2nd GPF Global Ports Leadership Program, 12-16 May, 2025, Dubai, UAE

Exclusive. 2nd GPF Global Ports Leadership Program, 12-16 May, 2025, Dubai, UAE. Small Group.

Dear industry colleagues,

Structure

This five days Global Ports Leadership program is structured to provide a holistic perspective for the leaders in Ports and Terminals industry, in order to ensure inter disciplinary and inclusive approach while leading the organization as per defined mission and objectives.

Significance and relevance of the Leadership program

This five days leadership program aims to rekindle awareness among the leaders in Ports and Terminals – authorities, developers, operators, financers, shipping companies, ports and logistics service providers, port consultants, other allied industries and services; about their own strategic roles and significant contribution as leaders in successful functioning and performance of their respective organisations.

All the stake holders and partners of the Ports / Terminals community and eco-system look upon the leaders to set up pragmatic vision and mission for the organization; analyse the past, present and emerging environmental trends; Chart out the course to lead the organization through the challenges posed by technological, economical, geopolitical, trade & transactional as well as structural changes in the industry. The leaders are also expected to provide dynamic strategic inputs to deal with these complex challenges and provide tools and support to put the strategies in to action. Considering long term interest of the organization, successful leaders encourage policy initiatives of Creativity and Innovation leading to Business Excellence.

Leaders need to be critical to the success of any group’s long-term innovation strategy. The leaders’ role is to ensure that innovation is consistently pursued and their employees don’t settle into business as usual. They set the tone for what is, and is not, possible in the business through their attention and action. In today’s knowledge economy the importance of creativity and innovation is very clear and therefore this Leadership program, assigns a great importance to these aspects.

Leaders in ports/terminals are also expected to build organization that delivers high performance in terms of financial results and other objectives to meet expectations of different stakeholders. This program makes basic reference to concept of Balanced Score Card, its applicability to ports/terminals industry and how the BSC helps leaders to implement strategy in to action.

PROGRAM DETAILS (Daily 9.00am to 5.00pm)

DAY 1

Analysis of global events, Market Dynamics, technological, economical, geopolitical, trade & transactional as well as structural changes in the industry; which are shaping the Ports / Terminals business. Different strategies which can be adopted to deliver desired performance level as per organization’s vision, mission, objectives and goals.

Under the existing and emerging business environment, leaders need to develop strategies to lead the organization through encouragement of creativity and innovation. Basic starting point to successfully lead the business is to define fundamental business drivers and extent of their impact. For ports and terminals, the major business drivers are shipping and ocean freight markets, resource distribution& industries locations as well as globalization of commodity trades and supply chains. Understanding past, current and emerging trends in each business driver and factors impacting these drivers, lead to new opportunities for ports and terminals. Identification of such opportunities and preparing actionable strategy to capitalise on these opportunities is the main role of a successful leader.

Group discussions and case studies of top international terminal operators like PSA and DP World would highlight importance of creativity and innovation in developing strategies for dealing with emerging trends in ports/terminals industry.

DAY 2

Leading the organization to sustainable development, for a larger section of stakeholders which include not only financial investors but also NGOs, environmentalists, vendors, regulators and authorities, customers and most importantly employees, with varying demands and expectations. Using Unique Value Proposition of Ports and Terminals, the leader needs to inculcate customer-centric mindset among the members of the organization. Revisiting concepts of corporate and business strategy, finance and investment, strategic marketing and business development, human resource development, business processes and business excellence in context of ports and terminals industry; helps the leaders to develop a balanced organization structure.

Understanding the customer, customer classification, customer perspectives, value proposition in ports and terminals, development of Unique Selling Proposition as a dynamic process enables the leaders to understand direction and extent of customers’ value migration. In the present information explosion age, customers are better informed than ever before and ports/terminals, as service providers have to find innovative solutions for customers’ logistics value propositions. In order to stay ahead, Leaders of ports/terminals need to consider focus areas of innovation beyond technology, particularly those which add value to customers.

Group discussions and case studies of leading port/terminal organizations – APM Terminals and DP World would be used to introduce practical application of these concepts for Ports and Terminal industry.

