A master mariner and a committed proponent of the maritime users’ perspective, Rear Admiral Nick Lambert concluded a long naval operational career as the UK National Hydrographer in December 2012. He advises on a wide range of maritime issues including the growing potential of the blue economy concept, the importance of spatial data infrastructures and hydrography for maritime economies, the evolution of eNavigation and GNSS vulnerability, near or real time situational awareness (especially that derived from space based assets and applications), human factors, and training and education in the maritime sector. He has a particular interest in the Polar Regions and is also engaged in a variety of situational awareness, marine autonomous systems and vessel efficiency projects.

Matt has been working within digital technology for over 20 years and has worked in the shipping industry for the last 16, leading global digital and IT organisations within Odfjell, and more recently leading the commercial maritime digital platform team at Kongsberg Digital. He came to Grieg Star in 2018, bringing his background of business process innovation both as a shipping professional and as a technology supplier & innovator. He is educated with Bachelor of Sciences degree (Sunderland University) focusing on Environmental science and sustainable development. Matt is board member of ScanReach, a Maritime IoT startup based in Bergen, Norway as well in Grieg Logistics.

Giampiero Soncini started his maritime career in 1971 by joining the Italian Navy. Promoted officer in 1972, he then graduated in Electrical Engineering at Pisa University with the second ever thesis in Italy on Optical Fibers, in 1979. From 1979 to 1985 he was involved in the construction of the “Maestrale” Class Frigates, the first Navy ships in the world to have a fully computerized Machinery Control Room. He served on one of the vessels as Chief Engineer/Electrical. In 1986 he left the Italian Navy to join NATO Undersea Research Centre, dedicated to Anti-Submarine Warfare. He was involved in the construction of RV Alliance, nicknamed “the ship of silence”, at the time the most advanced and quietest ship ever built, and the first one in the world to have a commercial GPS and a fully Integrated Navigation System.

In 1989 Mr. Soncini became responsible for the technical management of the vessel, until 1998, when he resigned from NATO to become the Managing Director of SpecTec Italy.

Between 1998 and 2005 he opened or managed several South European offices, as VP South Europe; he later became VP Sales worldwide. In 2005 he became CEO of the SpecTec Group. From 2005 to 2012, he managed the Group growth from 9 offices and 135 employees, to 26 offices in 19 countries and over 330 employees. In 2011 he received a Honoris Cause degree in Public Administration by the US Massachusetts Maritime University. In 2012, Volaris Group of Canada bought SpecTec Group. In 2016, Volaris decided to further invest in the Marine IT business and created a new Marine Division, with Mr. Soncini as Managing Director.

Peter Sand joined BIMCO in 2009 and holds the position of Chief Shipping Analyst. In this position, he is responsible for analysing the commercial markets for dry bulkers, tankers and containerships. Taking the offset in global economics as the analytical starting point for all seaborne trade, he assists managements, members and clients with insight into many different aspects of the global shipping industry.

Peter’s regular reports, focused analytical articles and insightful comments on the shipping market are widely read and have often been referenced in global mainstream media.

Teacher of Maritime Economics at the Danish Shipping Academy as well as guest lecturer at Copenhagen Business School - Blue MBA and Shipping bachelor.

During the rise and fall of the shipping markets Peter gained experience in the fields of shipping analysis, executive assistance, caretaking of investors and the art of transforming data and statistics into overviews and forecasts. Prior to his career in BIMCO, he worked for the dry bulk and product tanker company D/S NORDEN. Peter holds a Master’s Degree in economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Tom Erling Hansen has double engineering degrees in Telecom and IT from the Royal Norwegian Air Force complemented with a Master’s degree in Business administration and Management from the Norwegian Business School.

He has worked with Maritime applications and communication for more than two decades and has extensive international experience from working and living in several key maritime hubs including Dubai, Oslo, London, Brussels, Singapore and Houston.

He is currently Vice President of North Europe Sales in Marlink.

Eric Hoogenbosch has over 21 years' experience in the telecommunications and satellite industry. After starting his career in international data network services and moving to fixed satellite services, he entered the mobile satellite industry in 2003. Currently he is responsible for the retail sales activities for the EMEA region within the Maritime business unit at Inmarsat.

He is very excited to be part of the introduction of Fleet Xpress, a revolutionary new service that will bring a new level of connectivity services to the maritime industry.

