Esben Poulsson remembers the exact date his maritime career began – 31 August, 1971年——他的护照上有印章可以证明这一点.

虽然在那之前他做过一些船运相关的临时工, 包括三个月的海上航行, 17岁, it is the moment when he arrived in Hong Kong that day that he counts as the start of his life’s voyage. 现在, 在他即将迎来这一重大到来的50周年之际, 他仍然像当年一样对航运充满热情.

“That’s because of my love of the sea”, he told ICS Leadership Insights. “出海的时候是我最快乐的时候.他认为，激情在航运业是必不可少的. “You can’t teach it but if you don’t have it, find something else to do”. He has no plans to find something else to do and the long list of senior roles he holds is testament to that.

它们是通过选择和机遇积累起来的. 自2010年以来, 他的主要角色是Enesel的董事长, which manages a fleet of large Singapore-flagged container vessels for the Greek Lemos shipping family.

Twice this portfolio of positions has led to potential conflicts of interest. 在一个案例中, he realised during a board meeting that the company was planning to explore an acquisition that another of his clients was also considering.

“I immediately put my hand up and said, ‘I cannot be involved in this discussion’. Any suggestion that you could be conflicted is not worth it”, 他说.

走向全球，走向本地

As a Scandinavian living in Asia, he is aware of the different management styles in both regions. European management, “is very consensual [but] it is much more top-down in Asia”, 他说.

调和这些截然不同的方法, Poulsson has adopted a slogan that he attributes to HSBC: ‘go global, 去当地的. “我试着以此为生. It’s not for me to impose [changes] when I’m in a different country.”

“[COVID] has given rise to a greater level of cooperation than I have ever seen”

He described his own approach to management as “more carrot than stick” and recalled a situation where he had applied that to an Asian client’s hiring policy during a period of growth.

当时, 它向有抱负的新员工提供契约, providing training in return for a commitment to stay with the company for a period of time afterwards. “但我对把一个人绑在一起五年不感兴趣, 尽管我们在经济上支持他们.”而不是, 在他们训练结束的时候, they were offered a job if they were good enough “and they were free to go if they didn’t like it.” He wanted, 他说, “a positive and pleasant atmosphere of mutual respect”.

He has seen a degree of mutual respect emerge across the industry as a result of the COVID pandemic as the industry faces up to challenges such as crew changes and vaccine distribution. 例如, the ICS – a shipowners organisation – has been cooperating with the ITF – a trade union body – in an “extremely constructive two-way dialogue [about] what we can do together. [COVID] has given rise to a greater level of cooperation than I have ever seen”, 他说.

更广泛地说, BIMCO等组织, Intertanko, Intercargo and the World Shipping Council are holding regular meetings on delayed crew changes and what he sees as the biggest concern currently facing the industry: “seafarers being treated as they are supposed to be treated … and governments stepping up and doing what they’re meant to be doing”.

ICS优先事项

Poulsson向ICS秘书处致敬, which 他说 is achieving a great deal on that and other priority issues – such as new fuels and emissions, 盗版, cyber security and more; “each deserves our best attention”, 他说.  He compared ICS with an equivalent organisation for the airline industry, 国际航空运输协会, 他说哪个大于1,在全球10个办事处，000名员工代表290家航空公司. 相比之下, ICS在一个办公室里有26名员工, 香港和澳大利亚各有一名员工, 拥有全球80%的船队.

然而，“航运是一种非常个人化的行业。”, 他说, and some shipowners do not appreciate the benefits that industry groups bring them through the work they do. Without them, “I suggest [the situations they address] would be much, much worse.”

他表示，国际海事组织面临着类似的问题. Many business people “don’t really understand how it actually works”. 他知道他们的感受:“在我参与社团工作之前, 我永远无法真正理解它。”, 他承认.

A turning point for him in appreciating IMO’s practical impact came from the long debate about when the 0.5% sulphur cap would be introduced – 2020 or 2025 – which ended in October 2016 when MEPC 70 agreed it should be 1 January 2020. “The industry would probably have preferred 2025 … [but] we got a decision and a date; at least it was a done deal.”

现在, 排放问题的焦点已经转移, 减少二氧化碳排放, and perhaps the most important contribution ICS has made to IMO during his time in office has been its proposal for a levy on bunkers to raise funds for R&D into the next step in the ship fuelling developments: zero-carbon technologies.

未来50年

Those will usher in a very different way of designing ships and operating routines from those of the past 50 years and Poulsson predicted that the next five decades will be transformative.  新燃料及其基础设施, new technology and regulatory developments “will create massive changes”, 他说.

改变将不仅仅局限于船舶本身. 以3D打印为例, 例如:尽管集装箱行业目前正在蓬勃发展, 长期来看, 你必须质疑它会产生什么影响。”, 他建议.

Those forecasts reflect the broad view of the industry that his experiences have provided and he brings that approach to his ICS role. “As chairman, it is not my role to delve into the nitty-gritty”, 他说. 他所做的, 然而, provide a sounding board for shipowners and member associations – he has visited most of them during his terms of office – and offers a powerful voice beyond the industry, speaking regularly to the media and working with the ICS secretariat to prepare articles and commentaries.

当媒体引用他的话时, 他经常被称为“元老级政治家”。, 他说，但当他开始, “我一直是房间里最年轻的. 发生了什么事?“他的热情一如既往, 然而, and it is a two-way experience: “young people forget that people like me can learn just as much from them as they think they can learn from me.”