DAY 3

Creativity and innovation in Line and service functions in ports and terminals - Operations, Marketing & Customer Service, Financing, Human Resources, Engineering, IT & instrumentation, logistics, Fire & Safety/security, Administration and services.

Leadership through innovative financing and managing finances with different options including Public Private Partnership for building Ports / Terminals infrastructure, Innovations in operations for world class performance standards and delivering best in class value for customers are major factors to achieve sustainable growth.

Development of human resources and organization for coherent functioning for common objectives of the organization, designing structure and control, creating high performance teams and designing appropriate incentive systems, would be covered under HR leadership role.

In the new generation ports/terminals, the most efficient would be in a position to sustain their business. While world class infrastructure, superstructure, technology and system are essential tools for efficiency; the actual service delivery is consistently performed by motivated high performance teams responsible for operating the equipment and systems.

Group discussions and case studies of leading regional and international ports/terminals would demonstrate the role of leadership in bench marking the standards of operations and customer services for competitive advantage.

DAY 4

Leadership and Balanced Score Card for Ports and Terminals: Effective leaders deliver quality performance, consistently. They have this magic quality of creating a sense of urgency and managing change smoothly. The Balanced Score Card works by assisting companies stay relevant, it helps translate and implement strategic objectives. Developing a Balance Score Card requires that a balance be attained and maintained between opportunity and risk, opportunity to create more value perceived by the customers. Leaders in ports/terminals need to understand what the markets and customers expect in present and future and focus in developing customer centric services. Economies of scale by deploying larger vessels over past few decades and creating infrastructure, superstructure and suitable operating systems in ports and terminals for consistent performance in order to achieve minimum Total Logistics Costs are the Customer perspective in development of BSC. It provides the basis for sound leadership.

BSC focuses on four main perspectives of business. The Financial Perspective – quantified expectations of stakeholders; Customer perspective – customers make financial performance possible. Balanced Scorecards tell you the knowledge, skills and systems that your employees will need (learning and growth) to innovate and build the right strategic capabilities and efficiencies (internal processes) that deliver specific value to the market (customer) which will eventually lead to higher shareholder value (financial). BSC helps in aligning the scorecard components from Goal to Objective, Objective to Measurement, Measurement to Target and Target to Initiative.

Case study of multi dimensional port will be used to discuss implementation of BSC and development of strategic roadmap putting strategy in to action plans and implementation.

DAY 5

Creating and leading a future ready port/terminal organization: Past two decades in the ports/terminals industry have witnessed emergence of a number of global ports/terminals operators. A common trait amongst these highly successful operators is the ability of their leadership to lead their organizations in to future. International operators PSA, Hutchison Ports, DP World, APM Terminals, Terminal Investments, China Merchant Ports and similar could successfully identify opportunities through world-wide locations and convert those to multi location business operations through focused strategies and putting them in action.

Leading the change and ushering the organization in to uncharted waters of future requires building committed performers. Top management and team leaders need to constantly look for new options and challenge inertia. In addition to being ready for technological disruptions like automated terminal operations, Artificial Intelligence, Block-chain enabled transactions and drone technology, it is of even greater importance to motivate the teams to implement the technologies through effective conflict management, negotiations and conflict resolution. While a number of international PPP frameworks provide a transparent legal and policy framework to avoid these disputes, challenges of dispute resolutions and resulting strikes still prevail in some areas. Strategies to motivate the employees through monetary and non-monitory incentives including innovative reporting and Key Performance Indices measuring systems, are implemented in a number of successful ports/terminals.

PROJECT REPORT

At the end of the 5 days training program, each participant will be given a topic on ports / terminal industry. Participants would be required to prepare a project report and submit the same within a period of 3 months for critical evaluation and review by the course director, who will award suitable grade to each participant as per contents and quality of the project report.

