Prominent shipping professor Roar Adland will join shipbroker Simpson Spence Young (SSY) in May as its global head of research.
After more than 10 years at the Norwegian School of Economics, Adland will leave his position as professor of shipping economics and relocate to London.
Managing partner Stanko Jekov said SSY will be able to provide even greater levels of research and analysis to its global client base with Adland leading the team.
“SSY has built an outstanding reputation as one of the most knowledgeable research departments in the business,” Jekov said.
“It’s no secret that shipping and shipbroking has entered a very dynamic phase, with expert research playing a pivotal role in navigating through this period of transition.”
Prior to his academic career, Adland worked for almost six years as Clarkson Fund Management’s freight derivatives portfolio manager, managing a portfolio of up to $100m in forward freight agreements and freight options.
He has a PhD in shipping finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers.
Adland said SSY has “the will to invest the resources to bring their strong research team to pole position”.
“With shipping decarbonisation, digitalisation and geopolitics as the backdrop, the need to make sense of massive amounts of data and guide clients through increasingly complex markets has never been greater,” he said.
“I am honoured to be able to put my knowledge and broad experience to work with the whole of the SSY team.”
SSY also told TradeWinds it will be making additional hires to round out its research team following the departures of two key members of staff.
Outgoing head analyst Derek Langston is set to join rival broker Braemar in April as global head of dry cargo research.
Another colleague on the research team, Alexis Ellender, left SSY last week to work in the consultancy sector.
Jekov took over the top job at the beginning of the year, succeeding Mark Richardson, who has retired.
In his first interview in the role, Jekov told TradeWinds that he plans to focus on ways to expand the group beyond its network of more than 20 offices worldwide, branch out into new markets and open up the corporate culture.
Since then, he has made progress on these aims. Last week, SSY announced it had purchased Norwegian offshore broker Westshore.
It has also opened a new office in South Korea that will target sale-and-purchase business.
“I think, going forward, size will matter,” Jekov said in January. “The broader the spectrum of services you have, I think the more important that’s going to be in the future.
“I think customers in general expect more from the brokers today, not just fixing a ship from A to B and doing a single transaction. They require the research, they require a lot of background services, finance department — everything — and we must have the full spectrum of services.”
