Questions aimed at panellists like Angela Chao, the deputy chairman of Foremost Group, were followed by, in many cases, what a number of attendees described as “surprisingly candid responses” on the sidelines of Shipping 2015.
Chao, the daughter of the bulker owner’s founders, discussed the importance of personal and professional integrity, a theme that was revisited throughout the session.
During the same conversation Vassilis Kertsikoff, the chief executive of Eletson Gas, shared a valuable lesson that he learned from his father at an early age.
“Be the best at whatever you do, whether its shipping or garbage collecting,” he said.
The head of German operator Hellespont Ship Management, Phrixos Papachristidis, stressed the importance of turning mistakes into learning opportunities.
This followed a question about whether the patriarch of his family’s shipping empire ever made a particularly bad decision.
Joshua Shapiro, the vice president of Liberty Maritime Corp, said one of the most important lessons that he learned from his father Philip was about leverage.
“Low leverage is important,” he explained. “Pay down debt when you have cash. This is an important thing to remember [regardless of the industry you are in].”
The “Generational Shift” session, which took place on the third and final day of the expo, was moderated by industry veteran Dagfinn Lunde, who pointed out that it’s rare for a family-owned company to survive more than three generations.
