Singapore, 30 May 2024 – The Singapore Maritime Foundation (SMF) today launched “Choose Your MariTimeline”, a talent attraction campaign illustrating the diverse and purposeful career opportunities available in Singapore’s highly global and dynamic maritime industry. Choose Your MariTimeline is the latest edition of SMF’s larger talent attraction and industry branding campaign “Own Your Future” aimed at youths and young adults.
Choose Your MariTimeline uses an immersive digital experience to tell the career stories of four real-life maritime professionals with different educational backgrounds. It highlights the diverse pathways individuals with or without direct experience can take to enter the industry. The campaign, which includes an industry exposure component, invites jobseekers to build on their domain skills or apply transferable skills to make an impact on Singapore’s maritime sector, which is a key node of world trade and the global supply chain.
“The maritime sector is dynamic and transforming. Therefore, the need to give youths and young adults an up-to-date understanding of the industry is a continuing quest. Building on the first two years of the successful Own Your Future campaign, the latest edition engages young Singaporeans in fresh and authentic ways by featuring real-life professionals whose pathways into maritime are sometimes unexpected and yet rewarding. The campaign illustrates this by spotlighting a global industry open to people of varied skill sets and perspectives, offering diverse roles and career pathways for professionals to thrive. I thank our partners from A.P. Møller – Mærsk, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, Ocean Network Express, and Rio Tinto for working with SMF to share these stories,” said Ms. Tan Beng Tee, Executive Director of the Singapore Maritime Foundation.
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SMF’s latest campaign comes as Singapore is transforming and building a future-ready maritime workforce equipped with new skills, spurred on by the twin forces of decarbonisation and digitalisation.
Choose Your MariTimeline centres on an immersive microsite which brings each professional’s key career moments to life as they enter the maritime industry after graduating from diverse disciplines. Participants can select a discipline, and learn how each person’s unique skills, education, and accumulated work experiences create value in sustainability management, green fuel trading, chartering, and network planning roles through bite-sized video stories.
The microsite’s participants will stand a chance to win the “MariTimeline VIP Pass”, an industry exposure experience organised with leading multinational shipping company Ocean Network Express (ONE). Now in its second edition, winners of this year’s MariTimeline VIP Pass can go aboard one of ONE’s vessels to learn about shipping technologies, have lunch with its Chief Executive Officer, and network with senior maritime executives at the company’s global headquarters in Singapore. A “Navigation Guide”, offering job seekers guidance in their maritime job search, will be made available on the microsite at a later stage of the campaign.
Achieving real outcomes with green shipping fuels
Ringo Tan is a business development manager (Green Fuels Origination) originating green fuels at A.P. Møller – Mærsk. Driven by results that are meaningful and tangible, Ringo’s choices have led him to the forefront of the maritime sector’s decarbonisation mission. In his day-to-day life, he is embedded in the shipping and fuel trading ecosystem, working closely with renewable fuel producers, project developers, and colleagues to structure long-term green fuel deals that help ships complete a sustainable voyage.
With a degree in international trading and commodities, Ringo began his professional career as an agricultural commodities trader dealing with sugar. His output-driven nature and business acumen brought him to a role within renewable fuels, where new connections helped him discover the real and tangible nature of the maritime sector’s decarbonisation drive. A turning point came in 2022 when he accepted an opportunity to build A.P. Møller – Mærsk’s green fuels business from scratch. Two years later, he continues to use his trading skills to help shipping clients acquire sustainable fuels, creating an impact that is felt by both maritime and the Earth.
Connecting the maritime world with network planning
Guided by courage and impact in the maritime sector, Richard is a network planner for Ocean Network Express today. In his role, Richard develops new shipping routes that are cost-efficient, safe, profitable, and sustainable. Drawing on his people skills and his expertise in maritime business, Richard works with a variety of partners and stakeholders to discuss cooperation and partnerships, negotiate deals, and kickstart studies so that every ship and cargo can reach its destination on time and on schedule while achieving eco-friendliness.
Richard has spent a decade as a network planner, but the maritime sector was not always his first port of call. Originally wanting to embark on an aerospace career, circumstances would lead him to hone his business instincts with a maritime business education. Upon graduation, Richard took a leap of faith into applying for a network planning role traditionally for seniors and impressed his hirers with his sharp thinking, drive, and passion. Ten years after getting the network planning role, he continues to use his strong people and analytical skills to identify new trends, needs, and opportunities to connect the maritime world.
Engineering policies for a greener maritime future
Roshni Selvam is a sustainability manager at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), where she shapes MPA’s sustainability efforts across the local and international domains to contribute towards net-zero emissions by 2050. By looking at the maritime sector’s decarbonisation journey at large, Roshni sets the direction, inspires action, and influences others to achieve impactful outcomes. Her chemical engineering education offers her a deep understanding of fuels, allowing her to combine technical knowledge with soft skills to connect with technical partners and introduce sustainable change in the maritime space.
After graduating with a chemical engineering degree in 2020, Roshni began her career at an engineering consultancy working on fuelling activities like liquefied natural gas processing and bunkering. Inspired by the role that fuels could play in decarbonisation, she embarked on a master’s degree in environmental engineering, which opened her eyes to the role of sustainability in the maritime sector. She then took a role in sustainable policy at MPA after graduating with her master’s degree. Today, Roshni uses her engineering knowledge to work with a variety of people to drive industry policies that chart maritime’s green future.
Chartering partnerships with a world of experience
Jacqueline Lam’s role as charterer has been 12 years in the making. Just like how she moves commodities around the world today, Jacquline has moved across many technical and commercial roles across the maritime sector with her goal to become a charterer. Today, Jacqueline’s extensive shipping operations, sales, and cargo experience have helped her secure the best shipping deals for her clients. The rich lessons and skills picked up along the way also help her to better understand clients and ship owners as she stays up to date with shipping schedules, networks, and opportunities.
Jacqueline had always wanted to become a charterer, but she took an unconventional path. After selling ship hold cleaning services in her first job, she inched closer towards the chartering space with roles at a local bunkering company, a commodities firm, and later working in shipping operations. Her turning point came at Rio Tinto when her strong understanding of the maritime world and attention to detail helped her secure a transfer into a chartering role. Jacqueline took 12 years to achieve her chartering career goal, but the industry’s interconnectedness means that her story has only just begun.
