President, Captain Leendert Muller
Captain Leendert Muller is Managing Director of Multraship Towage & Salvage, a leading towage and salvage company headquartered in Terneuzen, the Netherlands, with branch offices in Bulgaria and Romania. The company’s core activities include harbour and terminal towage, salvage, sea towage and support to the offshore energy and dredging industries.
A seasoned maritime professional, Leendert is a certified Master Mariner and acting Senior Salvage Master who has dedicated nearly 41 years to the shipping industry, having started his career at sea in 1984, serving as a Captain on board Multraship tugs. After 12 years at the helm, Leendert moved into operational and commercial roles within the company before his appointment as Deputy Director of Multraship in 1998. Four years later, he assumed his current position as Managing Director of Multraship and its parent company Muller Maritime Group.
Leendert is actively involved in the towage and salvage community, having previously served as President of the ISU and as Chairman of the European Tugowners Association (ETA) and he continues to serve on the Executive Committees of both organisations. He is also a member of the Board of the Royal Dutch Shipowners Association (KVNR) and the Dutch Transport Law Association (NVV).
Leendert continues the legacy of the Muller family, which has been engaged in the shipping industry for more than 240 years, specialising in towage and salvage since 1911.
Vice President, Richard Janssen
Mr Janssen is Managing Director of Smit Salvage, and he has 30 years’ experience of the marine salvage, towage, offshore and energy sectors. He was part of the Smit teams that delivered many well-known and complex salvage and wreck removal cases often with innovative engineering and pollution prevention requirements, including the Maersk Honam, Stellar Banner, Ever Given, FSO Safer and Naga 7.
Richard grew up in Rotterdam in a family with a strong history in towage, spending most of his spare time on tugs, big pushers, and in shipyards and land based heavy lifting and transportation. He studied business in Rotterdam and has undertaken a number of international commercial, contracting, subsea engineering and management courses.
Secretary General, James Herbert
James Herbert started his career as a British Army officer before training as journalist at the BBC where he worked for number of years. He moved to the Shell Group and rose to be head of Group media relations where he handled numerous shipping incidents and drills. After a period as a senior civil servant in the UK, James set up his own communications consultancy with a specialty in maritime PR and marine casualty management. He has responded to more than 400 incidents and issues and is a published author on communications in marine casualty. James was the ISU communications adviser for 14 years, supporting the three previous Secretary Generals and he combines that role with ISU communications.
A Q&A interview with James can be read at https://iumi.com/newsletter-september-2024/qa-with-james-herbert-secretary-general-isu/
Richard Gunn, Legal Adviser
Mr Gunn is global head of marine casualty at international law firm, Reed Smith. He is a qualified master mariner and served in the merchant navy for 12 years on a variety of vessels before coming ashore to work in shipping operations. He then trained as an English solicitor and qualified in 1996.
Mr Gunn has been involved in numerous casualty cases, particularly collisions, groundings, explosion and salvage and related contractual disputes. As well as acting for salvors, owners and underwriters, he also acts for various owners and Clubs in Charterparty disputes, focusing on those of a technical nature such as unsafe port, P&I claims and GA disputes.
Mr Gunn’s work has involved complex containership casualties, logistics, bunker disputes and speed and performance issues and yachts. He has undertaken reviews of various contracts relating to provision of Port Services, STS and Emergency Towage Services, Wreck Removal, Towhire and Towcon, Supplytime and de-commissioning and he was the Admiralty Solicitors Group representative on the Lloyds Salvage Group and the sub-Committee drafting the revised LOF 2020.