Why Dieter Rohdenburg is convinced 'Uber for the shipping industry' is on its way

Having spent 35 years at Intership Navigation, almost half of them as CEO, Dieter Rohdenburg has now acquired the majority stake in the ship manager from the Hartmann Group.

Here, he talks about his plans for Intership, the possibility of an Uber-style platform to disrupt the industry and the benefits of being a company man.

The August heatwave is blazing across the island but, for Dieter Rohdenburg, it’s only become “a bit warmer.” This is his favourite time of the year, when the streets breathe more easily as people scatter on vacation and he retreats with family to their seaside holiday home. Soon, he’ll be back on the greens at the Aphrodite Hills Golf Course, spending tee time with his son and kickstarting his swing after a hiatus.

Life’s been good for Rohdenburg in his adopted country. He landed in Cyprus in 1988, joining Limassol-based ship manager Intership Navigation and was appointed CEO in 2010. Initially he had only planned a brief stint and yet in January 2024, he acquired the majority shareholding in the company in a management buyout from the Hartmann Group – a German family-owned shipping company, now steered by the second-generation Niels Hartmann – turning a supposedly short tenure into a lifelong journey. “The whole thing is an amicable separation,” Rohdenburg says about the buyout. “I still have very close relationships with both Niels Hartmann and his father and the rest of the Hartmann Group family.”

For nearly 35 years, Intership Navigation has been a cornerstone of the Hartmann Group, which had also built the necessary equity to invest in newbuilds. The 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers marked the end of a growth era for the shipping industry, as key financing banks toppled – including the two main banks on which the Group relied, Rohdenburg recalls. The Group was forced to sell off substantial assets. In the wake of the crisis, priorities naturally shifted with Niels Hartmann switching his focus to asset ownership and expanding the fleet rather than ship management. In 2020, he co-founded with Abou Merhi (of the eponymous Lebanese shipping family) the alternative investment fund Pelagic Partners. So, the decision to demerge Intership was taken and as it turns out, this was not an isolated event. In recent years, Rohdenburg observes, it's increasingly common for shipowners to separate ownership from management – or better yet, assets from operations. “There are quite a few cases, particularly among German companies; many second or third-generation shipowners want to focus on the assets,” he notes. Gone are the days when owners were involved in the day-to-day, knowing every captain by their name and calling them on their birthday. “Now, the younger generation sees it more as an investment and potentially as an asset play,” he adds.

This mindset shift is not just generational; it also driven by the growing headaches resulting from environmental regulation. Small ship owners are struggling the most, while larger ones are not particularly keen on dealing with compliance matters. “I mean, it’s a pain in the neck,” Rohdenburg says. “The EU ETS, for example, might add value to environmental protection but not to operations. It creates a lot of hassle and administrative work.” By outsourcing, he explains, shipowners can grow and reduce fleets at will without changing staff levels – it becomes a true asset play. “In my mind, the ship management industry will grow as a service provider. Today, we only have 16% or so of the global fleet under third-party management. I think that shows a growth opportunity for the sector.”

Intership Navigation currently manages some 60 vessels, targeting 100 ships under full management by 2028 – if we add crew management, that number is expected to rise to 180. This growth, he believes, is crucial for achieving economies of scale and maintaining competitiveness in today’s market, which is decidedly service-oriented. This is why Intership has diversified its offering, creating its own catering company and an insurance set-up where the captive acts as the primary insurer, placing businesses at reinsurance rates, with the benefit flowing through to the ships. It also provides decarbonisation consulting, newbuilding supervision, owns a travel agency for crew and corporate staff and maintains relationships with commercial partners on behalf of its clients, among others. “The main difference with our competitors (the big ship managers) is in the personalised service we can offer,” he highlights. “We’re not just about technical management; everything else is not invisible to us.” Having been a shipowner, Intership understands the broader needs of its clients for a service that goes beyond operations expenditure (OPEX). This approach, Rohdenburg believes, sets the company apart.

