Just as Google turned eighteen recently, Spinnaker Global has turned nineteen. Pretty soon, we’ll be employing people who weren’t born when the company was set up!
I write this on the last day of Spinnaker’s business year so we are naturally reflecting on the year behind us and planning for the year ahead, our twentieth. It’s tempting to write this in the context of the state of the market – eight years since the shipping market fell off a cliff, Hanjin going under …yada yada yada. But let’s not bother. If I put myself to sleep repeating things I’ve said before then I’ll certainly put you to sleep.
Spinnaker ends this business year on a high. Having ‘enjoyed’ a poor first quarter off the back of a very quiet summer in 2015, we’ve beaten budget in each of the last three quarters. It’s been a year of laying foundations – our renewables recruitment team was established earlier this year and recently welcomed Kelly Knightsbridge on board bringing with her 11 years in the business. Sales & Marketing, Finance and HR recruitment have all grown into separate profit centres this year with dedicated consultants carving out successful niches serving our core shipping, trade and energy clients.
We were honoured to be appointed exclusively by MSC Cruises to recruit for their new fleet management headquarters in the UK, a real coup for the UK market and of course for Spinnaker. That project is well underway with numerous positions filled and many more underway. Cruise specialists, please get in touch! Our sales & marketing team have filled a whopping 30 vacancies globally for one of our marine equipment and services clients on an expansion drive – hats off to them for their market reach and their fast delivery and great customer service.
Our legal and insurance team are buzzing. These are the sectors in which Spinnaker built its reputation in our first few years in business, but for the last few years we have not quite managed to maintain a stable team in that area, leaving some customers without the service and pipeline of quality candidates they were used to. With dedicated focus and effort, it feels like we’re back in the premier league and we intend to work hard to stay there. Spinnaker has made some great placements in recent months and some really interesting high profile executive assignments are nearing completion.
The Maritime HR Association, run by our HR Consulting division, hosted over 100 delegates from more than 50 shipowners, shipmanagers and oil companies at its annual conference in May. Now nearly ten years old itself, the Maritime HR Association has become the only place to go for reliable salary data in the shipping industry. Some 100 jobs are benchmarked all over the world by a dedicated team running to anti-trust guidelines. We are launching a separate seafarer salary benchmarking service in 2017. To attend or sponsor the May 2017 Maritime HR Association conference or to register your interest in seafarer salaries, drop a line to Helen at [email protected].
I’ll be speaking on leadership at the Riviera Marine Engineering Conference in Singapore in November and the Crew Connect Manning & Training Conference in Manilla the following week, always excellent events.
It’s all go, it’s mostly fun and we’re really looking forward to our twentieth business year!
Phil Parry, Chairman, Spinnaker Global / @spinnakerglobal
