility studies, or providing advice on company sales and restructuring.  

John Garner — P&O Ferries, UK

John Garner has thirty five years experience both at sea and ashore. He served at sea in all ranks from Cadet to Senior Master and gained ten years command experience as Master of Ro-Ro Passenger Ships and High Speed Craft. John was was Senior Master to the Stena HSS project team and Fleet Operations Manager responsible for the Stena UK fleet. He served for six years with the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency as Deputy Director of Operations and Director of Standards.
John joined P&O Ferries as Fleet Director in 2004 and is responsible for the 26 Ro-Ro Passenger, High Speed Craft and Ro-Ro Cargo Vessels as well as the newbuilding programme for the new Dover – Calais ferries ordered from STX in Finland. John is a Fellow of the Nautical Institute, a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineers, Scientists and Technology, and a Chartered Marine Technologist.

BEN HARRIS – Shipowners P&I Club, UK

Ben Harris graduated in 2001 with an honours degree in Law and the Judges award for International Trade.  He joined the Claims Department of The Shipowners P&I Club in September 2001 handling a variety of different cases in different jurisdictions around the world.  In 2003 Ben was seconded to the Club’s Australian correspondents for six months and on his return to London, continued to handle the majority of claims for the Club’s Membership in Australasia.  Ben’s other areas of responsibility include Turkey and some of the most prominent ferry operators globally.  In 2008 Ben qualified as a Solicitor in England & Wales and was promoted to Deputy Claims Manager.  

Richard Jansen – DVD Bank, USA

Alexander Kurlyand – UKRFerry Shipping, Ukraine

OSKAR LEVANDER – Wartsila, Finland

Oskar Levander graduated with honours from Helsinki University of Technology in 2000, with a Master of Science in Naval Architecture. He has since been working with Wärtsilä Corporation and is currently Head of Conceptual Design in Wärtsilä Ship Design. Prior to this he has held positions as Director R&D, in charge of the Operational Performance program in the Ship Power R&D department, general manager of Conceptual Design, project manager and technical sales support engineer. He has been working mostly with the development of new ship designs and propulsion solutions for various ship types. He has developed many ship concepts intended to run on LNG and has actively promoted a switch to this more environmentally sound fuel. He is as well focusing a lot of attention on methods for making ships more energy efficient.

Alphan Manas – Turkish Futurists Association, Turkey

Aykut Ozgulsun – Labranda, Turkey

dr. ahmet paksoy - ido, turkey

Ahmet Paksoy has been General Manager of IDO since May 2004. He has focused on bringing world standards for waterborne transportation to IDO by making safety and customer satisfaction top priorities. Dr. Paksoy is credited with amalgamating City Line Ferry services with IDO and making IDO the world leader in terms of number of passengers carried, fleet size and ports of call serviced. Before joining IDO Dr. Paksoy became a well known and respected maritime professional during a career at Istanbul University over 12 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Naval Architectural and Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a PhD from Istanbul University. He also completed the Port, Shipping and Transport Management program at the International Maritime Transport Academy in the Netherlands. Dr. Paksoy has served on the Interferry Board of Directors since 2007 and he is currently President of the Association. He is married, and has two children.

Johan Roos – Stena Rederi, Sweden

Keith Sherwood – Carus Ab Ltd, Finland

Having started as a reservations agent for a UK regional airline in the late 70’s, Keith Sherwood has spent over 30 years in the travel and transportation sector. His first involvement in the Ferry industry came during the early nineties when, as the Sales & Marketing Director of Revenue Technology Services, he conducted Revenue Management workshops, consultancy projects and pre-implementation studies for numerous operators including, Brittany Ferries, DFDS, Color Line and Silja Line. In 1998 he joined Travellog which was then taken over by Anite who, at the time, also owned Carus. When Carus staged a MBO in 2008 Keith continued his role as Sales Manager and is responsible for the companies continued growth and expansion around the world. Carus is a leading provider of booking, ticketing, back office and port automation solutions designed specifically for the ferry industry.

Paul Singer – codeCreation, UK

Paul Singer joined codeCreation in 2008 following five years as vice president business development at global maritime security specialist, Securewest International. While at Securewest, he successfully launched and developed many new services including the unique Maritime Assistance Center that managed SSAS services for over 16 million tons of international shipping. Before that he served as a Special Constable with the police force in the United Kingdom for 10 years whilst running a successful business. He is now responsible for codeCreation’s worldwide new business development and marketing. Paul is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and holds a Certificate in Terrorism studies.

