Marsoft/IMD spans the generations for Fairmont Shipping.

When Robert Ho’s father founded Magsaysay in 1948 and Fairmont Shipping in 1963, he started a family business that would continue over three generations. Robert Ho, President of Fairmont, attended the Marsoft/IMD Investment and Risk Management in Shipping program for the fifth year running.

"We are a very internationally based family, and this is why we’re reaching out to become global. We have offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Vancouver, Croatia and the UK, but the corporate planning happens in Hong Kong, which offers us the freedom to operate anywhere.” The fact that IMD is a specialist in family business and that Marsoft is known for their objectivity is, naturally, an additional bonus.

One of the important aspects of the program for Mr Ho is the ability to step back and re-evaluate. “There is a tremendous feeling of immediacy when dealing with brokers - decisions are normally taken on the spot, and you are never sure if the brokers are really there for you - because they, of course, have their own agendas. Coming on the program is an opportunity to sit down and reflect - both to refresh decisions on shipping and to give us a different perspective. This program gives us a more objective vision of what’s going on, and supplies us with a historical context which is invaluable.”

The Marsoft/IMD combination lets him review Fairmont’s track record and, also, to get an idea of what is being forecasted.  “One of the reasons we placed our Shipmanagement in Vancouver was that we could see that, in the future, the demands and responsibilities for ship operations and owning would be placed at a new higher standard than the norm, that the practice would become more and more difficult for owners to comply with the new regulations. This is the way the world was and is heading because this is what governments and society at large demand from our industry. So we decided to place our services at the forefront of the new shipping standards because if we meet them in a strict environment like Canada, then we know we should be ok."

Mr Ho is convinced of the value of the program. “Apart from offering us the opportunity to re-evaluate and review the decisions taken over the previous year, this program enables us to share value and experience across the generations. The second generation tends to be more rigid in its ideas learnt from the first generation, and the Marsoft/IMD IRMS program helps us to rethink those ideas with new perspectives and angles, while the case studies teach the younger generation the value of a certain disciplinary approach – why it’s important to do things a certain way. After the sessions, we share ideas and discuss what we’ve learnt, each generation learning from the other .It gives rise to family discussions, the new generation expressing their views on the matter” Does it give rise to family tension? Mr Ho smiles: “We’re a very open family – always ready to look at new ideas.”

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