Steering Group
Chair, LISW27 Steering Group and Head of Membership, Baltic Exchange
Jos Standerwick
Jos Standerwick joined the Baltic Exchange as Head of Membership in January 2026, and leads membership services, the Membership Council, the external engagement and communication & marketing functions. He had previously been a consultant to the Baltic from July 2024, supporting the development of the KYC Platform and membership initiatives. In his previous role, Jos was Chief Executive of industry association Maritime London.
In addition, he sits on the UK Government Maritime
Advisory Council. Jos is a Council Member of the Baltic Exchange, Chair of the London International Shipping Week Steering Group and a trustee of the Maritime London Officer Cadet Scholarship.
Jos read Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton.
Richard Ballantyne
Richard Ballantyne joined the British Ports Association in 2007 and became the Chief Executive in 2016. He represents the BPA on a number of industry bodies and is a member of a wide range of government stakeholder groups and international committees.
Richard has in-depth expertise in ports, transport and environmental policy matters as well as a wide experience of the legislative process around the UK.
He is a Director of Maritime UK, a Trustee of the Merchant Navy Welfare Board charity and was previously a Director of Port Skills and Safety Ltd. Before joining the BPA Richard spent five years at a Westminster political consultancy and was previously an MP’s researcher in the House of Commons.
Chief Executive, British Ports Association
Llewellyn Bankes-Hughes
CEO and Founder, ship.energy Ltd (formerly Petrospot Ltd); Joint CEO, Shipping Innovation; Co-Founder, London International Shipping Week.
Llewellyn has worked in oil, shipping, and bunkering since 1980, in London and New York, as a journalist and an oil broker. In 1992, he joined MRC in Oxford to launch BunkerNews, before establishing Petrospot in 2003 to publish Bunkerspot and a range of shipping and bunkering magazines, online news services and highly respected bunker and shipping books.
He has created and run globally recognised events in 32 countries around the world, including maritime weeks in the Americas and Africa, shipping weeks in the Canary Islands, Gibraltar and Portugal, and highly focused forums in Antwerp, Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Valencia and elsewhere. He also runs the world-renowned Oxford Bunker Course, BunkerExperience and a wide range of specialised maritime, shipping and bunkering courses worldwide.
In 2013, jointly with Elaborate Communications, he launched the first edition of the biennial London International Shipping Week, which has grown into one of the biggest maritime events in the world.
Co-CEO, Shipping Innovation
Helen Barden
After 11-plus years in FD&D, Helen Barden joined NorthStandard’s External Affairs team in 2024.
As part of NorthStandard's Navigating Decarbonisation expertise team, Helen engages with industry bodies, including BIMCO, and other working groups on the challenges and opportunities this fundamental issue poses.
Helen contributed to drafting BIMCO’s EEXI Transition, CII Operations and the Emission Trading Scheme Allowances Clauses for Time Charter Parties. She is also a member of NorthStandard’s Sanctions Advice team.
Engagement with industry and government on maritime decarbonisation and geopolitics/sanctions is vital to developing contractual solutions, infrastructure, policy and legislation that benefit the maritime industry.
Helen aims to help drive this work forward.
Director - Ext Affairs, NorthStandard
Tom Chant
Tom Chant was appointed SMI’s Chief Executive in the summer of 2020 having been promoted from the Business Development Director role where he started in 2017.
Tom has been the lead for the UK pavilions at the world’s major maritime exhibitions and created multiple missions and seminars to benefit member companies. Tom will continue to represent the SMI on many industry panels and Maritime UK working groups focussing on the needs of the engineering and business services sector.
Tom has a long association with the marine industry having been an active sailor and student of boatbuilding in Southampton. His career has encompassed a wide range of market sectors and he has gathered experience of business development, marketing and distribution in an international business environment. A nine year period at the trade body for the leisure, superyacht and workboat sector was committed to developing the members’ export business.
Chief Executive, Society of Maritime Industries
The UK Major Ports Group is the industry voice for the UK’s major port operators and represents nine of the top ten port operators in UK. Members collectively handle 75% of the UK’s port volumes through 40 ports and invest over £600million per annum in UK ports and infrastructure. These include the largest ports in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in areas of economic significance across the United Kingdom. Evans works with members, policy and law makers to navigate the changing policy landscape and represent their interests to Government, political parties and officials across the UK.