ELIGIBILITY FOR CERTIFIED GLOBAL PORTS MANAGER (CGPM) for participants of Global Ports Leadership Program

CGPM program is governed by a Qualification Review Board (QRB) which comprises leading international experts from Ports and Terminals industry and academicians. Upon satisfying the criteria and requirements of the QRB and subject to the level of competency and responsibility, successful participants will be permitted to undertake the 5 days Global Ports Leadership program. On completion of the 5 days leadership program, participants will prepare a submit a project report. On approval of the project report by the QRB, the participants will be awarded the CGPM title. CGPM holders are entitled to use the title of CGPM in recognition of their competence.

PROGRAM DIRECTORS (subject to final confirmation)

Thomas Ng

Thomas Ng has over 30 years of training & consulting experience in the ports and shipping industry – in developing innovative solutions for players within the ports & shipping industry, — in areas of planning & redesign, customer services and business operations; and delivering results.

He is the present Chairman of The Global Ports Forum (GPF). Since 2008, Thomas founded and launched the GPF, a platform where all ports stakeholders in the ecosystem- port customers, port authorities, port operators, port people, port suppliers & service providers are gathered together to discuss about issues furthering the interests of ports globally.

Thomas is proven and well-respected in the ports & shipping circles — recognized for his in-depth industry knowledge and far-reaching personal industry network and linkages.

Thomas is invited regularly as speaker & facilitator at Ports conferences, roundtable and executive workshops. He spoke recently at Transport Intelligence 2013 Infrastructure panel, together with senior executives from World Bank & UPS, Container Depot Association Singapore Conference 2014 on ports and infrastructure, Tank Storage Conference in 2015 and Roundtable on Smart ports & ships and Internet of Things in Jun 2016.

On a professional level, Thomas founded the non-government voluntary organization — The Global Ports Council (GPC) in 2008.

As of today, over 192 C-level executives globally presents themselves as members of our council. Our prestigious list of Council members are as follows:

http://globalportsforum.com/the-global-ports-council/

Thomas is also a veteran Chartered member (since 2001) of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport Singapore. He had served as a Board Member of the Singapore Branch of Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport for over 22 years till May 2024.

Capt Vikram Sharma

Capt. Vikram Sharma was the Chief Executive Officer of Terminal Investment Limited Sarl from 2008 to 2018. Terminal Investment Limited (TIL) is the terminal/port investment branch of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). In 2013 Capt Sharma was responsible for successfully arranging a minority stake sale (35%) to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) with MSC owning the balance majority stake. TIL invests in and manages around 50 container terminals, either wholly owned or in Joint Venture with other leading Global Terminal Operators, all over the world. Capt Sharma reported to the Board of Directors, overall responsibility for creating, planning, implementing and integrating the strategic direction of the organization, with a view to creating shareholder value.

During his tenure at TIL, Mr. Sharma held a seat on boards of various subsidiary and joint venture terminals spread over the world or responsible for nominating colleagues to various terminal board positions. Set up the full management structure of TIL between Sept 2008 and May 2009 and more than tripled number of terminals under ownership/joint venture and management of Terminal Investment Limited from 14 in 2009 to 50 in 2018.

Capt Sharma was responsible for leading the team in designing, constructing and managing several terminals around the world from greenfield/brownfield sites to profit making ventures including Smelte Klaipedos – Klaipeda, Lithuania; Lome Container Terminal – Lome, Togo; Adani International Container Terminal Pvt Ltd – Mundra, India (JV with Adani); Fos XL – Fos Marseille, France (JV with APMT); National Container Terminal – King Abdullah econ. City, S. Arabia (JV with IPM); Asya Port – Tekirdag, Turkey; Brazil Terminal Portuario – Santos, Brazil (later sold 50% shares to APMT).

He had full P&L responsibility for group terminals. He substantially grew group EDITDA from around USD150 million in 2009 to more than USD750 million (TIL share). Overall container moves in excess of 40 million with revenue in excess of USD3 billion (TIL share). Direct Reports – heads of Operational, Financial, Treasury, Legal, Engineering, Risk Management and Internal Audit Departments. Capt. Sharma was nominated as amongst the top 10 Most Influential Persons in the Container Terminal Industry by Lloyds List for 2016~2018.

Since Capt Sharma’s retirement from TIL in Mar 2018, he is active in various consultancy and advisory roles in the container terminal industry.