Johan Snellman – STX Europe

Johan Snellman, born 1954, is a graduate in Naval Architecture from the Technical University in Helsinki. In 1981 he started as a project engineer at the Rauma-Repola shipyard in Rauma, which over the years also has worked under the names Rauma Yards, Finnyards, Aker Finnyards and Aker Yards. In the years 1988-91 he worked as R&D manager at the yard and since 1992 in the sales department, presently as Vice President, STX Europe Cruise & Ferries. During the years he has also worked as project manager for several vessels, including M/S ULYSSES, one of the largest ferries in the world.

Fritz Stabinger – IUMI, Switzerland

Fritz Stabinger has been Secretary General of IUMI since 2002. After his studies in economics, Fritz started his professional career at Credit Suisse in Zürich and moved from there to a trading house dealing mainly in cotton and green coffee. As a coffee buyer and blender he worked at Wall Street, New York, in Costa Rica and Brazil before joining Swiss Re Zürich’s marine department, in 1976. He passed his exams as Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute.
His main responsibility at Swiss Re was marine business in Latin America and Europe. Fritz decided to take early retirement as head of Swiss Re Zürich’s European marine business and member of the Group Advisory Board in May, 2005. He now works exclusively for IUMI.

Andreas Ullrich – Germanischer Lloyd, Germany

Andreas Ullrich is Shiptype Manager Passenger Vessels at the international classification society Germanischer Lloyd. Andreas studied naval architecture in Rostock, Germany. He has been with Germanischer Lloyd since 1991 working in the field of ship safety, focussing on passenger ships, high speed crafts and yachts. Andreas has over 18 years experience in the field of fire protection, means of escape and life saving appliances. He is also working as a Consultant for the German Ministry of Transport, Building and Town Development, representing Germany at IMO in working groups of the Sub-Committee on Fire Protection and the Marine Safety Committee with a main focus on passenger ship safety.

Wilco van der Linden – WÄrtsilÄ SHIP DESIGN, The Netherlands

Wilco van der Linden is sales director of the Wärtsilä Ship Design segment of Wärtsilä Corporation, Finland. He graduated as a naval architect from Haarlem Polytechnic in the Netherlands in 1978 and held various positions in design, project engineering and sales in the Dutch ship building industry. From 1995 to 2003 he was the commercial director of Van der Giessen-de Noord shipyard, builder of many well-known ropax and cruise ferries. Wilco has been a member of the DNV Ferry Committee since 2004. In 2003 he worked closely with Stena Line’s Pim de Lange in hosting the 28th Interferry Conference in Rotterdam.

John Waterhouse – Elliott Bay Design Group, USA

John Waterhouse has more than 25 years of experience in naval architecture and marine engineering. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley in 1979 and a Master of Science degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from MIT in 1984. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. In 1987, John and two other partners purchased the assets of Nickum & Spaulding Associates, Inc. and formed Elliott Bay Design Group. Under John's visionary leadership, EBDG grew in both size and stature to become a premier naval architecture and marine engineering firm with a world-wide reputation for excellence. John is actively involved in a number of advisory groups working to improve the US maritime industry including the Regulatory Committee of the Passenger Vessel Association, the US Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board's Passenger Vessel Access Advisory Committee, the National Research Council Transportation Research Board Committee on Ferry Transportation and the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association.

Oliver Weiss – Ince & Co., UK

Oliver Weiss graduated with a law degree from Magdalene College, Cambridge, undertook articles with a leading maritime law firm and was admitted as a solicitor in 1976. Before joining Ince & Co in 1979 he worked as an in-house counsel for an Italian freight forwarder which he describes as “interesting”. Since he became a partner in 1984 he has developed a litigation practice which encompasses all aspects of shipping. He undertook many total loss investigations commencing with the SALEM in 1979. This work was prevalent in that last big shipping downturn in the early 1980s culminating in a successful defence of “MAREL” (1994) on behalf of hull underwriters. He now acts for a number of Greek and French owners (where his French language skills help) as well as acting for some of the largest box ship operators. He has had experience of a number of matters involving the ferry industry. These have concerned marine casualties, newbuilding disputes as well as competition problems between ferry operators.