Tim Jones has stepped down as chief executive of shipbroker Barry Rogliano Salles (BRS) but will remain as chairman in what he describes as a “smooth transition” of leadership.
He has appointed as his chief executive successor Francois Cadiou, the vice-president of assets who has been with the broking house for 26 years.
Jones, 62, has overseen huge expansion of BRS, in terms of employee numbers and international reach, that has brought the company footprint to today’s 22 offices in 20 countries.
This week a board meeting of the group, which is based in Luxembourg but has its operational headquarters in Paris, saw Jones re-elected as chairman for three more years, taking him to 65, the mandatory limit for serving on the board.
Jones has been chief executive since 2006 but says he has in effect run the company since 2000. He replaced Jean-Bernard Raoust as chairman at the end of 2013.
“I have been around for an awful long time,” Jones told TradeWinds. He stresses that he is not retiring but will now have more time to focus on specific aspects of the group, including digital initiatives and investment.
BRS has been at the forefront of developing electronic tools to improve the efficiency of the shipping community through AXSMarine.
Jones was the youngest of 16 partners behind a leveraged buyout of the brokerage in 1988 from the Barry, Rogliano and Salles family interests.
Cadiou, who specialises in newbuilding and sale-and-purchase broking, and who will report to Jones, was one of three people selected by BRS partners last week to serve on the board. He and Gilbert Walter, vice-president international, were re-elected, while chief information officer Jacques Goudchaux is a new board member.
Cadiou, who joined the board in 2006, is now responsible for selecting his own management team.
BRS has a system whereby the chairman and three of the nine-member board are chosen every three years.
“I have always wanted to have a smooth transition,” Jones said. “I have been doing it a long time and there are an awful lot of people who have the energy and the stamina to take things further.”
“Management by consensus” is how Cadiou described the BRS system of rotating the board.
“Completely orderly,” Jones added. “We have transformed the company a number of times as we have grown. When we took it over in 1988, there were 64 employees, including the 16 partners. Today we have 450 employees and 70 partners.”
Jones claimed BRS was “unlike some of our competitors who, we understand, have boardroom battles and people get thrown in and thrown out”.
