Page 18: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2020)

CEO Pro? le “It’s my dream job”

One-on-one with Søren Andersen, CEO, StormGeo hen Søren Andersen took the helm at Stor- mGeo in September 2019, it was the self- confessed “dream job” for the 23-year shipping industry veteran. Andersen came

W with leadership experience from the likes of A.P. Møller – Maersk, APL, and Rick- mers, among others, bringing to StormGeo inside experience on how ship owners can modernize prac- tices and procedures to quanti? ably cut emissions and fuel costs. “What I saw in StormGeo was a company with the op- portunity to enrich the shipping industry,” said Andersen, at a time when maritime is ripe for the implementation of ad- vanced analytics and digital transformation. “Today, we are behind the curve.” Being ‘behind the curve’ is not entirely the fault of shipowners, rather the hard cyclical nature of the business itself: When business is great, companies don’t nec- essarily have the time to stop, strategize and invest in the future; when the market is in the doldrums, companies have neither the appetite nor the funds to invest in the future.

Watch Søren Andersen on MR TV: “You don’t have to be Maersk to reduce your emissions” www.marinelink.com/videos/video/weather-routing-

StormGeo is a Norwegian company, started in 1997 in Ber- drives-maritime-ef? ciency-safety-100418

StormGeo gen and enjoying steady growth, today with 24 of? ces and more than 500 people globally, a leader in weather intelli- “Ef? ciency is all about gence and advanced data science, powered by seven forecast centers globally available 24/7/365. Being Norwegian means human behavior ... Our maritime is tightly interwoven into its DNA, and today An- platform helps to drive that dersen said it counts on the maritime industry for nearly 65% of its $80 million+ per year in turnover.

ef? cient behavior.” “For weather routing, we have seen savings ranging from 3-10 percent,” said Andersen. “The IMO says there is approx- imately three percent ef? ciency savings to be gained through weather routing, but in our experience it is often higher.”

Søren Andersen

While digital technologies have enjoyed a solid run in re- cent years in maritime, this (mostly) has been powered by the

CEO, StormGeo handful of corporate behemoths that have the funding and the ultra-long-range vision to invest in bespoke solutions. core, it is just one piece of the platform, one tool in the toolkit

While being large and well-funded does not hurt, Andersen to help vessel owners better manage ? eet emissions, fuel ef- said that “You don’t have to be Maersk to enjoy ef? ciency ? ciency and safety, too. and fuel savings. StormGeo is that partner that can help small Andersen said the key differentiator for StormGeo is its to mid-size companies enjoy the ef? ciency bene? ts of larger ability to build, maintain and extend a common shared plat- companies.” form, so that the chief engineer, the captain and lead naviga-

At StormGeo the core is weather routing, and StormGeo tor, the vessel operator and even the chartering department routes more than 65,000 voyages per year, “far more than can see and share the same operational picture. “Ef? ciency any one shipping companies could do; we are the experts in is all about human behavior,” said Andersen. “Our platform routing,” Andersen boasts. But while weather routing is the helps to drive that ef? cient behavior.” 18 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • September 2020

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