Affinity (Shipping) will welcome its first chief executive in the new year when clean petroleum products (CPP) broker Daniel Hockey steps up to the new role on 1 January.
Well-known in the shipbroking sector, Hockey has been described to TradeWinds as “a fixing machine”, “well regarded”, “very smart” and with “the market in the palm of his hand”.
However, since Affinity managing partner Richard Fulford-Smith named Hockey as his successor to lead the brokerage, many of those in the wider shipping industry have been asking who he is.
Hockey comes across as outgoing, quick-thinking and genial. He chuckled at the descriptions of him.
“I’m a simple chap,” he said. “I’m very hard working, very ambitious and very straight. I’m just honest. There is not much more to me than that.”
Hockey’s early background is in logistics and haulage working with his father’s company.
He went on to university in Liverpool to study transport and logistics management covering the road, rail and sea aspects of the business.
The young graduate then briefly returned to work with his father before the business collapsed — not his fault, he added quickly.
Then at a crossroads on whether to stay in logistics or try something new, Hockey took inspiration from a friend in shipbroking — Gibson Shipbrokers’ small-scale tanker specialist Henry Smale.
“I decided to take a risk,” Hockey said, stressing that at the time broking pay was half that of his alternatives. But he said the prospects looked better in shipbroking than haulage, which he described as “a hard old grind”.
Change of tack
Hockey took the plunge in May 2008 starting with Gibson in tanker operations.
He moved onto the CPP desk after about a year, remaining there until mid-2015 when a group of about 10 from the brokerage jumped ship to join Affinity.
The Gibson escapees started work at the rival shop in October 2015, where Hockey assumed the role of head of the CPP department.
Hockey said he has worked closely with Fulford-Smith for three to four years, expanding the brokerage’s tanker business.
He admitted that he used to do a large amount of chartering with Russian clients — some years fixing more than 400 vessels out of Russia. But that was before the country invaded Ukraine in 2022 and since then Affinity has stepped away from this business.
A year ago, he moved off the CPP spot desk and onto term business to give himself more time to take on the bigger role within the company.
Hockey said he has done a great deal of work on the company’s platform, both in developing and retaining staff and ensuring teams are “backfilled” with new energy.
In deep
Hockey is completely wedded to shipping. “I love the industry,” he said, recalling in his interview with Gibson he was told that his clients and colleagues would become his best friends.
“I have made some close lifelong friends,” he said. “It does become like a lifestyle, this business.
“It’s great fun, it’s very dynamic and really interesting.”
Hockey said so many things impact shipping that it can be hard work to stay on top of everything.
“That’s what makes it fun, and to be better than the next person in the broking world.”
When he moves into the CEO hot seat, Hockey plans to carry on doing period business, which he said is a bit slower with a lower deal count giving him the flexibility to do other things.
He expects more to follow him onto the term desk and said the company will hire young people to fill the vacant spot positions.
Hockey said the past year has been very active for Affinity.
He revealed that the brokerage opened an office in Dubai in August with CPP broker John Widdrington moving there to head the Middle East business, with Robert Jobeus working alongside him and two more staff to follow next year.
Hockey expects the new Dubai office to number between eight and 10 people by mid-2025.
Affinity has also grown into LPG and small tankers this year and added more on CPP and bulk shipping.
Hockey stressed that Fulford-Smith, who will become Affinity chairman, is not disappearing.
The pair clearly get on, even taking holidays together, with Hockey saying they share the same values and their views are aligned.
“We see things the same way even though we are very different people,” he said.
He said Fulford-Smith is particularly good at empowering people to develop themselves. Hockey said it is important to embrace and incentivise the younger generation in a way that will continue the growth of the business rather than the cash sitting with a small number of people ready for retirement.
Petrolhead
In his spare time, Hockey enjoys playing golf. He has a very young daughter and is really enjoying watching her grow up. He loves cars — TradeWinds has heard talk of an Aston Martin — and car racing.
Hockey believes Affinity, which now employs about 200 and will celebrate its 10th birthday in 2025, is “in a very good place”.
“Not all of it is perfect and we will make structural changes, but nothing dramatic,” Hockey said.
“It is just — continue our growth, our story and have a transition with Richard into his next stage of life for whenever he is ready,” he said.
“There’s lots to learn, loads of hard work ahead but we like that.”
