Capitalizing on the long established track record of organizing highly successful large scale maritime conferences
in major industry centers around the world, the “8th Annual Operational Excellence in Shipping – Best Industry
Practices” Forum took place on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at the Hilton Athens Hotel with huge success
attracting 670+ participants.

With an 8-year track record it is the only Forum that showcases Operational Excellence in the Maritime Sector
that explores Best Industry Practices across all major areas such as fleet management, technological innovation,
crewing, energy efficiency and the environment, safety & security.

In Mr. Nicolas Bornozis’ welcoming speech, he stated that this year’s forum focused on “The Industry at
Crossroads” as the industry has to decide on specific strategies addressing the challenges ahead. Thus, we
focused on three main topics, all of which are game changers for the industry. The first one is the
transformational impact of Technology and Digitalization. The second relates to the importance and necessity of
Maritime Education. And the third one, to which we devoted the biggest part of the Forum refers to the
upcoming Environmental Regulations and how these can impact the shipping industry from an operational,
investment and risk/financial viewpoints. We deep dived into the three main areas, Ballast Water Treatment,
Sulfur Cap and Decarbonization, as well as the outlook for Marine Fuels.