Lorentzen & Stemoco has the highest share of female shipbrokers in what remains a male-dominated trade, even in egalitarian Norway.
But Caroline Figenschou Tidemand, the owning family’s working representative at the firm, is an outspoken opponent of gender quotas in a country where opposition to the policy has become controversial.
This year, she took on duties as a sale-and-purchase broker in her own shop. When contacted by TradeWinds, she expressed satisfaction with the level of diversity there.
With four women out of 13 shipbrokers, Lorentzen & Stemoco has as many women as Oslo neighbour Fearnleys, which employs three times as many brokers.
In Norway, quotas are an accepted tool for achieving diversity on boards of directors and in professions where one gender is under-represented. But Tidemand has spoken out against quotas in performance and sales-orientated jobs in broking and finance.
Paradox
“Yes, I agree,” Tidemand said, when it was pointed out that her shop has Norway’s highest proportion of women in shipbroking. “I think we can manage to have a diversified working environment without quotas.”
Somewhat paradoxically, she left further questions on the subject to Lorentzen & Stemoco’s chairman, Christian Andersen.
Three of the four women at the Oslo office have come on board since he took over running the shop last year.
The former chief executive of VLGC owner Avance Gas was recruited in August 2019 after a wave of Lorentzen & Stemoco staff defected to rivals.
During a year of rebuilding, he has hired S&P brokers Tine Ekblad, Tidemand herself and junior dry cargo broker Sunniva Lone, who join veteran S&P broker Helen Riley.
Reliable numbers for women in shipbroking in Norway are easier to come by than for global shipbroking, but Andersen thinks that when counting employees in Singapore, Shanghai and Athens, Lorentzen & Stemoco may have the highest proportion of any company in the world.
Andersen told TradeWinds that he has continued the recruitment goals that he pursued at Avance Gas.
‘People weren’t always interested’
“In my previous job, we had about 50:50 and I was talking quite a bit about it, although people weren’t always interested in listening to me,” he said. “Our head of technical and a senior charterer and senior operator were all women as well as our chief controller.”
His reason for pursuing such a balance has more to do with the interests of the employer in recruiting the best staff than with fairness towards applicants as such.
Tidemand’s current reticence on the subject may be because she joined her own company as an S&P shipbroker early this year and thus has a double role as owner and team member. With sister Kristin and her father, dry bulk shipowner Otto Gregard Tidemand, she has been involved in owning company Stove Shipping and in the broking business, especially since 2016, when the family took a direct role in running the latter, and she stepped in for a time as chief operating officer.
When Caroline Tidemand returned in January from maternity leave looking for work, Andersen proposed several possible jobs and she settled for S&P broking focused on dry bulk carriers from handysize up to kamsarmax.
“She doesn’t get any special treatment,” Andersen said. “We’re happy with what she has developed of opportunities so far. The current situation has made it difficult to do business, but there are lots of possibilities now for small and medium-sized bulkers. It’s a good segment to invest in now.”
But last year, in a commentary published in TradeWinds’ Norwegian business news affiliate Dagens Naeringsliv, Caroline Tidemand did speak for herself on this subject, to argue that “nobody can be gender-quotaed to success”.
“Top positions in Norwegian finance are as a rule performance-oriented, and thus the results are directly measurable,” she wrote.
“This is especially true in sales-oriented environments, including shipbroking and securities firms. The employee is compensated on the basis of what the individual contributes to the firm’s income. If the employer fails on this point, the best employees will quickly look for other opportunities.
“The ‘cake’ has to be divided on the basis of what the individual contributes, therefore it will not help to quota women into such positions. Just the reverse: any quotas or discrimination among employees will be destructive.”