Mukesh Parikh

Mr. Mukesh Parikh is associated with Global Maritime Industry for over 40 years. He has a distinction of having hands on Maritime Industry experience with continuous involvement in Training and Development throughout his distinguished career.

He has been conducting a number of executive training programs on ports and terminals at Singapore, UAE, South Africa and other international locations, in addition to his current position of Adjunct Professor at Adani Institute of Infrastructure Management.

Mr. Mukesh Parikh has a post graduate degree in Management with specialization in Marketing and Finance. He attended one year training program Professional Shipping at Norwegian Shipping Academy, Oslo.

During his career of 18 years in the Commercial Shipping, he was associated with UNCTAD/UNDP as a Trainer and Course developer. He attended two weeks instructors’ Workshop (Training for Trainers) organized by UNCTAD / UNDP in collaboration with The Ministry of Transport and Ports in Malaysia at Penang Port Commission. He conducted a number of training Programs in the Middle East, South East Asia and Indian subcontinent including developing a training program on General Shipping Management for Arab Maritime Transport Academy, Sharjah, UAE.A sound foundation of Shipping Industry and clear understanding of market and customer expectation and requirement from service providers enabled Mr. Mukesh Parikh to build the next phase of his career in Ports and Terminal Industry.

He worked with The Adani Group in Senior Management position for 10 years from the inception stage of Mundra Port in India and made a major contribution to set up Business Development and Marketing team as well as establish Standard Operating Procedures for the entire spectrum of Operations in the port. He successfully built marketing and operations teams and trained them.

Since July 2014, Mr. Mukesh Parikh has taken up advisory and consultancy role for The Maritime Industry. His assignments cover Business volume estimation and hinterland mapping with competition analysis, Revenue forecasts for the life of the project and financial modelling, investment optimization in line with market potential; Commercial and legal aspects of logistics, cargo handling, warehousing contracts; business excellence and standardization of operating procedures; Organization development, structuring and Manpower planning and training. He has also advised a number of clients about the Concession agreements and entering in to sub-concessions.

Capt Sanjiv Chhibber

Capt Sanjiv Chhibber has 41 years of extensive experience in Senior leadership positions within the maritime and port industry, spanning vital functional areas across the Middle East, Africa and India. He had 17 years of sea-going experience. Capt Chhibber is a Master Mariner with experience in General Management, Port Operations, Business Development, Customer Service and Key Account Management, including Main Lines and Feeder Lines. Proactive maritime/port professional with a process-driven, customer service-oriented and results-focused approach.

Capt Chhibber sailed on board breakbulk and container vessels from 1981 to 1993, out of these eight years in command as Master, sailing mainly in the Red Sea, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and the Far East. From 1993 to 2005 he worked onshore as Pacific International Lines (P.I.L.) (Pte) Ltd. Singapore's Regional Director – Owners Representative. 1993 till 1998 - Mombasa / Kenya, handling P.I.L.'s Commercial & Operations activities in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritius and Comoros Islands. 1996 established P.I.L. (K) Ltd., P.I.L.'s shipping Agency office in Mombasa. 1998 till 2002 – Mumbai In charge of all I.C.D.'s in north India and all ports on the west coast of India. 2002 – 2005 – Dubai, Chhibber handled Operations and Commercial activities of P.I.L. in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf ports, looking after Djibouti, Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and all ports in the Persian Gulf.

At PIL, Capt Chhibber negotiated terminal agreements & contracts with various port authorities in the region. Monitored the performance of all port agents and sub-agents within the territorial scope. Monitored vessel operations in ports, ensuring quick turnaround. Capt Chhibber expanded PIL’s Business development, new opportunities and service deployments within the region, soliciting and canvassing import and export cargo nominations. Developing reverse marketing strategies, new markets and logistics-related activities. Capt Chhibber represented P.I.L. as Owner's Representative within various shipping consortium forums and set up a liaison with all major shipping lines. He successfully developed the East Africa trade, whereby volumes tripled since the inception of services.

Customer service was the top priority, and Chhibber provided sales and after-sale services, and all customer complaints were handled efficiently.

From 2005 – 2018, Capt Chhibber held senior Management positions at D.P. World U.A.E Region F.Z.E.

