Introducing Breakbulk Europe Programme Advisory Board

Breakbulk Events & Media’s Content Team presents its Breakbulk Europe Program Advisory Board, an experienced and diverse roster of industry leaders providing representation of voices from key breakbulk and project cargo sectors.

The board members, with hundreds of years of industry experience among them, will shape and ensure the integrity of the content programme for Breakbulk Europe, which returns as a live, in-person event 17-19 May 2022 at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The programme advisory board’s 11 professions represent ports and terminals, marine transport, air transport, manufacturers, project freight forwarders, and industry associations. While diverse in sector, 45 percent of the board is represented in diversity of race and gender.

Returning after a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic, enthusiasm for Breakbulk Europe, the world's largest project cargo and breakbulk event, has reached new heights with many of the biggest names in the business committed to exhibiting at Rotterdam Ahoy.

For more than a decade, Breakbulk Europe has served as the networking hub for industry professionals who do business in Europe—or would like to! Exhibitors and sponsors include cargo owners, ocean carriers, freight forwarders, ports/terminals, heavy haulers, equipment companies and more that are involved in this specialised industry.

Below we introduce each board member, organised by industry sector, including background and selected comments from recent interviews.
 

Ports & Terminals

Simon Brett
Commercial Director
Port of Tyne

Bringing 30 years of experience within the maritime sector, Simon Brett’s career began with the Crown Estates and later Westminster Dredging, before joining Associated British Ports. As ABP Head of Projects, Simon led the Siemens Gamesa, Green Port Hull project, which totalled a combined investment of £310 million. Since joining Port of Tyne, Brett has led the port its next phase in developing a major hub for offshore energy, working to optimise on-site facilities, and ensuring they are ready for development. He is also dedicated to the development of the port for attracting and retaining leading bulk companies dealing with various commodities such as grain and wood pellet and specialist project cargo.

“The opportunities within the port sector are around increasing storage. The previous supply chain really did work on an almost just-in-time concept for a variety of cargoes. But the current situation has broken that JIT concept. It has put huge pressures on storage space within ports particularly. And we could sell our storage space many times over. We’ve also seen a shift away from the traditional deep seaports in the UK towards some of the more regional ports. And the Port of Tyne has benefitted from this.”

Danny Levenswaard
Director Breakbulk
Port of Rotterdam

Danny Levenswaard assumed the role of director for the Port of Rotterdam’s breakbulk department in April 2016. Employed at the port since 1992, he is able to draw on a great deal of relevant experience. After several roles in Human Resources, he worked for nine years as Senior Business Manager Shipping (Bulk & Shipping) and prior to that served as Business Development Manager Industry & Bulk at the port’s commercial department. Levenswaard’s ambitions match the efforts of the Port Authority to develop the port of Rotterdam into the leading breakbulk port of Northwest Europe.
 

Maritime Transport

Carsten Wendt
Head of Sales - High & Heavy and Breakbulk 
Wallenius Willhelmsen

Carsten Wendt studied international transport management at Germany’s University of Applied Sciences Oldenburg/Ostfriesland/Wilhelmshaven, as part of which he spent six months studying international shipping and logistics at Hong Kong Polytechnic. Wendt went on to a position as team leader for key accounts and projects at Rickmers-Line from 2007 to 2014. Since 2014, he has managed high and heavy and breakbulk sales for Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean’s German branch, located in Bremen. 

“The topic which is on everyone’s mind is certainly capacity … which is related to freight rates. Because I think everyone is concerned about for projects that have been sold already that need to move right now. People worry that the rate you budgeted for may not be valid anymore. Will you be able to limit your cost exposure, will you be able to deliver your project within your given budget? The other part of that, transportation costs, could force the decision of whether a project will run or will not run.”

Marko Stampehl
Global Head of Marketing and PR
BBC Chartering

Marko Stampehl joined BBC Chartering in Leer, Germany in January 2021 as Global Head of Marketing & Public Relations. He began his career in the breakbulk and multipurpose sector in sales and customer service with Rickmers-Line in Duesseldorf, Germany in 1996. In 2003 Stampehl relocated to Hamburg and took over the role of the company’s Marketing and Public Relations Manager. In July 2019 he left Rickmers-Line to join a specialist publisher in the ferry and roll-on, roll-off sector as Production Manager and Editor. A forwarding agent by profession, Stampehl received his degree of a Bachelor Professional in Transport Economics and Organization at the Chamber of Commerce in Duesseldorf in 2001.

“With the big container shortage, I’ve been asked several times already whether we would consider (carrying containers) long term. There’s a clear signal from us that, no this is not our core business. It’s a phase we’re happy to participate in and help our shipper friends for that shortage, but on the long-term basis everybody knows what will happen as container capacity returns to normal. Then the cycle will continue on the other side, and there’s not enough room for carriers like us.”

Susan Oatway
Senior Analyst, Multipurpose & Breakbulk Shipping
Drewry

Susan Oatway joined Drewry Shipping Consultants in 1997 after spending eight years in senior planning and commercial roles with P&O Bulk Shipping. With Drewry, she has extensive experience working for customers in the shipping and maritime fields, including shipping companies, financial institutions and other institutional clients or advisors. This work covers a wide spectrum including market studies, valuations and strategic planning. She is Editor of Drewry’s Multipurpose Shipping Forecaster Report and contributes to Drewry’s Reefer Shipping Report. She provides advice to other team members on all aspects of dry bulk shipping. Oatway holds a BSc in Combined Sciences and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, where she was the first female International Chairperson of ICS from 2019 to 2021. She regularly lectures on dry cargo chartering to students wishing to take the Institute’s qualifying exams.

