What a great evening that was at the Yacht Club of Greece tonight with WISTA wining overwhelming the Sustainability Award!!!!!
The highlight is that the campaign of WISTA received record number of votes, exceeding 1,000!!!
We bring you herebelow the Award acceptance speech by Katerina’s Stathopoulou speech who received the award on behalf of ExCo.
Here she goes:
“Ladies and Gentlemen
Good evening
I would like to thank you and Safety4Sea for this Award.
Katerina Stathopoulou delivering her speech
I am delighted to be receiving this award by a fellow WISTA member in the presence of my WISTA Hellas sisters.
Sustainability is a key issue in the maritime industry, and as such it is with great pride and honour that I am representing WISTA International in my capacity as Executive Committee Member in accepting this Award.
Our President, Karin Orsel, and the other members of the Executive Committee could not be here tonight, as they are in Rotterdam participating in our annual deliberations and meetings being held among our international membership, in conjunction with our WISTA International AGM and Conference. I will be sharing this award with them when I join them tomorrow morning!
Diversity in the workforce promotes sustainability and this can only be achieved by engaging the underutilized talents of the female workforce.
l to r: Dorothea Ioannou, Katerina Stathopoulou and Maria Mavroudi
Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association is a networking association of women at management level in the maritime industry. In 1974, 6 shipping women with a vision, from 3 European countries, founded WISTA. Today WISTA International has 40 member countries around the globe with almost 3,000 women members, all sharing the same passion – Shipping!
Our focus is to improve competency levels, by facilitating exchange of contacts, information and experiences among our members as well as promoting knowledge transferring. Last but not least, WISTA provides its members liaisons with other related institutions and organizations worldwide.
Our members are role models for the younger generation, and a source of support among each other, fostering career success.
from the gathering
In the maritime industry, male and female talent and skills are complementary, and therefore, Shipping Women are indispensable to the Maritime world, playing an essential role to the industry’s sustainability.
Thank you for this recognition and encouragement to continue our efforts towards a sustainable shipping industry.”
American’s club Dorothea Ioannou
Moreover we also bring you Dorothea Ioannou’s speech who delivered the award as sponsor:
“I’d like to first emphasize how proud we are at the AMERICAN club to be a continuing supporter of Safety4Sea conferences and network of events. The awareness created is crucial to our industry.
We are especially proud to be sponsoring the Sustainability award tonight. What is sustainability?
Sustainability can be interpreted in many ways and measured through many means. I’d like to refer to the UN World Commission on Environment and Development: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Obviously this refers to the greater aspect of the world and the use of natural resources to protect both the present and next generations. It is though, equally applicable to industry and Human Resources. How do we ensure sustainability in this respect in the shipping industry? There are many ways but one major way is by creating platforms of professionals that are resilient to volatility. Through these platforms we can share business intelligence amongst peers, promote mentoring relationships and pass on that intelligence ensuring each generation is prepared to meet industry needs. This ensures there is always a growing sufficiently skilled and prepared talent pool.
from the event: WISTAs with Captain Panagiotis N. Tsakos third from the right
This aspect of sustainability is a priority for us at the AMERICAN Club which is why we are so excited to be handing this award to WISTA, an organization for women that has developed into one of the strongest, most successful global network professional platforms that exist today in the maritime industry. WISTA, whose overriding mission and vision is to facilitate exchange of contacts, experiences, and education among its members, as well as providing an avenue of connection to every other major maritime organization and institution across the globe, serves sustainability through its very existence. Starting 42 years ago with 6 women from 3 European countries, this global organization today is now comprised of almost 3000 individual members from 40 national wista associations representing every single sector of the maritime World. Its mission’s overriding goal is to encourage women to engage in the industry but we’ve all seen how wista goes beyond this mission through its activities and crosses gender and opens the platform to connect with everyone in the Industry.
As many of you know, both the AMERICAN club and I myself are staunch supporters of Wista. On a personal level, as a long standing member and former board member of the Hellas chapter, Wista holds a special place in my heart and I honestly cannot think of a more worthy winner of this award.
It is thus with great pleasure that I ask Katerina Stathopoulou, Board member of wista international and member of wista Hellas as well as dear friend, to accept the 2017 Safety4Sea Sustainability award.”
Same goes live:
The Award was handed by Dorothea Ioannou, Global Business Development Director of the American P&I Club. At the event, Angie Hartmann, President of WISTA Hellas was also present as well as a number of WISTA-Hellas members. Katerina Stathopoulou was accompanied by Maria Mavroudi as member of the Communications Committee to take the Award to Rotterdam tomorrow at the WISTA Conference which takes place there.
Maria Mavroudi and Katerina Stathopoulou with the organiser Apostolos Belokas
Moreover we are lucky to have some more pictures from this unique event honouring WISTA-International for pursuing this noble cause on Sustainability:
Dr. Helen Thanopoulou with Eleni Polychronopoulou and guests
Guests, organisers and WISTAs
