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Chaired by: David Jamieson, former UK Shipping Minister

Paul Agate, Head of Marine, Swinglehurst
After 8 years serving as a Navigating Officer with Ellerman Lines, Paul started his insurance career in the marine department at Cooper Gay in 1981. Since then he has worked for both small and large broking houses in the Lloyd’s community, and today is Head of Marine at Swinglehurst; a role he has held since shortly after joining the company in May 2004.

During his 27 year insurance career, Paul has travelled extensively across the globe and handled all classes of marine covers, direct and reinsurance and more recently non-marine covers. He has also successfully acted as a Risk Management Consultant and an Expert Witness on high profile insurance disputes. Paul is a member of the London Market Insurance Brokers’ Marine Executive Committee.

Stephen Askins, Ince & Co
Stephen Askins' first career was as a Royal Marine, where he spent six happy years yomping around far flung corners of the world and honing his leadership skills as a young subaltern.He then joined Ince as a trainee solicitor in 1990.

As a senior assistant he was one of the first solicitors to work in Ince's Piraeus office, where he stayed for ten years, becoming a partner in 2000. In the Piraeus office, Stephen headed up Ince's marine casualty response team dealing with all issues arising out of maritime incidents, such as salvage including SCOPIC, GA and casualty investigations.

Using his crisis management skills from his time in the Royal Marines, he also developed a niche practice advising owners and insurers how to handle the media while dealing with several high profile casualties.Also in Athens, Stephen assisted the British Olympic and Paralympic Associations during the Olympics and as a result is now involved on behalf of the BPA in developing the role of the UK Sports Dispute Resolution Panel.

Having returned to the Ince London office in 2005, Stephen continues his admiralty practice. On the dry side, he handles charterparty and bill of lading issues. He also specialises in general insurance on behalf of both insurers and assureds.

John Bainbridge, Assistant Secretary, ITF
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is an international trade union federation of 624 transport workers’ unions in 142 countries, representing around 4.5 million transport workers, of who over 600,000 are seafarers. The ITF is one of several Global Federation Unions allied with the International Trade Union Council (ITUC).

John Bainbridge is the Assistant Secretary of the ITF Seafarers, Fisheries and Inland Navigation Sections and the Permanent ITF Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). He is a Chartered Engineer and F.I.Mar Est. Having been at sea as an engineer for twenty-five years and Chief Engineer on a variety of ships in international trades he was elected General Secretary of a New Zealand union representing marine and civil aviation engineers. After twelve years in that role, John became ITF Assistant Secretary of the Seafarers, Fisheries and Inland Navigation in 2001. His responsibilities include the safety and health of seafarers, their rights and freedoms and he represents these interests at the IMO, ILO and numerous other international maritime forums ensuring new conventions and legislation effectively reflect the best interests of seafarers and workers generally.

Guillaume Bonnissent, Special Risks Underwriter, Hiscox
Guillaume Bonnissent is the Line Underwriter for Kidnap and Ransom at Hiscox Syndicate 33. After business studies both in France and England and a first job as a credit underwriter at Euler Hermes, he started working for Hiscox 7 years ago. Guillaume's been working on the K&R account for 5 years, including 8 months in Paris. Hiscox are the worldwide leaders of Kidnap and Ransom with an estimated 65% market share and they have developed a product specific to the shipping industry to assist them in dealing with the problem of piracy.

Mark Brownrigg, Director-General, Chamber of Shipping
Mark Brownrigg is Director-General of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom. He joined the Chamber in 1972 on graduation from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and in 1973, he was seconded to Brussels as assistant to the Secretary-General of the European Community Shipowners’ Association. He served, from 1976 to 1983, as Secretary of the International Shipping Federation.

He is responsible for the British shipping industry’s relations with government and other relevant bodies (national and international) on all fiscal, economic, employment and technical issues. One of his principal roles in recent years was to co-ordinate the Chamber’s pursuit of a positive national policy on maritime matters, which resulted in the Government setting up the Tonnage Tax.

Over the last 5 years, he has been closely connected with the Sea Vision UK initiative. Spearheaded by the Chamber and involving over 150 partner organisations, this aims to raise the profile of the total UK maritime sector and improve awareness of career opportunities at sea and ashore. It brings together many companies and organisations in the UK maritime cluster, both nationally and at regional level.

Mark Dickinson, Assistant General Secretary, Nautilus

Mark joined the British Merchant Navy in 1978 at the age of 16. In 1983 he came ashore to study for a BSc (Hons) in Maritime Studies at Cardiff University and in 1992, gained an MSc (Econ) with distinction in Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Before joining NUMAST (now Nautilus UK) in 2000, where he was made the unions Assistant General Secretary in April 2003, Mark worked for the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) as Assistant General Secretary in charge of the federations Maritime Department.

Mark is married with two children. When he is not at work or enjoying time with his family Mark cites marathon running and motorcycling as his main passions.

Charles Dragonette, US Office of Naval Intelligence

Richard Farrington OBE, Captain Royal Navy, Chief of Staff EU OHQ Atalanta

Daniel Goggin, Broker, Miller Insurance
Daniel Goggin has worked at Miller since 2004 having previously studied for a BA (Hons) in Business Studies and Marketing. Having gained a wide range of experience at Miller for 5 years, Daniel now focuses on specialist kidnap and ransom insurance and commercial contingency products.

Torben Janholt, Chairman, Danish Shipowners` Assocation
1998 President & CEO of J. Lauritzen A/S, Copenhagen. 1995-98 Director, Ocean Transport, UN World Food Programme, Rome. 1992-95 Managing director, Mortensen & Lange, Copenhagen. 1991-92 President, Lauritzen Gasnaval, Madrid. 1989-91 Vice president, Lauritzen Reefers, Copenhagen. 1981-89 General Manager, Lauritzen (USA) Inc., New York. 1980-81 Chartering manager, J. Lauritzen A/S, Copenhagen.

Steven Jones, The Nautical Institute
For ten years Steven served as a navigation officer in the Merchant Navy, working on a number of vessel types, predominantly Cable Ships. During this time Steven was actually attacked by pirates, and as such has had long had an interest and involvement in maritime security issues.

After moving ashore into University, he eventually entered the field of maritime fraud investigations and security consulting, and has consequently advised many shipping companies on their security management and planning.

Steven then moved to the North of England P&I Association as Risk Management Executive providing security advice to Members, before taking his years of research, professional involvement and in-depth knowledge of the ISPS Code to produce, “Maritime Security”, published by the Nautical Institute. Other publications include “Shipboard Access Control”, "The Lloyd’s MIU Handbook of Maritime Security", as well as a new guide on “Hijack and Kidnap at Sea”.

He is a qualified Marine Surveyor and ISM Lead Auditor, and is a Member of the Nautical Institute, and Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.

Thokozani Kaime, Exclusive Analysis
Thoko is Head of Africa at Exclusive Analysis, responsible for the company’s analytical view on all countries within the region as well as their international relationships. Thoko has particular expertise in the energy sector and is part of a company consulting group for energy clients. Thoko has written extensively on Africa and human rights and has published numerous articles on children’s rights and international law in Africa. His work at a variety of human rights organizations in South Africa and as a law associate has complemented his academic work. Thoko holds an LLM from the University of Pretoria, an LLB from the University of Malawi and recently achieved his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Alex Kemp, Armor Group
Alex Kemp is the Operations Manager for Neil Young and Associates (NYA International) – one of the world’s leading specialist kidnap and extortion response consultancies and a division of G4S Risk Management. NYA International provides crisis management response (negotiation and advice) to clients facing incidents of kidnap, extortion, product extortion and contamination, piracy and ‘international problems’, including services for maritime anti-piracy transits through the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia. Alex has extensive experience in maritime security from his time as a Royal Marines Officer, where he specialised as a Landing Craft Officer, and more recently in the provision of anti-piracy services and project management of a maritime security task in West Africa. Having joined G4S in 2006, Alex has experience managing projects in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Chris Moore, Drum Cussac
Chris Moore is the Director of Maritime Operations for Drum Cussac with responsibility for the global maritime security portfolio. He previously served for twenty years with the Royal Marines, including ten years with the Special Boat Service (SBS). A graduate of the Joint Services Command and Staff College he subsequently served on the staff of the Directorate of Special Forces during the invasion of Iraq and retired from the military after commanding as SBS squadron. He is an expert in Maritime Counter-Terrorism and has helped to shape Drum Cussac's ever evolving approach to tackling piracy

Guy Morel, Secretary-General, Intermanager

Guy Morel has held senior management positions in ship owning and ship management companies since 1979. He is currently General Secretary of the International Ship Managers Association (InterManager) and is also an active Professor of Finance at the International University of Monaco.

Mr Morel is a past-President of the Monaco and New York-based MC Shipping International and prior to that was Vice President of Marketing and a Founder of the Monaco-based ship manager V.Ships. He is also a past-President of ISMA (the previously-named International Ship Managers Association).

Guy is an academic and, apart from his work at the University of Monaco where he teaches Corporate Finance, has taught extensively on the art of ship management. He attained an MSc Eng at the Ecole Centrale de Paris and was awarded an MBA at the Harvard Business School. He is on the boards of several offshore and US structured companies and is a member of various professional clubs and societies.

Pottengal Mukundan, International Maritime Bureau

After an initial career in the Merchant Navy, P Mukundan completed a BSc (Honours) Degree in Nautical Studies at Plymouth in 1979 and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme at the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom in 1981.

In 1981, he joined the ICC-International Maritime Bureau as an investigator. He has investigated numerous frauds around the world and has been involved in recovering losses and resolving contractual failures in shipping and trading.

In 1988, he was promoted to Assistant Director of the ICC-International Maritime Bureau and in February, 1996 he took over as Director.

In February, 1999, he became Director of the ICC-Commercial Crime Services, which is the commercial fraud arm of the International Chamber of Commerce, incorporating the ICC-International Maritime Bureau, the ICC-Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau, the ICC-Commercial Crime Bureau and the Cybercrime Unit.

He has written extensively on matters affecting commercial fraud and has spoken at a number of international conferences.

Giles Noakes,Chief Maritime Security Officer, BIMCO

Colonel Ramli H Nik, former Defence Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Malaysia to the United Nations

Chris Trelawny, Head of Maritime Security Section, IMO
Chris Trelawny is the Head of the Maritime Security Section of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) based in London. He joined IMO in March 2003.

As well as providing secretariat support to the IMO Committees, technical Sub-Committees and Working Groups, Chris is responsible for advising and liaising with IMO Member Governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations on maritime security, piracy and related issues; promulgating the Organization's maritime security policy; and conducting the IMO maritime security “Train-the-Trainer” programme. His recent projects have included the regional multi-agency meetings in Yemen, Oman, Trinidad, Senegal, Bahrain, Tanzania and most recently Djibouti, aimed at finding regional solutions for piracy and maritime security challenges; and liaison with UK, US and other navies on regional projects in Africa.

Before joining IMO, Chris spent six years with ICAO and four years with the UK Government in aviation security roles, and eight years with HM Customs in both aviation and maritime environments.