“I think there might be certain amount of back to basics. One of the things about this supply chain issue has been this point about breakbulk cargoes actually moving back to traditional shipping. And at what point will supply chain change so that it will move the other way back into containers? I think that it’s quite important how the container carriers are now seeing breakbulk and project cargo, because they put a lot of effort and a lot of investment into how they carry breakbulk, how they put project cargo onto their ships, how they stuff containers with steel pipe and all sorts of other things that would not traditionally have moved in a container.”

Air Transport

Ekaterina Andreeva
Commercial Director
Volga-Dnepr

Ekaterina Andreeva has since 2012 held various roles at Volga-Dnepr Airlines, the world leader in oversize and super-heavy cargo air transportation. In her current role, she is responsible for business development, sales, key account management and customer service of the airline globally. Andreeva is based in London, UK.

“I think the pandemic served as an eye-opener for nations, countries and governments, who became aware of the importance of air cargo and uninterrupted supply chains. I think no one thought much of air cargo prior to Covid. And then people realized it’s a very important part of the transport sector. We did a lot of projects in the pandemic which really helped to reopen the world and make the world a safer place.”
 

Manufacturers

Thomas Sender Mehl
Director, Global Sales & Operations Planning and Supply Chain Excellence
KK Wind Solutions

Thomas Sender Mehl has held several leading positions within logistics, transport and research and development within the leading renewable original equipment manufacturers for more than 20 years. He has been responsible for delivering modalised transport and constructions equipment for the largest wind turbines in the world leading global engineers and suppliers/developers to ensure both technical and commercial solutions that reduce cost and complexity in the complete value chain, most recently with A.P. Møller Holding A/S-owned KK Wind Solutions A/S. He also does occasional lectures in LEAN and reducing cost and complexity in the full supply chain.

Ruediger Fromm
Head of Logistics - Transmission Solutions
Siemens Energy Global

Rüdiger Fromm is the Head of Logistics at Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG. Rüdiger has worked at Siemens for the past 13 years, joining as the Head of Department Transport Logistics in May 2008. Since then, he has worked in logistics roles in Germany, the US and Denmark covering different business units including Wind Power and Fossil Power, among others. In his current role as Head of Logistics, he has global responsibility for end-to-end project logistics for the project and solution business of the Transmission Solution business unit. Before joining Siemens, he worked in many special and heavy transport roles. 
 

Associations

Sue Terpilowski OBE
Press Officer, WISTA International; Director, Image Line
Co-chair, Diversity in Maritime Taskforce, Maritime UK, WISTA UK

Sue Terpilowski started Image Line Communications more than 33 years ago and it has become one of the leading specialist public relations, marketing and visual event agencies in the logistics, freight, ports, material handling and supply chain sectors. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) and is Public Affairs and Policy Chair, and is also Vice Chair of their Ports, Maritime and Waterways Sector Group. Terpilowski is also Director of Image Line, Press Officer for WISTA International, a Co-Chair of Maritime UK’s Diversity Taskforce, Chair of its Women’s Task Group, and one of three leaders for the EU Maritime Women project. She is also a member of Women in Logistics and Women in Transport. 

Christel Pullens
President, WISTA Netherlands
Managing Director, Sea Ranger Service 

Christel Pullens started her career at a Belgian shipyard 24 years ago, and has loved the international maritime industry ever since. Closing contracts and executing projects for inland and oceangoing vessels of nearly all types in more than 60 countries, she built her technical and commercial project knowledge over the years. As Managing Director for the Sea Ranger Service, a social enterprise offering zero-emission solutions to deliver offshore services, she works with purpose-built offshore sailing work vessels and offers young adults a learning/working experience via a unique method, and aims to be at the forefront of pioneering clean solutions to build a sustainable blue economy. A strong believer in diversity, she serves as President of WISTA The Netherlands, where she contributes to the careers of women in the industry.

“There are a lot of opportunities out there, and the young people we are trying to attract are holding the best cards for that. Because I think to resolve some of the really big issues that we have at the moment, we need more radical thinking. Working with young people I see that they have no boundaries there. They’re not used to the way we’ve always done it, so to attract them to our industry, make them contribute actively to solutions or the issues that we’re facing. That’s the biggest opportunity.”
 

Project Freight Forwarding

Tim Killen
Executive Vice President
deugro group

Tim Killen joined deugro Group in 2012. Since 2017, he has been a member of the executive board, responsible for the global strategic industry sales activities. He has more than 25 years of experience working on capital projects in various senior management capacities. He is based in London, United Kingdom.

“As shipping costs continue to increase, with volatility and unpredictability for freight capacity in all modes of transport now being the new normal, this has impacted every aspect of the global supply chain, not only in high value and complex energy projects to retail and manufacturing sectors. An increase in costs, lack of vessel capacities and increasing logistics demand will impact global inflation levels for future years.”