\u201cIt\u2019s simple, but true \u2013 what you need is never where you need it: if you want insight into the shipping industry I\u2019d say first you have to stand back and look at the macroeconomics: even the political situation is usually a result, not a cause, of this picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pestana has certainly got himself a good view: his career has taken him from working as a naval architect in Lisbon to managing fleet operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe early days of design were fun. I spent a lot of time seeing things through from first sketches to sea trials so it was almost like being \u2018dad\u2019, but when I decided to change path, I realised what I had been suspecting all along was right \u2013 the biggest driver in ship management is the money, your first thought is about the budget.\u201d He adds: \u201cAbove all you are concerned that the vessel doesn\u2019t stop and the sophistication of the ship\u2019s design elements doesn\u2019t account for much when you are up against a problem. So although I\u2019d been involved with a number of very subtle designs, the fact is a lot of this simply passes you by when you are actually running the ship…\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2008 he moved on again to Gearbulk in London and the first lesson was the breadth of input: \u201cAlthough I was responsible for the newbuilding process, I was exposed to the finance element, the shareholders, the board and the yards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second lesson was in its way harder, although again it really brought home how interwoven the industry\u2019s economics are with everyday life: \u201cI was knocked by restructuring from the downturn. It is one thing having an intellectual understanding of the interdependent nature of the industry, but it\u2019s still quite another watching these huge economic issues cascade down to hit you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, he admits that although \u2018interesting\u2019 in retrospect, \u201cat the time the uncertainty was the worst part of it all\u201d. \u201cPeople had finance and even letters of credit to move goods around withdrawn, owners and suppliers went bankrupt leaving everyone hanging, wondering what next.\u201d He points out there were some tough judgements calls: \u201cAlthough people generally cooperated, the fact remains if you did this, you were always worried that you weren\u2019t protecting yourself or your company enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t disclosed at the time, but I saw how near we got to a real meltdown, not just a recession. So although it\u2019s tempting to judge those people in leadership positions harshly \u2013 and maybe certain things could have been done better \u2013 at least those decisions were good enough to stop the worst that could have happened. And the worst could have been very, very bad indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next step for Mr Pestana was to a fleet management position with Meridian Marine in Liverpool in 2009. \u201cIt was an opportunity to see other dimensions of the issue: this time it was more centred on people, how best to can lead a team. I had to learn to be far more subtle in my outlook: it\u2019s all very well knowing what your objective is, but you simply can\u2019t treat people like machines. So, you have to accept that people need to empower themselves, and that they might not do something exactly in the way you\u2019d like. The big skill is to let people lead themselves: stand back a little while at the same time be ready to step in if the focus gets lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
His current position as head of ship design for ABB has meant he is putting all this insight together: \u201cOne of the most interesting areas of this particular role is seeing how the macroeconomics decide the ship designs: the idea is to be able to make some guesses, forecast the future. For example, owners now don\u2019t just want a vessel to run at one speed, they want flexibility as slow steaming could be dropped very quickly with a surge in demand \u2013 and the owners want to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
In all this there are, he says, some elements that prove more consistent than others. \u201cAlthough the routes often stay fairly static bar one or two port calls, the flows themselves can change quite dramatically. Despite this, given a little information, you might be able to see it coming: you could ask yourself what would it mean for trade and environment if, for example, India\u2019s paper consumption were to reach even 5% of Europe\u2019s per capita level?\u201d<\/p>\n
All these questions are elements in a global puzzle; as Mr Pestana points out, at least some of the answers are going to be ship shaped.<\/p>\n
By Stevie Knight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSomeone once said that God must have been a ship owner, because wherever you are, the resources are somehow always a long way away across a lot of water,\u201d says Henrique Pestana, head of ship design for ABB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3688"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorship.com\/propulsion-and-future-fuels-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}