BIMCO to open Athens office

BIMCO will open an office in Athens in the early summer of 2019. The objective is to have a stronger and closer dialogue with BIMCO’s Greek membership and to recruit more Greek members. The Greek shipowners are already the biggest group of BIMCO members measured by fleet size.

“Opening an office in Athens is an important step to make BIMCO even more member-focused,” says BIMCO President, Anastasios Papagiannopoulos, Principal of Common Progress.
“There is a lot of regulation coming and being a BIMCO member will help Greek shipowners get the advice and information they need to make decisions about their business,” Papagiannopoulos says.
The office will only be staffed with one person – like BIMCO’s office in Singapore – and the employee will report to BIMCO’s Head of Membership and Business Development, Erik Jensby. BIMCO is in the process of hiring the right person for the office.
The office will be focused on servicing Greek members and promoting the benefits of joining BIMCO to non-members.
“We want to be more visible in Athens. The job is to go and meet with members and potential members several times every day, to make sure they understand what we can do for them, and to gather feedback from our members,” says Jensby.
The secretariat in Copenhagen will continue to be responsible for the day to day work on shipping policy and regulation.
BIMCO has not found a physical location for the office, yet. The intention is to rent a space with another company, which is the solution BIMCO has used with its other local offices in Shanghai and Singapore.
Currently, BIMCO has 152 Greek shipowners as members.
The opening of the office was announced at a press briefing 3 April in Athens.