Executive Interview: Mark O’Neil, President & CEO, Columbia Group

Mark O’Neil and his team have transformed Columbia into a “one-stop shop” for not just ship management but maritime services of all kinds.

Let’s start with your background and how you found your way to the shipping industry.

I was an officer in the English army for five-and-a-half years, reaching the rank of Captain. My father and his father and his father's father had always been in the service, so I sort of followed that. When I left the army in 1991 at the conclusion of the Gulf War, I had to make a decision. What do I do next?

I already had a law degree but never intended to practice law. In the end, I decided to fall back on my legal qualifications and the only firm that would have me – because of the late notice – was a niche London shipping firm, Constant & Constant, specializing in the Greek shipping market.

I hadn’t the faintest idea about shipping, and I didn't particularly have any affinity for the sector. But I remember this partner telling me that the thing about shipping is you fall in love with it and once you're in it, you're in it for good because it's such an incredible sector to be in – colorful people, global industry, never a dull moment.

Sure enough, I fell in love with shipping and was a maritime lawyer for over 20 years with various firms, becoming a partner with Stephenson Harwood after six years post-qualification and then with Reed Smith, which was then a 700-partner firm and probably the fourth or fifth biggest in the world. And together with my team we developed a very good shipping practice.

Cool. When did you join Columbia?

It’s interesting. I was on holiday in the summer of 2016. It was my birthday, and (as usual) I had been up since 4:00 a.m. doing an advice for clients. While I was shaving I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “What the hell am I doing?” It was my 50th birthday – July 15, 2016. I'd gotten up early so I could be with the family later. I was well and truly on the hamster wheel. We were on holiday on the Greek island of Kefalonia and I said to myself, “I've got to change my life.”

I knew that one of my clients, Columbia Shipmanagement, was going through a merger with Marlow Navigation, so I called Captain Heinrich Schoeller, the founder and Chairman of Columbia, and told him I would like to join his firm and that I would make a good joint venture CEO. Captain Schoeller phoned Hermann Eden of Marlow Navigation and within 20 minutes called back confirming that it was agreed I would head up the new entity.

So within 20 minutes, by the time I'd finished shaving, I'd changed my career completely! And that’s why I always say, “It's never too late. You make your own chances in life, and you've got to be prepared to take that jump.” And that's exactly what I did. It took me six months to complete my resignation from the law firm. Unfortunately, the merger never really happened, so I joined Columbia as President and CEO.

Wow, that is a great story! How long has Columbia been in business? What are its primary bases of operations?

Captain Schoeller began his onshore career in Germany in 1972 and was transferred to Cyprus to set up the island's first ship management company, Hanseatic Shipping Ltd. A few years later, in 1978, he opened Columbia Shipmanagement in Limassol, Cyprus.

Since then, the company has grown into an international powerhouse with over 21,000 crew and 1,500 employees, 15 strategic offices and over 20 crewing agencies. We manage over 450 ships and are currently overseeing numerous newbuild projects. We are also very active in the leisure sector, managing super yachts, cruise ships, private jets, marinas and terminals.

Our focus is on the big picture – not just ship management but all the attendant maritime services that go with it. We think of ourselves as an integrated maritime logistics, leisure and renewable services platform. Over the last seven years we’ve expanded this services platform with partnerships and joint ventures and collaborations and really tried to be the voice of ship management and maritime logistics, leisure and renewable services.

How many crewing agencies does the company source from?

We use over 20 crewing agencies.

Given geopolitics and the aftermath of COVID-19, we began providing mental health and wellbeing support for our global staff and their families and opened a 24-hour mental health hotline.

We also invested over $1.5 million in hotels and secure facilities for our seafarers' displaced wives and children in Romania and Poland after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We arranged for 320 psychologists and mental health workers to deal with the trauma victims, particularly the children. 

What are some of the key services provided to clients?

Our core services include technical ship management, crewing, marine logistics, IT optimization solutions and procurement. We also work in the offshore industries including asset management and green recycling. The cruise and yacht industries are another key sector.

As noted earlier, we describe ourselves as an integrated maritime logistics, leisure and renewables services platform. Our core business and raison d’etre is our managed vessels. But the entire holistic environment around that is very important to us. And in that environment we have forged relationships with companies either within the Columbia Group or with partners and preferred service providers who deliver the best value at the best price available.

What we're trying to achieve is a “one-stop shop” where a client can come to us and say, “We want to manage our own vessels, but we want your IT solutions, or we want your procurement, or we want your tech, or we want this or we want that or we want the whole lot.” But it's very much a tailored package because the one thing I hate is the term “third party management” because it suggests too much of a distancing from the client and the service provider. A client-facing tailored service is key.

So it’s a collaboration between you and the client?

Yes, it’s a partnership or joint venture where there is a unity of interest and both are working in the same direction and for the same ultimate goal. I don't want a client to divorce himself or herself from the operation or the management. I want them to remain intimately involved so that we're working for the common good.

And this structure that we've set up now allows for tailored approaches. We’re not a commoditized service provider. When we had 200 vessels, we weren't. When we had 300 vessels, we weren't. Then we had 450 vessels. And if we ever get to 500, 600, 700 vessels, we’ll never be providing a Columbia product that is the same from one client to the next.

It will always be tailored and ideally with dedicated teams so that the client feels it's really in-house management and they can be as much or as little involved as they want. Our clients are our partners for integrated logistics.

What is your primary source of hired mariners?

I've just come back from the Philippines where 75 percent of our qualified crew come from. They’ve been a big contributor to our success – the quality of our crew. The majority of our officers are Eastern European, so a large Georgian contingent, large Ukrainian and Russian contingents. I think we're the biggest employer of Georgian crew, particularly on the officer side.

That said, we opened an office a couple of years ago in India and are building up our presence there. We just opened an office in Vietnam. We opened an office in Indonesia. So we’re establishing an Asian crew base so we can ideally have an Asian crew on board our vessels.

We look at different combinations because not all combinations work. Eastern European officers and Filipino crew work well, but we need to find other combinations too.

On a macro level, we've got to get away from looking at poverty as being the biggest recruiter of crew. Those nations that are poor shouldn't automatically be seafaring nations because people have no choice but to go to sea. We have to look at the European market that we've lost and actually make careers out of going to sea. And I keep banging on about this.

It requires adopting a human resource management approach to our seafarers rather than just crew management, which is effectively a personnel department. Seafarers have to see a career progression. He or she can go through various steps at sea, then come ashore and have this further career through lifelong learning and ongoing training. And that's got to be managed and nurtured going forward.

I think that's the challenge of this business. And if we get that right, we'll never have a seafarer shortage because it's such a wonderful sector to be working in. The opportunities are endless.

We couldn’t agree more! Any final thoughts for our readers?

Yes, the one thing we always say to our people is that you've got to have fun doing this. I often tell my employees that I haven't done a day's work for the last seven and a half years since I came to Columbia because it doesn't feel like work. It feels like fun. And if people are having fun and are motivated, they're going to be successful.  

Tony Munoz is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Maritime Executive.