Clarksons chief information officer (CIO) Richard White has left the UK shipbroker to take a career break.

The long-serving IT expert was also chief technical officer (CTO) at the London-listed company’s software platform, Sea/.

A filing at Companies House in the UK shows White ceased to be a director of Clarksons-owned tech company and Sea/ parent Maritech on 13 June.

White’s LinkedIn page reveals the executive is on a career break, travelling the US and Europe with his family.

White describes himself as a “transformational leader” on his profile.

He has been CTO of Sea/ for nearly five years and CIO at Clarksons since 2005.

White spent three years as a technical solutions consultant at Evolocity Solutions in London between 2002 and 2005, after leaving Clarksons for the first time.

He had joined the shipbroker in 2000 as a senior database specialist.

White has been contacted for further information on his plans.

Clarksons declined to comment on what this means for the group.

Veil lifted

In 2020, the broker lifted the veil on Sea/, the software platform that it says enables users to fully digitalise the process of trading vessels commercially.

Richard White has left Clarksons for the second time. Photo: Clarksons

The platform — which was a major strategic step for the shipbroking giant — was developed and launched through Maritech.

Jeff Woyda, Clarksons’ chief financial officer and chief operating officer, told TradeWinds at the time that Sea/ is “the end-to-end freight process for bulk shipping”.

Woyda, who is also Maritech’s chairman, said: “Not only do you get reduced risk and increased efficiency, but you actually get a degree of control that you never had before within an organisation.”

According to Maritech, Sea/ offers tools to digitalise workflows and make them more efficient for use by charterers, shipowners, operators, traders, analysts and brokers.

Sea/ is ring-fenced from Clarksons’ day-to-day shipbroking operations.

The platform was quietly launched in 2019 with its own website, but Clarksons had been reticent to comment in detail publicly.