Evans joined the UK Major Ports Group in May 2023 from the global consulting firm, Stonehaven where he was a Partner. Prior to Stonehaven, Evans served as a Special Adviser under three consecutive Prime Ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May and latterly Boris Johnson.
Evans has extensive experience of cross-Government Whitehall departments and Parliament having been an early champion of the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda and joined the UKMPG having been at the centre of British politics during a historic period of three general elections and an EU referendum in five years.
Chief Executive Officer, UK Major Ports GroupGeraint Evans
Gemma Griffin
Gemma Griffin is Vice President, and Head of Global Crewing for pan-European ferry company DFDS. She is also Chair of the Chamber of Shipping UK Employment Committee, leads the industry’s Trailblazer Apprenticeship scheme, and is a board member of the UK Chamber of Shipping, the Merchant Navy Training Board and the Merchant Navy Medal Committee.
In these roles, Gemma helps to shape how UK employment law applies to shipping; manages the relationships between shipping companies, unions and government; and shares best practice across the industry. She has previously led campaigns on seafarers’ mental wellbeing, encouraging more women into the Merchant Navy, and improving internet access for ships’ crews to enable them to connect with family and friends whilst at sea.
Gemma is an Irish native and is based in Dover. She has worked at DFDS for 29 years, having started her career in shipping in a front-line role in the port of Dublin. She has a degree in Industrial Relations and a degree in English and History.
In 2019, Gemma was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her outstanding contribution to employment and training for seafarers in the UK.
In 2024 she was named as Maritime UK’s Woman of the Year.
Vice President, Head of Global Crewing, DFDS
Rhett Hatcher
Rhett joined the Chamber of Shipping as the CEO in March 2024, after leaving the Royal Navy and most recently the role of UK National Hydrographer, Deputy Chief Executive and Director for Defence and Data Acquisition at the UK Hydrographic Office.
During his time in the Navy, Rhett served as a bridge watchkeeper, attack helicopter pilot, warfare officer and Joint staff officer on operations all over the world.
He held sea and air command appointments in HM Ships Penzance, Bulwark and Protector and 815 Naval Air Squadron respectively. Rhett has worked extensively across government departments in Whitehall, developing policy options for political choice on issues regarding futures and strategic analysis, military capability, counter terrorism, Joint operations and international security.
Rhett holds a Masters from Kings College London and is a graduate of the Higher Command and Staff course and US Capstone Course.
Rhett is a Younger Brother of Trinity house, an Honorary Freeman of the worshipful company of Wax Chandlers and President of the Royal Navy Hang gliding and Paragliding Association. He lives in the West country and is most happy when near, on, in or above the sea!
Chief Executive, UK Chamber of Shipping
Mark Jackson
Mark Jackson was appointed the CEO of the Baltic Exchange in February 2017. He originally served on the board of the Baltic Exchange from 2004 to 2012 and as its Chairman from 2009. Mark has over 37 years of shipping industry experience having started his shipping career as a trainee in 1981 in Sydney, Australia. Mark first traded freight derivatives in 1987 and extensively used FFAs as part of a physical trading strategy.
The London headquartered Baltic Exchange is an international provider of benchmark rates for the bulk shipping industry and as a membership organisation has over 650 shipowning, chartering and shipbroking companies who adhere to a code of conduct. The Singapore Exchange acquired the Baltic Exchange in 2016 and Mark is focused on building its London presence and broadening its Asia footprint.
Chief Executive, Baltic Exchange
Richard Jones
Head of Governance, Maritime UK
Sharon Jones
RN Lead on maritime and defence industry engagement, Ministry of DefenceSharon joined the Royal Navy’s Maritime Enterprise Engagement team in 2023; tasked with extending activity from the Solent Maritime Enterprise Zone to national engagement. She now sits within the London and Eastern England Regional Headquarters.
In this role she builds the innovation ecosystem through engagement with industry, academia and Government, upskills around social value and coheres Maritime Enterprise Engagement activity. Named as one of the Telegraph’s Top 50 Women in Engineering (Returners and Transferrers) in 2018, Sharon is passionate about the opportunities of emerging technologies and the importance of leveraging these to solve problems.
With a background in primary education she has rapidly developed an understanding of the importance of collaboration and co-creation to develop solutions. Sharon became immersed in the maritime world, focusing on smart technologies for ports and operations in the Two Seas Smart Ports Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development Project. Sharon continues as a volunteer Co-ordinator for the Women’s Engineering Society South Coast Cluster and is co-founder of Women in Tech Dorset. In her spare time she continues to learn more about additive manufacturing, historic postboxes and goat-keeping.
