Sven Melsom Ziegler ex Clarkson Platou will head and build Maritime Optima's analysis/data science unit. Sven is a well-known and experienced Shipping/Offshore Market Analyst.
“I am looking forward to working with the team and the data in Maritime Optima”, Mr Melsom Ziegler says. “I was introduced to the team and their data platform during the spring. It is rare to find a startup investing so much in maritime data quality and seeing such a competent team with so much passion and willingness to improve data quality continuously. Since the industry lacks clear definitions of most data, someone must start doing this thoroughly because machines need clear definitions to create value for humans. Otherwise, the gains from digitalization and automation will be hard to obtain. Here we have a unique data platform that enables state-of-the-art shipping/offshore models and analysis”.
Sven Melsom Ziegler started working with RS Platou, where he stayed for 21 years. Sven was born in Cape Town and raised in Larvik and Athens. After completing his education at Strathclyde University of Glasgow and CASS in London, he later settled down in Oslo. He comes from Forum Market Services, where he has been working with mainly oil market/bunker analysis and quantitative strategies.
We are very proud to have Sven on board, says the founder and CEO Kristin Omholt-Jensen. We have kept a very low profile so far. During the Covid months, we have spent time keeping the team well, together and motivated, investing in and collecting data, and defining data templates, testing and scaling. It is super important for us to develop the product together with our users, so since our R&D partners left their offices and went to their home offices while we needed active feedback from real users, we launched a freemium application last autumn. Since the launch, we have been growing very quickly. Today we have close to 9000 active registered users, and we pick up AIS data every minute for more than 65 000 vessels from more than 600 satellites and terrestrial senders. We also know we manage to do cost-effective scaling. We have a very exciting road-map and will develop new products / features continuously (based on feedback from the users) and it is perfect timing to have Sven as a part of our team.
Maritime Optima is set up to develop and distribute user-friendly and flexible maritime SaaS software across platforms helping professionals in the maritime industry save time, work more efficiently, make better decisions and maybe have more fun. Software should be easy to understand and looked upon as a “partner” and not something you have to use and hate. We believe that colleagues should be working in teams, but you can also work in your "one-man-team" if you want. We think professionals will "dare to share" more and more, but they will not want to share everything with everyone. So we have made it super-easy to share public or keep private, and we have therefore included a user log showing the user’s and team's activity, so it is easy to find later.
The maritime office software industry is young, and there are many startups. To change the way the industry works, their routines, and how things have been done for years will take time, but we are prepared and willing to show that we are here to stay. We continuously launch new features based on user feedback, invest time to improve the data quality and increase the number of users. The maritime software industry is still young and will be consolidated during the next few years, and we want to play an active role in that consolidation, says Omholt-Jensen.
Start building your own maritime office by registering a free account in Maritime Optima.
