Keynote Speakers

Prof. (Dr.) Thomas SIM is a practiced-academia with over 40 years of industry-practices in international trade, international freight forwarding, supply-chain and risks management. As a researcher and lead global master-trainer/educator, he trains and qualify trainers in over 86 countries, helms numerous apex leaderships positions nationally, regionally and globally. He is the elected centennial President of FIATA, a Board member of the Singapore Logistics Association and the Chairman & Academic Director, The Logistics Academy. He the CEO (Topocean Group), Senior Advisor of several global networks, and also member of the Singapore Customs Advisory Committee. He consults and lectures for various academic institutions, polytechnics & corporations. Awarded the “Global Educational Award 2017” by the African Union for the numerous Training-the-Trainers (TOT) program in Africa for more than 20 Years (1996-2017), Winner of SkillsFuture Fellow@SG (2017) awarded by the President of Republic of Singapore. He is also the CEO of Topocean Consolidation Service (S) Pte Ltd, a Member of the Singapore Customs Advisory Council (CAC), Chairman of The Logistics Academy (TLA), and Academic Director of TLA. His opening keynote draws on his frontline experience with global trade disruptions — from Red Sea chokepoints to shifting trade corridors — to challenge the congress to think past resilience toward genuine adaptability.
Click here to see Mr Sim’s detailed CV.

Since 1992, Hercules HARALAMBIDES is Professor of Maritime Economics and Logistics (MEL), having taught at 9 universities (and in 7 different countries), most prominent of which being Erasmus University Rotterdam, National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University and Nanyang Technological University. Currently, he is “Distinguished Chair Professor” at Dalian Maritime University (China), Honorary Visiting Professor at University of Athens, Greece, and MPA Visiting Professor of Maritime Economics and Logistics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Hercules is the founder of the Erasmus Center for Maritime Economics and Logistics (MEL) (www.maritimeeconomics.com) and also the founding (and current) Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Maritime Economics & Logistics (MEL), published by Palgrave-Macmillan (www.palgrave.com/41278) for the last 27 years. He has written and published more than 400 scientific papers, books, reports and articles in the wider area of geopolitics, strategic (port) infrastructures, port management and reforms, shipping management, and maritime logistics and, with FWCI=4.5, he is the most impactful maritime and port economist in the world. Hercules has consulted governments, international organizations and private companies all over the world including, for a number of years, the European Commission (having worked closely with Commissioner Neil Kinnock). In the period 2011-2015 and in parallel to his academic duties, Professor Haralambides was President of the Italian port of Brindisi. In 2008, Professor Haralambides was decorated with the Golden Cross of the Order of the Phoenix, by the President of the Hellenic Republic.

Dr. Okan TUNA is a logistics management researcher and entrepreneur who served for many years as an academic at Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Maritime Studies and specializes in maritime transport, international transportation, and supply chain management. Throughout his academic career, he conducted research on maritime logistics, supply chain management, and the management of global logistics networks, and participated in numerous national and international research initiatives and projects. By combining his academic expertise with industry experience, he co-founded ShipsGo and has played a leading role in the development of technologies for real-time visibility in ocean and air freight, predictive ETA, carrier and route performance analytics, sustainability, and digital control towers. He has been actively involved in designing ShipsGo’s data-driven approach, shaping its growth strategies, and processing logistics big data comprising millions of shipment movement records. ShipsGo now serves thousands of users across more than 150 countries.

Dr. Theodoros Syriopoulos is Professor of Shipping Finance and Chairman of the Port Management and Shipping Dpt., School of Economics and Political Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the first historical, highly prestigious, and globally top-ranking public academic institution in Greece. Prof. Syriopoulos also holds adjunct visiting posts in international and domestic Schools, including, inter alia, Audencia Business School, Nantes, France; Newcastle University upon Tyne, UK; Shanghai Maritime University, China; Law School of Athens; Athens University of Economics and Business; University of Western Attica; and Hellenic Open University. Prior to his current post and for two decades, he served as a Professor of Finance at Shipping, Trade and Transport Dpt., School of Business Studies, University of the Aegean. Before joining the academia, Prof. Syriopoulos was employed in top executive management posts in banking, portfolio investment, asset management, corporate finance, and consulting business. Prof. Syriopoulos publishes regularly in accredited international financial and maritime journals, as well as in edited volumes and books on topics of shipping and finance. Research fields of interest with a focus on shipping finance include applied corporate financial management; global capital markets and portfolio management; mergers and acquisitions; financial derivatives and risk management; corporate governance, social responsibility, ESG and green finance. He is an active Council Member of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), and a member of international academic and professional bodies and associations, including, inter alia, the European Finance Association; American Finance Association; European Financial Management Association; Multinational Finance Society; Financial Engineering & Banking Society; Hellenic Association of Maritime Economists; Hellenic Finance and Accounting Association; Hellenic Economic Chamber of Commerce. Prof. Syriopoulos is ranked in the career-long top 2% of most cited researchers worldwide in the field of Shipping Business and Finance / Logistics & Transportation sub-field, as listed by the 2024 and 2025 World’s Top 2% Best Scientists list of Stanford University and Elsevier. Prof. Syriopoulos holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics and an M.A. Diploma in Development Economics, both from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK; and, a B.A. Diploma in Economics from the University of Piraeus, Greece.

Dr. Öznur Yurt has spent close to two decades asking a question that most of the supply chain field has left to one side: what happens to resilience when what flows through the chain is a service rather than physical goods. That question has shaped a career spanning two doctorates, three countries and a body of work that has helped define service supply chain management as a field of study. She is Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at The Open University Business School in the United Kingdom, where she leads the Intelligent Operations and Resilient Supply Chains (IORSC) research cluster, and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Logistics Management at Izmir University of Economics.
Her research sits at the intersection of supply chain management and business-to-business marketing and spans service modularity, buyer-supplier relationships, supply chain risk and resilience, and sustainable and circular practices in food, textile and humanitarian supply networks. Her work has been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Business Logistics, the International Journal of Operations and Production Management, the Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. Her co-authored book, Achieving Resilience in Service Supply Chains: The Role of Procurement, published by Palgrave Macmillan, is written for scholars and practitioners alike and has drawn particular interest from the procurement and logistics professions.
Dr. Yurt leads a portfolio of funded research and knowledge exchange projects. