The Wavemakers Podcast

Jet Skis, Green Fuels & Global Trade! A Life in Logistics with Gary Hubbard

• BetterSea • Season 2 • Episode 7

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In this episode of The Wavemakers Podcast, we dive into the fascinating career of Gary Hubbard, a seasoned logistics leader who transitioned from directing major global supply chains to driving the adoption of green fuels in maritime. With experience spanning continents, cultures, and industries, Gary shares how his journey through P&O Nedlloyd, Maersk, DHL, and beyond shaped his perspective on supply chains, sustainability, and the future of shipping.

🌍 From his unexpected first assignment in China to his deep involvement in decarbonization efforts in the Middle East, Gary reflects on the evolution of global trade, the need for resilient logistics, and why the maritime industry is slow—but inevitable—in its transition to cleaner energy. We also explore the role of culture in shaping industry mindsets, the challenges of FuelEU compliance, and what fuels (literally and figuratively) the next wave of change.

🏝️ On a lighter note, we uncover Gary’s ultimate retirement dream (spoiler: it involves jet skis and a beach) and his take on why embracing change is the key to success.

If you're interested in the future of maritime logistics, sustainable fuels, and how global experiences shape leadership, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!

🎧 Tune in now and don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe!

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🌐 Website: www.bettersea.tech
📩 Contact for suggestions and collaborations: gordana.ilic@bettersea.tech
🔗 Connect with Gary Hubbard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-hubbard
🔗 Connect with Gordana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordanailicphd/

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• Follow us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BetterSea

📩 Have questions or comments? Feel free to reach out via email at gordana.ilic@bettersea.tech

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Wavemakers Podcast where we feature the stories of the leaders at the intersection of the martime decarbonization and digital transformation. Usually people talk about the companies the roles but here we want to take a little bit of a different view and listen to their personal journeys and what drives them. My guest today has held multiple director roles in some of the largest logistics companies and then transitioned to supply green fuel for them so today please join me in welcoming Gary Hubbard. Gordana thank you thank you for having me. Thank you for joining and usually I did do a quick uh intro and then I ask you to share how you see yourself. oh Thank you're asking the wrong person you should have invited my wife she is the best person to tell you how uh how anybody sees me um I guess yeah I mean the most important thing I think is to be uh you know to be a husband 25 years we've been married now this year um to be a father of two sons which uh I think you should always be proud of your children wherever they are whatever they do um I think you know from a from a career perspective I've been Fair fortunate you know I'm I'm British by birth I grew up in England um and that's where we took our education and that's where we started our careers you know I was I was very fortunate in the early uh portions of my career to work for what companies are now Market leaders so in the logistics industry for the likes of DHL before they were DHL um in the maritime industry um the he days of P&O Nedlloyd in in London um before we became AP Moller - Maersk, a heritage I think we both probably share yeah um so yeah I mean and when you work for for global organizations um you get to travel a lot you get to experience a lot of different cultures meet a lot of great people who become friends over your life and I think how you see yourself is possibly a reflection of how thefriendship groups around you and the journey you've been on and I think at the end of the day if you're happy and where you are at any point in time that's got to be a good thing Yes uh when you now were sharing about that I also know that you worked in majority of the contents of the world and probably you share this experience where I found myself learning about myself through different cultures and by being exposed to different countries their cultures their habits different ways of how people interact and react and that made me every time question some of my beliefs and inherited beliefs and that was a fun journey. It's very true you know I think um I always used to say that you know having a family we lived in in the villages in the small parts of England but we worked in the cities and those cities could be New York they could be Shanghai they could be Beijing they could be Constantinople they could be anywhere in the world and I think when you you know when you work for an organization that that gives you the benefit of a global role for a corporate head office and and effectively send you out on project to to North America to South America to South Africa um the People You Meet the cultures you become exposed to they shape you yeah and I think they give you a great a great tolerance uh which you don't always see um these days to to be honest I think they give you a good appreciation of the global scale and the impact the maritime industry has the supply chain industry has uh the impact we have on the environment and all of these things kind of you know bring me I suspect to where I am now in the Middle East. Usually I also ask people okay what was your journey into shipping for you it was not directly but then it it wasn't you're right I mean I I did I standed I started out in in uh in manufacturing and supply chain so traditionally warehousing and distribution on a a domestic level than a European level and I I recall my my first day at P&O Nedlloyd in London in in what was then beagle house and they had employed me to bring landbased logistics skills to the international maritime supply chain as many organizations were doing in the in the early 2000s and um they had said in the first few months we'll keep you in Europe that's what you're very familiar with this is where we have a weakness you can support us in our growth I walked in the day in the office on day one and a lovely young lady took my passport and I assumed it was to register me in their systems um 5 days later I it came back to me with a a Chinese visa in it and on Monday she said you're going to China! So well forgive me my geography is not strong but that's that's not in Europe is it and that was it you know that that's really where it began I you know I recall we we flew into Hong Kong on a very late flight ran through the airport to get what used to be called Dragon air which is really showing my age now um a flight to to Shanghai and I spent the next fortnite in in Shanghai been completely immersed in early 2000s China when that was such a a passionate and and again a heady atmosphere to to to to be accepted into the maritime industry with Port tours and um you know going on to vessels and meeting clients who had way much more knowledge about the maritime supply chain than I did at that time um but that was my first dipping my toes in the maritime ocean that was where it began mhm and how was that moment for you and I think that China was still at that point relatively closed um and getting to become more acceptive of Internationals coming and I think that was this first wave then when they were bringing International people it it it really was and I think what I what I loved about the welcome I received in in those you know in those early days as this relatively young relatively naive um young man who hadn't really been much further than Europe other than you know for vacation um was that they were so accepting of the concepts you know Europe was a very mature Logistics infrastructure whereas Asia really really wasn't and again it was in those those early days and which I'm not actually proud of now if if I'm honest with you but it was in those early days of of international offshoring everybody wanted a new pair of David Beckham's football boots they wanted a new T-shirt they wanted a new Armani suit and of course these things were being made in Asia being put into container ships being moved three quarts way around the world to be sold in our high streets so now I look at that and think we were creating you know that the environmental challenges we've got now we were a significant part of encouraging people to do that um but at the time it really was about streamlining supply chains speed to Market launches of new products how the maritime supply chain could support that cost effectively robustly it was a really really exciting time and I you know I I don't regret a single moment of those those days in Asia um again the energy that that generated is kind of what the Middle East has now it's that same Innovation that same energy um um that unfortunately many parts of the world just don't seem to have anymore and uh was there any interesting moment uh an interesting lesson or advice that you learned at that point that you remembered later on yeah I mean I think things I learned were the obvious ones how to use chopsticks something I'm very proud of to this day things I tried to learn but never mastered was how to get the meat out of a crab um you know Shanghai crab being one of the the the Delicacies um certainly then and now and I could never master that that's for sure um yeah I I I think what what amazed me the most was the different cultures you know we had a lot of austral Asians um from both New Zealand and and Mainland Australia Mainland Australia in Asia at that time um because clearly that was the nearest almost semi- westernized market so I think you know working with those cultures which can be very direct very honest um very forthright in their opinions for a a you know reason be Reserve British person that can be a moment of shock um I have to say I you know you have to embrace these things I think it gives you it gives you Clarity of discussion um and it it it allows things to move at a pace which again supports the excitement um you're not you're not dancing you're running um but you're running together and you're all to the same ambition the same aim the same Target that you're all trying to achieve so I think you know if anything it was the acceptance of those cultures and also the acceptance of you know of mainland China of more mature Shanghai China of Hong Kong China of um you know of Singapore in all the region around there and how they were so hungry to learn how other parts of the world have made a success of what they did um and so receptive to your ideas you know even when you may have not been always 100% sure their confidence actually helped mhm yeah and what do you think was your superpower when it comes to entering all these different markets and industries that are considered to be quite rough and not easy to work with yeah I I think that's that's a really interesting one and you know you end up being self-critical I think if you look at what you wasn't good at in in those younger years listening was never a strength mhm um so I think that's something you certainly had to develop and not just from the linguistic perspective where you had to understand um I remember going to to Japan and I spent a lot of time in Japan in those early years and it was a very difficult business environment for a young man to be in um when I go back now with gray hair that's absolutely fine respect comes with with age um but then you know you could have the the the right ideas the brightest ideas the most innovative solutions but unless you'd commanded the respect of the one gentleman in the room that very rarely said anything um nothing would move forward so I think you know you you you you learn to listen for sure but I think also you need to be tenacious and never give up mhm you know if you believe in something and your your moral compass there I say is strong and it continues to Point North then having that tenacity to see it through having that stubbornness I suspect it would also be called um I not everybody may say so but I think a little bit of stubbornness is it's not a bad thing I sometimes also reflect on the industry overall it's a it's almost like they they are pushing you to train you to see okay are you still around and then you get a little bit of a nudge and you're still there okay then a little bit more you're still there and eventually it's like like okay you earned your spot and let's see what we can do with you because there is that grit necessary also for the industry and again it comes from the past in all these if we speak about logistics Maritime petrochemical industry there I find similarities among them yeah it does and I think that was one most crystallized for me when you know around about 2005 um you know the there was a big consolidation of many of the shipping lines through those years and you know AP Moller - Maersk who at the time were one of our our major competitors in organizations um they bought P&O Nedlloyd you know and it was huge headlines and um as a management team we were invited to Copenhagen to begin the integration um and of course people were very worried yeah you know they worri for their jobs for their livelihoods for their careers who are these people um we are not the same people as they are um there was lots of possibly correct um assumptions and but many incorrect assumptions and I think coming from a a very entrepreneurial organization as as Nedlloyd certainly was it was the Anglo Dutch um way of working together into a very systematic very process driven uh machine such as was those early days were quite I think challenging on both sides and I'd like to say that again the tenaciousness the stubbornness of not only myself but many of the team I think ultimately softened some of the edges yeah of of the big blue Maritime machine made it more personable made it more uh interacting with its clients um which it perhaps never help the need to be before and and it's you know many many people would say the same as what I would say when you would go into a room with with colleagues new colleagues you would introduce yourself but following the introduction yourself it would be I am ex-Sealand I am ex-S&P and and that became almost a a character part of your character um Maersk as you know very very data-driven logical indexes personality profiling again that can tend to put people in boxes that they may never get out of and I think certainly many of us at the senior level try to support the idea that you know a square Peg can fit in a round hole providing it supported and and I think you know as a learning that's good that's good in life to not always pigeon hole people in in one area when they've got so many different facets you may not not know anything about at all until you actually give them the chance to expose himself give them the chance to fail within a controlled environment I also did observe and I was told stories when I joined mcow also when they started hiring tech people that affected the culture of the company quite a lot and yeah it is another example when some of these uh instances when companies are merged or where there's like a large number of people from certain company joining it really changes things up and challenges it and sometimes it's always uh rough in the at the beginning right they stir things up but then when it settles I believe that the number of perspectives that come together and that diversity then really makes a nice quality work no it does and you know I don't I don't think you get to be my age in in in the industry I'm in without having gone through several Acquisitions um you know ocean group into eventually DHL help you know into into United Arab shipping the the flagship um shipping line for the Middle East in tapac um I work for a small for that became DSV I managed a shipping line in in Egypt that became uh Abu Dhabi ports so I think you you see many similarities in success and many similarities in in the perception of what will fail depending how people approach those Integrations um I wouldn't change it I wouldn't change it for the world I will now switch it up to a little bit uh lighter topic um if you were a best vessel, which vessel would you be in way do you know I think that's a really interesting one and I don't know if this qualifies but I'm going to I'm going to stick with what my heart tells me I always had um I always had a a dream that one day when I retire whenever that may be that I will find a small piece of beach somewhere somewhere warm I like to be in the warmth and I would just sit there with a bundle of jet skis and just let passes by use them and just spend my day watching people having fun on a small amphibious vessel to a better term that you know they're fast they're Nimble they love being in crowds around you know groups of skis together with groups of people on you never see anybody with a frown on when they're on a jet ski scared yes but full of energy you know full of smiles you're that close to the water you know you're you're cruising through that water you're splashing off the waves you know they have the ability to get into places larger vessels can't get they have the ability to lead the way um so yeah whether it's a vessel or not I don't know but I'd be a jet ski definitely that's a fun and an answer that I haven't had before Oh we like to do things differently it also suits the previous conversation how you enjoyed the Dynamics of Asia and also here so I think so that's that's quite fun how do you see the industry changing now with the aspect of decarbonization all right you know if I didn't enjoy change and wish to be part of change and drive change and possibly see change um you wouldn't be in this industry you know you wouldn't be in logistics you wouldn't be in supply chain you wouldn't be in the maritime industry at all you know I think that you see we don't see enough young people coming into the industry that's just a fact that's just a given I was at conference this week at the Middle Eastern bunkering Conference and yes there was a smattering of of younger faces 20 somethings um wide-eyed um but it was still by far a dark suited white shirted environment um and that's a shame it means we failed it means we failed to to you know to encourage the youth to come into the industry to see the to see the fund that you can have to see the people you can meet to see the horizons you will cross you know I think again this the many of the organizations have now integrated with other organizations there are less opportunities possibly but much larger organizations which means it's probably a you know I think you mentioned a moment ago more costeffective staff recruiting happens which isn't always um you know in in in more mature parts of the world it can be in the you know in the third world it can be in the the lower cost countries and a lot of back officing which then takes away the the the touch and the feel of the industry but also of the client and let's not forget without the client there is no industry there's no requirement for shipping vessels or airplanes or warehouses or trucks without a you know a manufacturer somewhere along the line to actually make that produce and he's moving as I explained to my four-year-old child when he came home from school once or from preschool what do you do Daddy I I move boxes around like Lego no not not quite like Lego no

difficult we had well we Max and I had a discussion about this and it was a topic also in each of the podcasts that I've done recently and I do think it it's a matter of visibility but back to the discussion with Max we were saying that this is one of the few Industries where you can really travel everywhere and it's the easiest to relocate it's just the nature of work as well often because it's such a global business and we now travel quite a lot because you had you have to and it's wonderful to be able to somehow along the way experience uh much it's very true and and I think you know if I look at just a handful of years when when covid closed the world effectively and people were starting to embrace um teams uh blue jeans Zoom um and I I would smile as people say do you know how to use this we've had these applications in our on our phones on our computers for 10 or 15 years because if you travel globally you are still working the work does not disappear just because you're on an airplane to somewhere or you're in a hotel room or you're bouncing between meetings so you know that International Way of of communicating and and collaborating both internally and externally was always a way of living you that was always part of that and I have say even after all these years you know I still I don't travel as much as I used to because again my my environmental bone Twitches a lot with I if I travel too much uh whereas it never used to but I still do enjoy it I still do get excited about it and I and again I see it in my family my my eldest son's just about to start his his role Post University and instead of starting straight away so I'd like to go traveling and my instant reaction was no start your career you know get your foot on the ladder but for if I don't do it now I'm I'm never going to do it so he went to South America for four months I mean and he came back with some wonderful stories and pictures and and new friendships made and his existing friends that came with him do you know what even at my age I'm happy to be wrong I was so wrong he was so correct so yeah we're very privileged to be able to travel through work yes yeah through work very privileged so I assume that he's not taking up a career in shipping no he's uh he's going into banking with UBS okay so um yeah he has the brains of the of the of the family clearly maybe he he will get to sponsor some of the green projects maybe maybe yeah maybe and how do you uh see the industry in this region of Middle East I you know if I was passionate about Asia in the 2000s um there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be right here in as we hit sort of 2025 and onwards um there was a time when the Middle East was considered a backwater from a business perspective if you wasn't in North America or in Mainland Asia or in in Europe then nothing else in the world matters and I think the Middle East tried so very hard to get a seat at that table until one day it woke up and it realized the table isn't big enough to have the Middle East sitting at it so it built its own table and now everybody else wants a table at the seat to the Middle East table so you know all of those passion all of those energies all of those learnings that we've seen over the last 25 years in not only in in international Transportation but now in um in the environmental push they're coming from here um and I I say that bizar as it may sound but having having lived in the Middle East for the last 11 years having you know um watch my children grew up here for the last 11 years when I looked to the finan sector to see how they're changing the finance sector is driven by the Middle East when I looked to some of the most successful companies in the world Saudi Aramco is a great example it's driven by the Middle East When I Look to decarbonization vision 2030 vision you know driven by the PF and and MBS in Saudi Arabia the vision for for Dubai as well vision 20s 50s they are pushing the environment so heavily in almost everything they do legislatively but also in support of organizations you know who who would have thought 20 years ago that you know there' be um a biofuel company the largest biofuel refinery now in the Middle East in Saudi Arabia yeah in in Jabale literally delivering pure Net Zero biofuel almost zero carbon emission not blended untouched by any other material than than a waste stream collected in country for a product delivered delivered in country for offshore power generation for off grid power generation for vessels for for trucks you know who would have even perceived that we have countries all over the world that don't even have that they're still diluting their biofuels with a standard fossil diesel for whatever reasons they they wish to come up with so no I I you know I think that the I won NE say the power because it's not about the power but certainly the vision and the ability to deliver on those Visions is what makes living and and work in the Middle East such an exciting place and anybody that that we ever visits here on or even this week at conference um they don't wish to go back to the airplane they don't wish to to head back to their home countries um and it's not just the sunshine it's the business environment yes including some of us that I shared that extended the stay I think it's it's just conducive to success um you know I I'd lived in in Denmark for a few years with when I was with APM and and I was talking to a a gentleman yesterday and he was saying that um not only in Denmark and Scandinavian and certainly I know from the UK that the success is not always rewarded it's not supported it's not um it's not seen as a positive um in the Middle East it is seen as positive you can still be humble and successful there's nothing there is nothing wrong with that at all it does not need to be uh to be showy um but people will support you applaud you for being successful and if your business successful you're making other people successful mhm you know we are helping to decarbonize um the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia just by what we do which is a great thing in them achieving uh their Vision so yeah it's it's a it's a great place to be and do you see uh the higher uptake I would assume yes and I would assume that there's a tilting Point towards the positive update of biofuels due to the regulations yeah we do I think the um the regulatory frame Frameworks you have to work within clearly and and you know the thing with any FuelEU as you'd recognize is compliance um and we spent a lot of time at conferences we're talking about compliance talking about um uh governance and meeting not only existing regulations but the new regulations uh you know the IMO came out in 2020 with Maritime regulations they refreshed them this year from January we have FuelEU year we have Fit for 55 um and again some of the numbers I'm hearing on the the fines on the tariffs that that ship owners or Charters will receive by sailing into European Waters especially with non-compliant fuel um they're frightening you know that the numbers are frightening and and that I can say that in a in an industry there's a multi-billion dollar industry these fines and tariffs are significant and the you know the point I think we most of us made and and not just in biofuels but in LNG in ammonia in all of the the alternative fuels that are available is that the maritime class systems have approved them the maritime flag states have approved them the Registries have approved them the OEM um engine manufacturers have approved them why are people not using them as much as they could be using them there is still a gap between approvals legislations

I won't say availability because anybody knows the industry knows that they are pretty much available in quantity in most places in the world where they're required but something is holding them back and I'm not quite sure I know the answer to what that is not at this point anyway and we also engage with some of the ship owners that have high exposure to penalties and they're not using biofuels and they said no we're not using them it's not in our plan we haven't tested I do think it's a cultural fear of new and fear of not knowing how to handle the unknown yeah I think it's it's almost more than that and you know as positive and passionate as I am about the maritime industry change is just like a very old vessel it steams in a straight line forever it takes an eternity to change course but once it changes course it sticks on its new course and I think for the maritime industry um the wakeup call is this year you know the tariffs are now in place this year there are mitigating factors there are vessel pooling there are carbon credits there's many different um aspects by way they can look to mitigate some of these tariffs but I think if any ship owner or charterer believes that they can operate as they did in 2024 without any change to their their fueling regime um and not be um subject to some of these tariffs then they're absolutely fooling themselves and I would say more than that if they don't wish to do it for the environment I guarantee you their customers will will push them to do it you know we worked very successfully for many years with the likes of Ikea the likes of Proctor & Gamble you know real organizations that that are bought into sustainability at a very very senior level and these are also the ones that going to to a Maersk to a CMA to a DHL um and signing long-term contracts with them for first move advantage for sustainable aviation fuel for biofuel or HVO for their vehicles for a maritime B30 blend for their container ships so it's like anything isn't it if you don't Embrace change if you don't support what's going forward whether you believe in the environmental impact or not Commerce will leave you behind m your customers will walk away from you yeah and that would be the saddest cuz some great companies out there and also being able to see the opportunity in such moments of shifts and if you had a crystal ball what would you think the industry will look like towards 2050 if you were to paint a picture and it's okay if it's not realistic I I I would be sitting on my beach looking at my jet skis running on biofuel just to be clear and watching the the the the the vessels passing in the in the background no I don't know um somebody asked me a very similar question the other evening on on a panel and part of what we do isn't just fuel it's education and often it's educating businesses and companies into options but a lot of it these days is working with universities so we work with the universities we offer them tours of the refinery we go in and talk to them at at plenary sessions and we try to instill that sort of energy into them that we have and there is more energy in the environmental space I think than any other industry at the moment people who are in it want to be in it for the right reasons they care profusely about it and they really want to make change for the right reasons not to make their share owners potentially more money but to support the environmental challenges that that we've all you know seen and feel in many instances um so I think you know 2030 and beyond The Generation which is beyond me and is smarter than me and and has more passionate than I am even if that's possible um they will come and they will help to fix some of the problems that we've created and we've started to fix them um and I think by 30 it'll be widespread adoption of some of the fuels that people call alternative now they will be standard but I think as you go to 24, 40 and 2050 there'll be ideas that that we've just never even considered a gentleman said to to me yesterday you know uh nuclear nuclear is a great way um to power vessels and and and I had to say to him you you must remember that my generation we grew up with uh with green pieace we grew up with Chernobyl we grew up with uh the remnant of Heroshima nuclear was was completely frowned on as unsafe and and as bad is the worst of climate change now of course technology has changed governance has changed transparency has changed um with a view to that as a potential Fuel and he may be 100% right that in 50 years from now all vessels are run on nuclear he may be absolutely right and they be perfectly safe and in some respects I hope it will because it is a proven technology that we all know about we just need to make sure the safety guidelines were in place I asked this question because I I'm curious to look back and see how how close we we've gotten to that and now stepping away from work work work can we have it yes how how do you perform at some of these executive roles as well and also in an industry that never stops yeah but how do you find a way to reset and maybe detach from it what's the best way to do it you know I I think we're you know we're quite simple folks in general I think it's an obvious one but your family are your bedrock and certainly for me without without the support that i' I've had from my wife over the last 25 years is's never I'd be able to do what I've been able to achieve to you know to work and live in different countries to be away from home for weeks at a time um it would just be impossible so you know I think that's that's always the place where you go when you need to recharge I think as a family we we like to do things together um you know we like to ski together we like to Holiday together um we like to spend time doing things together I was fortunate enough to be a a football coach when I was younger and took my Badges and and again seeing those young children the little eyes lighting up as you're teaching them new things as they're learning new things as they're building relationships with each other but also with other parents you know which is it's quite difficult for children growing up to actually be able to an adult um you know I think all of those things were were great in in distressing in relaxing us in resetting us is what I would say um because I think if you can get you know just one day a week where you can reset yourself um and I'm a huge believer in people taking the holidays and and switching off which is very very difficult we know to do um you just come back with so much more power so much more energy so much more creativity so yeah I I think you know doing things with the with the people that you love and who love you doing things with the people that care about you and and consense when you're on the edge of your frazzle um you know there can't be anything better than that sounds like a very close knitted and very enriching uh environment I I think also you know when you when you're in a different country which you didn't grow up in you don't have necessarily your immediate family um um Therefore your friendship groups become your family you know everybody would say the you know and if you have an expert friendship group some of those friendships are stronger than the ones you made in school in University in you know in your early years and again you know one of the things of the Middle East that I found in in you know working here since 2000 but living here since 2014 is it's absolutely right your friends do become your family and they're always there to support you when you're not if you're out of country you know if something happens um you've got this network of people who ultimately are strangers when you first meet them um and again they absorb some of the the challenges in your life they help you to get over their speed bumps and again they come with different cultures different experiences different recommendations things that you would never necessarily hear growing up in your own small portion of the world so we're very lucky very lucky uh I can relate this also as I was moving just because of the new experiences no one at home can relate to that and then these people understands the understand the emotions the challenges and not necessarily just professionally but even personally as you're adapting to each of these places and trying to figure it out so I can relate to that most of Mel friends very much sir came from very much at this point I would like to pass you the microphone with the questions and uh we can experience how it feels to ask questions and be interviewed I like the idea of this okay all right so one one question magic wand okay okay you have a magic wand in your right hand and you have the maritime industry in front of you mhm what would you wish for to change today I would wish that people start open ly taking out their side projects from the drawers and side thoughts on how things could be improved that have been waiting there for 10 15 years and just put them all out on some large table that they can accommodate uh that can accommodate everyone and they just like talk through it and figure out multiple sets of great Solutions and to open the mind of how this can happen and how can we enable it more because I do think that there's still a lot of um kind of like Risk focused discussions and just like with everything else if we always focus on the problems then we will see more of them and I would love that okay we have now taken this whole bag of how can what can go wrong but I would love them to focus on okay how can we make it right what's necessary to change in order to make this work and uh in my previous role when I was driving Innovation I think eventually after pushing for different Technologies I realized that the key to success was creating this environment when people feel psychologically safe that it's okay to bring their ideas to challenge some ideas and to Foster this team spirit of okay how can we achieve this and it's okay to be very ambitious love that I absolutely love that yeah I think I think you're absolutely right I mean some of the best ideas come from the team members yeah and to to have that I guess old school we the suggestion the suggestion box you know but to be able to offer those up in a in a in a in a environment of comfort without criticism with Just Praise um and you know you can imagine that you've come up with that idea and it actually comes for fruition I mean how how wonderful is that for the individual that that came up with that idea to begin with no no matter how beneficial it may be overall to the business great wish great wish yes I do think that in their sketches there's so much experience and sometimes people think well it's just something I was thinking about but there are years of experience that constitute this drawing and I would love people to believe their ideas more brilliant very good thank you for being my guest today and I hope we get to meet again and in sometime uh have a similar conversation again my pleasure Gordana thank you very much for having me

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