By Sam Chambers

Copyright splash247

Nearly one in 10 senior maritime executives plan to retire over the next two years, according to a new survey carried by Faststream, a recruitment company.

The survey found 9% of shipping’s c-suite expect to exit the workforce by 2027, marking a generational shift in shipping’s senior leadership.

“This is a timely reminder that succession planning and knowledge transfer cannot be left until the last moment,” commented Mark Charman, Faststream’s founder.

Only 17% of maritime executives feel very confident that their business has a clearly defined and active succession plan, the global survey found. Alarmingly, 10% report having no succession plan at all.

When asked about the biggest challenges, the top concern among the hundreds of senior shipping executives polled was developing internal talent for key roles (33%), followed by the lack of available talent (13%) and a lack of urgency (12%), with succession still not seen as a priority in many maritime businesses.

Other notable hurdles include managing succession across global locations (11%) and identifying future leaders early enough (10%).

“The biggest blocker is not just the availability of talent, but the ability to systematically develop, prioritise, and retain future leaders,” Charman commented.

Irene Rosberg, programme director of the Blue MBA at Copenhagen Business School, has recently called for a shake-up across shipping’s boardrooms.

“Competence, not comfort, must shape the future of board appointments,” she wrote in a recent Contribution for Splash. “If we continue to select leaders based solely on who they know or where they used to work, we are not positioning our organisations for the challenges ahead. We are simply preserving a structure that no longer fits.”