Jason Abbott is an Executive Director at Iridium, working within the EMEA region. He has 20 year’s experience working in the satellite communications sector, most of which has been spent in the maritime environment as an installer, reseller and now representing the Iridium network. Jason has a 1st class honours degree from Nottingham Trent University, and is a keen sailor.

Experienced executive for the development of markets, products and services and distribution channel. Over 6 years experience in the MSS business working with numerous verticals within land and maritime delivering effective products, services and solutions.

Satellite Communications Technology and Commercial Product Development experience: - Responsible for Inmarsat's global strategy for Lite Marine and Fisheries Market Development - Project manager for the Commercial Development of the FleetBroadband 150 - Project manager for the Commercial Development of the Dynamic Telemetry Service (DTS)

Maritime & Fisheries Management, Enforcement and Communications experience: - Multi-national enforcement Strategy and Policy development - Management of large scale (regional) Fisheries Information Systems (including VMS).

Rob O'Dwyer, Editor of Digital Ship, has been a maritime IT journalist since 2005. He has a Master's degree in business and law from University College Dublin and was previously a commercial writing consultant in Seoul, South Korea.

Rob was also previously Editor of Port Finance International.

Starting as a Schlumberger network engineering manager in 1994, Rolf has filled many roles including Managing Director of Norway, Vice President of Resource Management, Vice President of Sales and most recently CTO. His vast experience gained working to solve customers’ everyday problems provides a real world application for his technological acumen. Rolf works not only to provide insight on current system implementations and architectures but looks at the future to identify emerging technologies and solutions to keep Speedcast positioned as the market technology and thought leader.

The majority of his time is spent interacting with customers to understand their challenges and needs in order to determine the optimal technology solution to position them for success. Rolf has a degree in Electronic and Microprocessor Engineering from the University of Strathclyde. He resides in Norway.

Tor Skeie has been a Managing Director at Palantir AS since April 2017, specialising in IT services and IT service management solutions for the maritime industry.

Tor has over 25 years’ experience in IT management, working with international companies, focusing on business-development and critical operations in remote environments. His career has seen a large focus on solving problems with technical solutions, ranging from infrastructure design to custom applications development.

Prior to his time at Palantir, Tor spent over 12 years as an IT Manager at ICA Gruppen, a retail company with a focus on food and health. He has also established a shared service business with a common service catalogue and advanced pricing models.

Before beginning his successful career in IT, Tor studied at BI Norwegian Business School and graduated from the University of Bergen.

Before joining KNL Networks Martin was VP Business Development at Inmarsat. He has been working in sales executive positions in the field of maritime at Scan Antenna, Thrane & Thrane and ShipServ being responsible of building and managing global sales and commercial operations.

Maren is passionate about helping ambitious startups make a positive impact in our oceans. She is the CEO and Co-founder of Katapult Ocean with a mission to support and invest in startups solving the challenges in the oceans and finding new sustainable opportunities. Prior to that she has had international management positions with Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Orkla and McKinsey & Co working across all continents. Her focus is strategy, business development and commercialization, and she is an active advisor to several startups. Maren has a Master's Degree from the London School of Economics and Bachelor's Degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She loves traveling, exploring new cultures and adventures.

Maren is passionate about helping ambitious startups make a positive impact in our oceans. She is the CEO and Co-founder of Katapult Ocean with a mission to support and invest in startups solving the challenges in the oceans and finding new sustainable opportunities. Prior to that she has had international management positions with Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Orkla and McKinsey & Co working across all continents. Her focus is strategy, business development and commercialization, and she is an active advisor to several startups. Maren has a Master's Degree from the London School of Economics and Bachelor's Degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She loves traveling, exploring new cultures and adventures.

Jacob holds a degree in naval architecture and maritime technology, in combination with a master degree in industrial design. He has extensive experience within digital innovation and business development, primarily within the maritime and offshore segments.

After 30 years in aquaculture and a lifetime in the seafood and fisheries industry, I have developed good understanding of the challenges and possibilities those industries face.

My international experience includes such diverse fields as development and sales of technical equipment, solutions and as a biological consultant guiding farms in optimal transfer of smolt to sea. I have served the role of an industry specialist in net fouling, authoring comprehensive field literature on the subject for all major aquaculture areas in Europe, North Africa and South America. Lately I have taken a role in the digitalization of the industry, working with IoT, big data and AI´s.