For my generation, the idea of staying 35 years with the same company almost doesn’t compute. I have to ask Dieter Rohnedburg if he never considered leaving. He laughs at the question.

“First of all, let me say that we have a lot of colleagues who’ve been with us for 20, 25, even 30 years,” he says. “I’m regularly surprised myself when I see that, so it may be unusual and I can see that those of my son’s generation are probably not going to stay 35 years with the same company, which is fine.”

He does admit that, before being appointed CEO in 2010, he had indeed considered other opportunities, as there were certain ambitions he wanted to fulfil, but that meant leaving the island and disrupting his family life. While Limassol is a big ship management hub, executive job positions are scarce. “Quite frankly,” he says, “if you’re happy with the company and the company gives back in terms of creating a nice work environment – here, we have a gym, a kindergarten, a cafeteria, we do a lot of social activities as an Intership family – then you wouldn’t want to leave.” Interestingly, he points out that companies also stand to benefit by treating their company men well, mainly because they often constitute a walking encyclopaedia of the company history, while new people can bring disruption; they can refer to a tradition, but they won’t know the details. “I mean, a younger member of staff may not know that a particular existing client or one we want to have was actually our client maybe 20 years ago,” he explains. This reveals that the archetypal company men did not fizzle out solely due to generational differences but also because of how companies orient themselves as employers.

For Dieter Rohdenburg, this is also the solution to one of three major issues that ship management grapples with, namely the supply of qualified and certified crew. “We have seen over the last few years more and more traditional seafaring countries drying up,” he says, noting that the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the situation. Intership, he explains, which focuses on attracting crew from the Philippines, has placed the family in the equation by offering extended healthcare and setting up family centres that provide financial advice, marital counselling and similar support. “We have to create work environments that make it interesting for people to go to sea and we have to get the Europeans back,” he says.

The second issue is none other than decarbonisation. While the ship manager isn’t footing the bill, it consults, guides and provides technical expertise. Rohdenburg stresses that there are things that can be done today other than waiting for fossil-free fuels to cut emissions, including retrofits and driving operational efficiencies, the latter of which dovetails into the third issue: digitalisation. “You have the Internet of Things, operational technologies and IT where we will see developments – we’ll also see them ashore with more automated communications between ship and shore, improving and optimising operations,” he says. In the long run, he is convinced that autonomous ships will enter the scene, starting with short-sea routes like ferries.

Intership is also undergoing its own digital transformation journey. Recently, it partnered with MariApps Marine Solution to implement the EPR tool smartPAL, which provides greater transparency and easier access for its clients, functioning like a one-stop shop. The ship manager has also migrated its fleet and seafarers to Mintra’s Training Portal, which handles safety and behaviour training, among others. Rohdenburg mentions they are digitalising some legacy departments too, like insurance, which is a significant project.

There's been chatter about Mixed Reality coming into the industry. What’s his take?

Rohdenburg nods thoughtfully. “We haven't played with it yet but it will be a part not only of training but also of ship operations. We do some simulated training in our training centre, which is heading in that direction, but it's not yet mixed reality."

The biggest disruption he foresees will be on the commercial side. “We still have ships, tankers mainly, which are ballasting 50% of the year. With a smart employment concept, you could triangulate and get much more out of the vessel,” he explains. Even bulk carriers often operate below capacity because that’s what the charterer wants. “If we were able to sell the remainder to somebody else, it would make sense economically and ecologically,” he says.

And how would that go?

“I am convinced we will see something like Uber: somebody will come and create this on the back of large quantities of data and optimise operations. ‘Hey, here's another 10,000 tonnes for you to carry, why don't you pick it up from there and take the same route that you're going anyway?’”

(Original photo by Michalis Kyprianou)

This interview first appeared in the August edition of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it.

(Please note that in the original printed article the word 'balancing' was accidentally used instead of ballasting).