Rhett Hatcher will join the UK Chamber of Shipping as chief executive in mid-March, replacing Sarah Treseder, who is stepping down after two-and-a-half years.
A Royal Navy retiree, Hatcher joins the shipowners’ organisation from the UK Hydrographic Office, where he was the national hydrographer and deputy chief executive.
He has held senior appointments at the Ministry of Defence, where he was responsible for global strategy, operations and defence engagement.
Swire Group’s JB Rae-Smith, who was appointed president of the UK Chamber board in mid-February, said Hatcher’s experience in British governmental affairs would be key.
“His experience, inside and outside of Whitehall, will be invaluable. I am confident he will provide the high-quality leadership necessary for the chamber in these challenging times and to support the chamber’s existing team,” Rae-Smith said.
Hatcher said: “With so many opportunities, as well as challenges, facing the industry both in the UK and across the world, coupled with a UK general election this year, there is certainly plenty for us to do.”
And there is certainly much that Hatcher can do in the top job at the lobbying organisation.
The UK Chamber has for years been criticised for its waning political influence, and its membership base has shifted away from shipowners and today is largely made up of ancillary service providers.
It filed a loss before tax of £179,418 ($227,500) for the financial year ended 31 March 2023, down from a profit of £888,329 the previous year. The latest result was affected by capital losses on investments, according to its annual report filed with UK Companies House.
The bottom line is net of the annual rebate to members, which was £214,696 — roughly in line with the previous year’s payout. The chamber said this showed the “generally positive” state of its finances.
The UK Chamber’s accounts have for many years been shored up by a large book gain generated in 2011 when it sold its historic office building at Carthusian Court in Farringdon, London, for £11.65m.
But as the retained cash ebbs away, the onus has been on the organisation to develop and exploit new commercial offerings and stay lean on costs.
The challenge in recent years has been to build up and maintain the core membership.
Naval gazing
Treseder was the chamber’s first female chief executive.
Only one of its past presidents — former P&O Ferries chief executive Helen Deeble — has been female since the organisation was established in 1878.
The chamber has form for recruiting senior staff from the navy, rather than from the commercial shipping world.
Treseder’s predecessor, Bob Sanguinetti, who left in 2021 after three years as CEO, was also ex-Royal Navy. He was reprimanded at a court martial in 2001 and pleaded guilty to negligence after a frigate under his command hit submerged rocks in a fjord south of Oslo the previous year.
In 2020, while recruiting its director of policy, the organisation’s second in command, the UK Chamber invited five men for interview, all of whom were white and most of whom had backgrounds in the Royal Navy, as TradeWinds reported at the time.
