The Baltic and White Sea Conference was originally founded in Copenhagen in 1905 and is the world’s largest international global shipping association with more than 2,100 members including shipowners, operators, managers, brokers and agents.
The aim of BIMCO, as it is commonly known today, is to produce flexible commercial agreements and standard maritime contracts with clarity, consistency and certainty.
These include modern contracts customised to specific trades and activities in shipping.. These contracts also members to manage their contractual risk.
It works closely with many other influential organisations across the different parts of the maritime industry – from owners to operators, ports to ship builders, brokers to equipment manufacturers, and insurers to classification societies.. Such kind of capability is also key in developing the correct environmental solutions for the shipping industry.
BIMCO is run by a board of directors and for the first time in its 114 years of existence, the President of BIMCO of the board will be a female – Ms.Şadan Kaptanoğlu.
Ms.Kaptanoğlu was elected as the president at BIMCO’s General Meeting in Athens on Tuesday 14th of May 2019.
As per a BIMCO News release, “It is a great privilege for me to chair the BIMCO Board of Directors in this crucial time of change for shipping. The environment and climate change are key public concerns and getting the shipping industry to embrace this reality – and delivering the solutions to meet the world’s environmental expectations – will be my priority,” Kaptanoğlu says.
Ms.Kaptanoğlu, the Managing Director of HI Kaptanoglu Shipping is a Turkish shipowner and takes over from Greek shipowner, Anastasios Papagiannopoulos as the President of BIMCO.
As President, she is expected to guide BIMCO through the industry’s transition to low sulphur fuel leading to #IMO2020 and set the direction for BIMCO’s approach to short and longer term measures to bring down the world fleet’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“BIMCO’s strength and depth of expertise on the technical front, along with the support of its members, are essential to delivering its regulatory work, but are also crucial for BIMCO to maintain its leadership and expertise in contracts and clauses.
Our goal is to make sure that new regulation is practical and enforceable, while ensuring that the BIMCO contracts are the best option to deal with new rules,” says Ms.Kaptanoğlu.
Ms.Şadan Kaptanoğlu previously served as the President Designate for two years and this position will now be filled by Ms.Sabrina Chao of Wah Kwong in Hong Kong who also joins the Board of Directors.
A double whammy for female empowerment which also coincides with the IMO’s maritime theme for 2019 “Empowering Women in the Maritime Community” if you ask me.
Commenting on this appointment Ms.Kaptanoğlu said ”BIMCO has always been ahead of its time, and today I am standing here not alone, but with our president designate Sabrina Chao as the biggest proof of how BIMCO embraces change.
One woman President could have been seen as a show or project – but two, one after the other, is undisputable evidence of that change. I have the Immediate Past President, the Board of Directors and our members to thank for making this a reality.”
