WISTA UK raises funds for female seafarer training at charity Black Tie

25 November 2022, LONDON.: On Friday 25 November 2022, WISTA UK held a charity Black Tie Event at the Taj Hotel (St. James’ Court) London to raise funds to support a female cadet through their training. The money raised by the event will be held by WISTA UK until the target of £35,000 is achieved, with the intention being that the total amount is transferred over to Maritime UK, which will then select a suitable candidate. WISTA UK is working with the Maritime London Officer Cadet Scholarship (MLOCS) on this project. The name of the candidate is likely to be announced by the end of Q2, 2023.

The event, which was sponsored by Axiom DWFM and well attended by the maritime community, is the first such WISTA UK event to be held since the COVID-19 Pandemic. The audience was welcomed byWISTA UK President, Monica Kohli (who is also a Senior Lawyer at Gard UK, Chair of IMA, UK and a Maritime Skills Commissioner) who highlighted the need to raise the profile of women in maritime and increase the number of women in the workforce. She cited these issues as the reason that WISTA UK was choosing to sponsor a female cadet using funds raised by activities.

Speakers at the event included Les Chapman, Immediate Pass Master of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners who spoke about the Honourable Company Of master Mariner’s cadet program (which is constituted of more than 350 men and women on their way to be qualified master mariners) and Daniel Gleek, Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution of Axiom DWFM.

Kohli and Chapman were then joined on stage for a Q&A session by Chief Executive Officer at Maritime London Jos Standerwick, and Operations Lead for the North Sea at BP and former Deck Officer Cadet Fiona Scrimgeour. Standerwick discussed the ongoing training of 10 cadets at MLOCS, which is designed to encourage more female seafarers to return to the London maritime market with their skills in the future. Scrimgeour talked about her experiences as a cadet and recipient of Lloyds of London’s sponsorship program, 22 years ago and how this affected her professional life. The last speaker of the evening was WISTA UK Secretary Gina Panayiotou, who is also ESG Manager at the WEST P & I Club who provided the vote of thanks.

Simon Hillard, Manging Director at PineBridge Investments, kindly donated several limited prints of his photographs to the silent auction which took place during the event. Hillard also auctioned an afternoon of training where he would teach the lucky winners about photography and forever capturing a fleeing moment.

Sue Terpilowski, Membership secretary WISTA UK, arranged the auction and announced the winners. Jucilla Walters, Executive Committee Member at WISTA UK and Marketing and Communications Manager at the Waves Group, was the Master of Ceremonies and also reiterated the call for donating to the Just Giving page in order to raise funds for the female cadet’s training. Additional thanks were given to Managing Partner at Axiom DWFM Pragnesh Modhwadia and ERL Consulting’s Ebru Turner for their support of the event.

WISTA is an international networking organisation present in 57 countries and made up of more than 4000 members at all levels of management. The aim of WISTA is to promote gender diversity and female leadership in the maritime and logistic sectors.

To join WISTA UK: you can do so through the website: https://www.wista-uk.net/how-to-join-2/

or email membership@wista-uk.net

To Donate to the fund raising for a female cadet: you can do so through JustGiving https://www.justgiving.com/user-account/fundraising or by contacting: events@wista-uk.net or president@wista-uk.net