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Feature

Workboat Owner n 30 April 2024, Svitzer was listed on Nasdaq “We have looked

Copenhagen (SVITZR) as a result of the pre- at different future viously announced separation from its former fuel solutions and

O parent company, A.P. Møller - Mærsk A/S. also electri? cation.

Danish national Kasper Karlsen has been Global Chief

We’ve deselected

Operating Of? cer of the Svitzer Group since December ammonia, because 2022. Prior to that, Karlsen held various senior leadership positions within Operations, performance improvement of toxicity. We and business transformation while employed by Maersk have deselected

Drilling dating back to 2007. He holds a Master of Science hydrogen for in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from Tech- now, because of nical University of Denmark and has completed manage- space constraints. ment and leadership programs at IMD Business School,

Methanol, we have the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Sloan School looked closer into of Management and DTU Executive School of Business.

and, yes, we are

Mr. Karlsen leverages all of those professional assets and building a dual- experience, every day, as COO of the world’s largest and fuel methanol tug, most diverse workboat operator. In late February, he sat as we speak. “It’ll down with MarineNews to provide a state-of-the company report, and a candid glimpse of what’s coming next.

actually not be a fuel cell because we, for now, deselect the fuel cell technology and

By-the-numbers: 4,000 employees, 456 boats, went into batteries instead. So, it’d be a 141 ports, 79 nationalities & 37 countries battery, dual-fuel methanol tug.”

Founded in 1833 as a salvage company, Svitzer has over time gone into harbor towage and then, just as deliberate- – Kasper Karlsen, COO, Svitzer ly, they exited the pure salvage business. “Today,” Karlsen says, “we focus on the core, which is harbor towage and terminal towage. Salvage is unpredictable. Waiting for the actually when it comes to towage and keeping each other next disaster is not a business model that suits us.” safe and delivering to our customers, our people on the

The Svitzer global footprint is varied, and deep. Never- tugs are actually the experts. We also want to make sure theless, Kasper Karlsen insists that all its different moving that we can say that we have a ‘Svitzer DNA’ throughout parts is the real strength of the ? rm. “It is de? nitely a chal- the organization. That’s where my function comes into the lenge. We operate in many countries with many nationali- picture, being responsible for our safety culture and sys- ties, many cultures. We hire local crew as much as at all tems.” This entails having a Svitzer standard on safety and possible.” He adds, “We also train local crew as much as training, that then allows local leaders to always use that as possible and obviously that poses challenging challenges a measuring stick.

in actually making sure that the service delivered to our All of that, says Karlsen is obviously important from a customers will remain at a consistently good level.” To do safety and procedural point of view, but, he admits, “We that, he says, means organizing Svitzer’s global operations also use our global footprint in many other ways. It’s an to four regions. advantage to have a scale like we have and examples of “We cover the entire globe,” he says, continuing, “We where we use that is when it comes to engagement with key are on all six continents and our corporate culture is very vendors – particularly for new buildings.” When it comes much about giving empowerment to the regions, but actu- to the shipyards, engine and thruster OEM’s, the tug de- ally all the way up to the vessels because we believe that signers, the world’s largest towage company can use that www.marinelink.com MN 27|