The maritime industry is on the cusp of its most transformative era yet, and according to the leaders who gathered at the International Shipowning and Shipmanagement Summit (ISSS) during London International Shipping Week 2025, the driving force behind this change won’t be technology alone—it will be people. The event, themed “Managing the winds of change in global shipping,” brought together industry heavyweights to dissect the challenges and opportunities ahead, and the message was clear: while technology will play a critical role, it’s the human element that will truly steer the sector through this period of upheaval.
Bjorn Hojgaard, CEO of Anglo Eastern, set the tone with a blunt assessment of the industry’s priorities. “I have learned one thing over 30 years; ships may be built of steel, but seafaring is built on people,” he declared. His metaphor of ships as sails rather than steel underscored a broader truth: adaptability, not resistance, will define the winners in this new era. “The truth is the winds will change – you can’t control the wind but you can control the sails. We don’t fight with the wind, we work with it.” Hojgaard’s emphasis on people over data was a recurring theme. “Data doesn’t keep ships sailing, people do.”
This sentiment resonated with Mark O’Neil, president and CEO of Columbia Group, who argued for a radical rethink of how the industry approaches its workforce. “We need to tear up the rule book and create a much more personalised approach. Everyone is in the same boat,” he said, stressing the need for flexibility and customisation in an era of rapid change. His call for a break from tradition was echoed by Luis Benito, CCO of Wallem Group, who emphasised the importance of unity in direction. “Shipping adapts to change,” he said. “We are all here because we can adapt together. We all have to adapt to technological change – safety is not negotiable, everything else is secondary.”
The panel agreed that the only constant in shipping is change itself. René Kofod-Olsen, CEO of V Group, captured this sentiment when he stated, “The only way to weather the storm is to embrace the change and rethink the way we work.” His warning against siloed thinking was a call to arms for greater collaboration across the industry. “We cannot ‘silo’ the way we work. That has to change. Scale matters now more than ever; all the complexities need a scalability.”
The consensus was clear: the challenges ahead are too vast for any single entity to tackle alone. As one panelist put it, “If we multiply our resilience across the industry, we can jointly collect our intelligence and not rely on fragmented data.” The message was one of unity and shared purpose. “We should not fear the storm, but use the wind to steer new courses.”
This isn’t just about survival—it’s about seizing the opportunity to redefine the industry. The winds of change are blowing, and the maritime sector is learning to harness them. The question now is not whether the industry can adapt, but how quickly and how effectively it can do so. The answer, according to these leaders, lies not in the steel of the ships, but in the people who sail them.