Thirty years ago, in October 1990, TradeWinds was launched as a weekly newspaper with the guiding principle that it should have no friends other than its readers.
That ethos has served it well as its focus on the people and companies at the heart of the maritime business gave it the edge in breaking and understanding the shipping news over the years.
To celebrate its 30th birthday, TradeWinds, and its quarterly magazine TW+, have decided to look forward rather than back and profile 30 personalities who we think will influence shipping over the next decades.
The Thirty@30 Years focus is an eclectic mix of well and lesser known faces, the outspoken and the reclusive, people from across the many sectors of the shipping arena, its wide geographic zones, and including a modicum of diversity.
We are well aware that these are just a handful of the hundreds or thousands of individuals that could have been chosen or it might be argued also deserved to be featured.
But they represent some of those getting to grips with the biggest issues affecting the future of shipping: whether it be decarbonisation and environmental protection, digitalisation and modernisation, and the creation of a more inclusive workforce - among others.
Some have been happy to talk about their aims, values and vision, some we have talked to in the past and some either declined to do so on this occasion or have never talked directly to us. If that was the case in the past, we hope that it will change.
These profiles are not being published in any specific order — without any ranking of who is best or any other value.
Instead they embody those with the ability, vision and determination to take on the issues facing the shipping industry — with the aim of making the world a better place by improving the way trade is kept moving.
They give very good reasons for hope in the next 30 years.
Visualisation by Eric Martin.
