V.Group’s new chief executive Graham Westgarth shares what drew him to the role and what lies ahead for the company
Graham Westgarth took over as chief executive of V.Group in April this year, bringing more than 40 years of maritime experience to the role.
Tanker Shipping & Trade caught up with Mr Westgarth at Nor-Shipping, where he explained he was drawn to this position as he was impressed by the ship management and marine service’s company’s investment of US$30M in developing a new platform.
“What that meant is you had [committed shareholders who have] also understood that to provide a consistent service delivery across so many locations and offices, you need a state of the art platform,” he said.
However, he does not see digitalisation as a panacea: “The people in this business are what is so important – the people on the ships, and in the offices […] digitalisation is just a tool, the real delivery is provided by people
Commenting on the company’s plans for the future he said: “Ship management is our core business […] but at the same time because of our scale and competence we’ve developed marine services businesses which allow us to provide bespoke solutions and potentially could also lead to full ship management.”
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