From 2005 to 2012, Commercial department as head of the Customer Service section. Capt Chhibber’s core competency at DPW include shipping Main lines account management, Strategic planning, Port Operations, Customer relationship management, Contract Management, Business Development, Resource planning, Team management, and General management. He reviewed port tariff every two years, and all service charges adjusted to recover the additional cost. 2012 to 2018, Container Terminal Operations Dept, Capt Chhibber oversaw berth and resource planning for all the 3 container terminals and general cargo berths in Jebel Ali. In container terminal operations, his involvement was in improving the efficiency of equipment, cost management, quick turnaround of vessels, efficiency in yard and terminal gates, quick turnaround of outside trucks, and planning to receive and commission new quay cranes and yard equipment.

At D.P. World, Capt Chhibber other responsibilities include - the productivity of quay cranes; yard equipment and vessel performance; Operations Reports for terminal management; carried out Activity-based costing (A.B.C.) of container terminal; Container terminal's annual budget; yard capacity and equipment requirements; Container terminal commissioning; receiving New terminal equipment and commissioning; container terminal capacity forecast and development of new capacity; Planning yard, quay and berth civil and electrical work maintenance; Allocating container terminals to shipping lines belong to different consortiums; SLA agreement terms negotiated with shipping lines and implementation monitored; Berth windows allocation to different services of shipping lines; Daily berth planning is monitored to ensure terms of SLA achieved. These mentioned responsibilities had given Capt Chhibber extensive experience in container terminal management, strategy, process review, automation of services, and cost control, with top priority given to safety.

17th GPF Anniversary Special. Pay for Two participants, another Two comes free. No other promotion applicable.

Costs:

On or Before 12 Mar 2025: The ‘Early Bird’ Rate is USD8995.00 – Save USD800!

Special Offer! – 3 Delegates For The Price of 2 in This Category! Save USD 8995.00!

From 13 Mar 2025: The Regular Rate is USD 9795.00

Special Offer! – 3 Delegates For The Price of 2 in This Category! Save USD9795.00!

Note: All fees stated include luncheons, refreshments and complete set of documentation. It does not include the cost of accommodation, visa fees and travel.

Register Now!

To register, please submit the following details to thomasng@globalportsforum.com:

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Billing information:

For cheque payments: To be made payable to ‘Global Ports Forum Pte. Ltd.’ Please do not send post-dated cheque.

For telegraphic transfers:

Account Name: Global Ports Forum Pte. Ltd.,

Account No. : 695 477 141 001.

Beneficiary Bank: Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, Singapore. (Swift: OCBCSGSG),

Address : 65 Chulia Street #01-00, OCBC Centre, Singapore 049513.

Please supply confirmation via email of the TT from your bank. Transmitting bank charges must be paid by sender. Please quote both delegate and company name as reference.

Kindly note that as we are providing a special rate for ‘early bird’ sign up, we will need to receive your company payment by 12 Mar 2025 to enjoy the discount.

Look forward to welcoming you at the Global Ports Leadership executive programme!

Kind regards

Thomas Ng

Chairman

The Global Ports Forum

GLOBAL PORTS FORUM PTE. LTD.

10 Anson Road

#18-11

International Plaza

Singapore 079903

Website: www.globalportsforum.com/

Mobile: +65 9684 3289

DID: +65 65197662

Fax: +65 6725 8438

Email: thomasng@globalportsforum.com

Terms & Conditions:

No delegate registration will be accepted without completing registration details and full payment.

Upon receipt of your registration details and full payment, further programme information will be emailed to you including your proforma invoice and, if required, a letter of invitation for entry visa application.

Delegates will not be admitted unless payment has been received in Full.

Flights, Airport Transfers and Accommodation are not included in your delegate registration fee.

Refund Policy – a reimbursement of the registration fee, minus administrative charges will only be made if the participant has notified Global Ports Forum Pte. Ltd. in writing that he/she is unable to attend the event no less than 45 days prior to the commencement of the event.

No cancellation is allowed after that, but a replacement with another participant is allowed.

This programme is subject to change without notice, E&O.E.