I am driven by my interest to constantly learn and develop my personal and professional skills through person to person relations (I am old school, I believe in face to face contact), and by joining discussions and challenges. The industry is young and there are so many solutions that we could grow on. I am constantly looking for those who want to make a difference.

Mark Wootton joined the YILPORT Holding management team as CIO in 2016. He was born and educated in South Africa and has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering as well as an MBA and Diploma in Project Management. He started his career as a management consultant working for Andersen Consulting. He was then the IT Manager for SA Clothing and following that as the IT Operations and later Executive Manager for IT at Transnet Port Terminals. He has been involved for a number of years in the port industry specifically in terminal operations and automation systems.

Markus Sandelin is a 25 year experienced veteran of the IT wars with two tours in Hosting, one in IT and a continuous role in the modern internet theater. He is the Founder of King Muffin, a software product building house in three countries and 70 people. He wandered into the wide world of maritime in 2016 when he co-founded Pentonet with Darryn Trowell, providing better communications for sea and shore, but he would rather talk about something fun and interesting. Lately he’s been trying to learn to present without curse words.

Dominic Hibberd joined Darktrace in 2018 as a Senior Cyber Security Manager and works alongside some of Darktrace’s most high-profile clients right across EMEA. Dominic has a particular interest in the ever-evolving subject area of the Internet of Things (IOT) having spent 2 years previously working in the Physical Security industry. During his career, Dominic has worked with clients across the continent to build a more robust Cyber Security posture, giving technical demonstrations and discussing AI-powered solutions.

Sue is the Chairman of the Ports, Maritime and Waterways Forum of the Chartered Institute of Transport (CILT), a fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing, President of WISTA UK (Women in Shipping and Trade) and a member of Women in Logistics. She is regularly quoted in the business press as an expert source on a wide range of issues affecting the PR, marketing and advertising industries. Sue has been featured in the Financial Times, on BBC News, BBC Radio, ITN and in the Daily Telegraph.

Sue started her own company, the leading specialist logistics and supply chain PR, Marketing and Visual Events Agency Image Line Communications over 28 years ago.

Sue regularly chairs sessions for CILT including ones on SOLAS, CTU Code and port trends.

Sue Terpilowski was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2014 for her work and lobbying on behalf of micro and small businesses in London. She has a diploma in Business Coaching.

Cathy has been involved in the maritime and transport sector since 2000 when she joined Lloyds List/Informa to work across their events portfolio – which included launching brands such as CITIS (Communications & IT in Shipping), Manning & Training, and more. Having previously worked for some of the world's largest publishing and conference groups, including EMAP, IBC and IIR, she joined Digital Ship as Conference Director in 2006 and co-launched Port Finance International in 2009, which she sold in 2017.

Cathy's role has spanned the full spectrum of the shipping, trade, transport and logistics sectors. She has travelled extensively to prepare market leading events and training programmes that meet the needs of a global industry and continues to explore new avenues and ideas for creating programmes that connect experts and leaders in the maritime and transport infrastructure and innovation fields. Cathy has a particular drive to create platforms to enable collaboration and knowledge sharing in the industry.

She is a graduate of UCL (University College London) and has also undertaken business, leadership and communications courses with the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) and Advanced Business Management from Cranfield School of Management.

Mark Wootton joined the YILPORT Holding management team as CIO in 2016. He was born and educated in South Africa and has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering as well as an MBA and Diploma in Project Management. He started his career as a management consultant working for Andersen Consulting. He was then the IT Manager for SA Clothing and following that as the IT Operations and later Executive Manager for IT at Transnet Port Terminals. He has been involved for a number of years in the port industry specifically in terminal operations and automation systems.

Fredrik Harloff has a degree in Software Engineering from U.M.I.S.T combined with innovation management studies at NTNU and Norwegian School of Economics. He has worked with digitalization for more than 20 years, in both large corporations and startups. Fredrik has broad experience from many sectors ranging from banking (Evry) to fast moving consumer goods (Orkla) and media (Mobiletech). In the GC Rieber Group he is responsible for driving digital transformations in a diverse set of companies including GC Rieber Shipping. Fredrik is also a board member in several startups.