Lars Lippuner
Director of UK Customer Maritime Services,
Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA)Lars Lippuner joined the MCA in 2024, overseeing the UK Ship Register, UK Shipping Concierge, Seafarer Examiners and Certification Services, Seafarers Safety and Health, Customer Insights, and Regulatory Innovation. Previously, he was an Associate Professor and Director of the Warsash Maritime Academy at Southampton Solent University, a global institution for maritime training, education, and research.
Lars holds an MSc in Applied Physics, an Executive MBA, a UK Deck Certificate of Competency, and has recently completed the Oxford Artificial Intelligence Programme at the Saïd Business School. Recognised as a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and a Fellow of the Nautical Institute (FNI), he has chaired the International Association of Maritime Institutions and served on the board of the Merchant Navy Training Board.
In his spare time, he enjoys sailing classic yachts, offshore racing, and is also the editor of one of the world’s best-selling sailing manuals.
Luci Llewellyn-Jones
Luci has been involved in the oil and shipping industries for over 25 years, working in maritime publishing, training and events organising.
She started her career in 1996 at MRC Business Information Group (now Lloyd’s List Intelligence), initially working on BunkerNews and running the renowned BunkerNews Directory. She has produced and organised conferences, seminars, training courses and other events in almost 20 different countries.
Luci was Director – Events at Petrospot from 2003 – 2017 and has been Event Director of London International Shipping Week since 2013.
She lives in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, with her husband and her dog Harri and enjoys running, surfing and cold water swimming.
Event Director, London International Shipping Week
Sean Moloney
Sean Moloney is CEO and Founder of Elaborate Communications and has close to four decades of experience in international maritime journalism, publishing, public relations and strategic communications. Established in 2003, Elaborate Communications provides specialist PR, publishing, marketing, design and event-support services to organisations throughout the global shipping and maritime industries.
Before establishing Elaborate Communications, Sean spent nine years as Political Editor of Lloyd’s List. He subsequently became Publishing Director of Informa’s maritime magazine division, where he oversaw more than 40 publications and a team of over 60 people.
Sean is also Publisher of Ship Management International, one of the world’s leading magazines serving the international shipmanagement community. He is a co-founder of London International Shipping Week, which has developed into one of the most important events in the global maritime calendar.
In addition, Sean serves as Secretary of the International Shipsuppliers & Services Association, supporting the work of the organisation and its members around the world. He is a regular speaker, moderator and commentator at international maritime conferences and industry events.
Sean is a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights.
Co-CEO, Shipping Innovation
Shahab Paya
Deputy Director, Department for Transport (DfT)Shahab Paya is a Deputy Director at the UK Department for Transport (DfT), working within the Aviation, Maritime and Security Group. His portfolio has centred on Maritime Strategy and Sponsorship, where he leads policy and strategic engagement across the UK's maritime sector, including shipping, ports, maritime decarbonisation, resilience, and sponsorship of DfT's maritime bodies. He has represented the department at industry events such as the London International Shipping Week conference, where he was listed as Deputy Director – Maritime, Department for Transport.
Nick Shaw
Chair - LISW27 Board of Advisors,
Chief Executive, IGP&INick Shaw was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the International Group of P&I Clubs in July 2019. Nick is responsible for co-ordination of the collective activities of the 13 International Group member Clubs including the internal organisation of the Group activities, co-ordinating the formulation and development of Group policies, the operation of the Group large claims pooling and reinsurance arrangements and the representation of the Group at Shipping, Trade and Insurance industry events and communication at government and intergovernmental levels. He is an active participant at CMI, BIMCO, GMF, IUMI, ICS, Intertanko, IACS amongst other industry associations.
Nick practised in Shipping and Marine Insurance law from 1990-2019, and has extensive knowledge and experience of the Shipping Industry and the P&I world coupled with considerable high level management experience gained as the Shipping Group Practice leader at the former Richards Butler from 2003-2007, and, following its merger with US based international law firm Reed Smith as Global Shipping & Transportation Industry Group Leader from 2007-2019. He has extensive experience of the Asian market having lived and worked in Hong Kong for two years and managed teams there and in Singapore. He has also managed office teams in New York, Greece and Paris.