Josephine Le is hoping to start a social media revolution in shipping with the launch of her new platform The Hood.
The Cyprus-based company’s founder and managing director has created a space where maritime workers will be able to network, chat, job hunt, access education and support, and share ideas.
Le told TradeWinds: “The Hood will hopefully become the ultimate social media platform exclusively for the maritime industry.
“As a company, we are a young, small start-up with a very big ambition to reimagine social media as a way to communicate and as a home page for the industry to connect, to collaborate and share resources among each other,” she said.
The Hood has backing from an unnamed venture capital firm, which owns the majority of shares.
Le started as a crewing superintendent at Cyprus-based ship manager Columbia Group six years ago, moving up to become crewing fleet manager and then senior business development manager, working closely with seafarers on an almost daily basis.
She also has a background in digital marketing.
“It’s been brewing in my mind ever since I started with the maritime industry,” she said. “It’s a personal struggle for me to find information, or ask for expert advice or help.
“I find none of the social media [platforms] help with this connection or with this advice-sharing idea.
“I had it in mind, talked to a lot of people and finally had the courage to quit the job and devote 100% of my time to this,” she added.
Le has looked into the sector deeply, with a survey of seafarers, maritime professionals and industry leaders.
Fragmented social spaces
“We see that we are very fragmented. You have the seafarers who are accumulated on Facebook, and they are also on the messaging apps like WhatsApp, whereas you have the industry leaders and professionals huddling on LinkedIn,” the managing director explained.
“And you also have generational issues when young people prefer to use TikTok or Instagram as a mode of communication and sharing.
“Many of the shipping managers and directors I have asked personally don’t even use social media.
“And if they do, they just have a picture and a profile that’s sitting there on LinkedIn or Facebook for ages. They never touch it,” Le said.
“We have so many wonderful features of the platform that aim to improve the lives, especially the professional lives, of maritime workers, from seafarers to the people in the office as well,” she added.
“We are going to design community-based features where everyone can kind of create their own group or join and support existing groups.”
There is also a learning centre and the company is inviting all the training centres and maritime academies to publish their courses.
And a support centre for well-being, in conjunction with charities, will make it much easier for staff, especially the new generations, to understand immediately where they need to go if they want to get help, Le explained.
“So this is something that we hope will bring everyone together under one roof and use the power of the community to elevate our industry,” she told TradeWinds.
Expansion aims
The Hood is starting with five full-time staff in Cyprus.
“And we hope to increase the team size as the platform grows or to see how it goes before we invest further. But bringing on new talent is very important for us,” the founder said.
“We have many people interested in joining the Hood as either a country representative or a collaborator, so we hope that will become very big,” she added.
Recruitment will be another feature.
Le explained she has designed this specifically with the maritime industry in mind, to make it easy and efficient for people working at sea or in an office to find job opportunities.
The Hood will be free for individual users, including seafarers and other maritime professionals.
There is a subscription model for companies who are going to use the platform as a recruitment or as an advertising tool.
Le is based in Limassol.
“I decided to settle down in Cyprus. I worked before with Columbia and after when I quit the job, I still like to stay in Cyprus. I have a home, I have a cat in Limassol,” she told TradeWinds.
Taking on a challenge
Le regards being a woman in two male-dominated industries, shipping and tech, as a personal motivation.
“You want to prove yourself and it’s a welcome challenge to promote your personal growth,” the managing director said.
“My hobby is mountaineering and rock climbing, where you find most of the participants are male,” she explained.
“But it always works out because if you believe in excellence without excuses, people will acknowledge you for the person that you are instead of your gender. And it is very important that women should not feel afraid or should not feel that this is a barrier to enter anything,” Le told TradeWinds.
She also highlighted issues such as discrimination against minorities or socioeconomic groups.
“This is, I think, much more of a serious issue than gender. But for the maritime and the tech industry, if you look closely at the last few years, you see a lot of changes,” Le said.
“We have so many wonderful women that are holding very important positions, very high positions in different companies.
“And I think it’s a welcome sign for our younger ladies to follow and not to be afraid because if your dream doesn’t scare you, maybe you’re just not dreaming big enough,” she added.
