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John Michael radziwill
Well-connected radziwill rates family structures
CTM chief executive John Michael Radziwill enjoys close ties with his Greek relations
JOHN Michael Radziwill had just turned 30 when he was
appointed chief executive of bulk carrier owner and operator
CTM a couple of years ago, and he has had to contend with
some torrid trade conditions since then.
However, he was well prepared.
With rates under severe pressure, one of his top priorities
has been to reduce Monaco-based CTM’s exposure to a falling
dry bulk market in the short term while covering much of the
company’s long-term exposure via time charter contracts.
At the same time, his aim was to “cautiously expand our
activities” through, for example, ship acquisitions or long-term
charters with purchase options.
But before being thrown into the deep end at a such
a particularly difficult time for the shipping markets, Mr
Radziwill already had plenty of experience under his belt,
having spent time at sea, and even buying and selling some
ships of his own while still in his twenties.
What helped were his family connections. His maternal
grandfather was the late John M Carras, one of the socalled
Golden Greeks, while Mr Radziwill is first cousin of
another prominent Greek shipping magnate, Ceres Shipping
shareholder Peter Livanos.
On his father’s side of the family, Lee Radziwill, sister of
the late Jacqueline Kennedy who wed Aristotle Onassis, was
married to his grandfather.
Mr Radziwill served as a deck cadet and apprentice engineer
on his grandfather’s tankers and bulk carriers during semester
breaks from Brown University in the US, where he studied
economics.
BeLGiuM
Alexander Saverys
Saverys recipe for a shipping career
When your family eats and breathes shipping, you cannot
help but be intrigued by the industry, says Alexander Saverys
FOR Alexander Saverys, the 34-year-old founder and
managing director of Delphis, a Belgium-based multimodal
company, going into the shipping industry was simply a
logical decision.
“When your family eats and breathes shipping every day,
34 next generation 2012
Family ties:
John Michael Radiziwill
After graduating, he spent a year working in technical
operations at related company Ceres Hellenic, and another 12
months at South Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries,
which culminated with him serving on one of the ships whose
construction he oversaw — the 2004-built suezmax Cap Pierre.
At CTM, part of the Ceres Shipping group, he has continued
to develop logistics activities while the company also has a
fully fledged inhouse technical management department for
its dry cargo activities. The fleet CTM manages now numbers
65 ships.
Mr Radziwill has also worked alongside his brother Philip
in the LNG sector through GasLog, which recently completed a
successful initial public offering.
Not surprisingly, the CTM chief executive concurs with the
view that the family model still works in shipping.
“We are very happy with ours,” he says.
going from the shipbuilding stage to the naming ceremonies
and visiting ships calling in ports, you end up being
intrigued by the industry,” he says. “I was never actively
pushed into shipping, it is just probably in my DNA.”
The Saverys family has extensive involvement in the