Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues and the push for decarbonisation are opportunities to get more women involved in shipping, says WISTA International’s new president.
Elpi Petraki — who took the reins at the women’s industry group in October last year — said women are increasingly involved in sustainability efforts, even if some of the more traditional parts of the industry are less gender diverse.
“We see more companies having HR departments, which was not the case before, they just had crew departments. We see sustainability departments, ESG departments ... of course, decarbonisation,” she said in an interview with TradeWinds.
“This is good for women, I think, because we need new people coming in.
“We have members, new members, joining WISTA who are coming from a completely different industry.”
Petraki said a joint WISTA-International Maritime Organisation survey in 2021 bore out that women are better represented in environmental and technology efforts.
It found environmental technologies companies had a 50/50 gender split and cyber protection firms counted 36% of employees as women. Both figures were higher than more traditional sectors, such as shipowning and broking.
From an ESG perspective, Petraki said pressure from outside shipping is forcing companies to pay more attention to diversity.
“People in society want us to be interested in the environment, in the social impact, in transparency,” she said.
The mindset in shipping has changed, as firms had previously been focused on business as usual: “It was not a way of not wanting to, but it was a way of how we used to do business. It was working. Nobody was questioning that. So now it is changing. And I think it’s for the benefit of everybody.”
Petraki was elected president of WISTA International having served in the same role at Wista Hellas, the group’s Greek arm, since June 2020. She has spent nearly 25 years at Athens-based Enea Management and is second vice president of the Hellenic Shortsea Shipowners Association.
At WISTA, she took over from Despina Theodosiou, who spent five years leading the organisation.
Petraki said she was close with Theodosiou and her involvement in the organisation going back 20 years made the transition easy.
“Of course, there are a lot of things and, you know, you need to meet people, and they have to get to know you. [The same with various] associations and organisations. It has been not challenging, I would say,” she added.
The organisation will continue with its training programmes and keep prioritising its speakers’ bureau initiative to get more women on industry panels.
Petraki said WISTA International and the IMO will run a second survey this year.
“[I will] definitely continue what Despina has done in the past. She did a lot of work for WISTA to be an equal partner and have a strong voice wherever decisions are made. [I'm] definitely following that, and let’s see where that will take us.”
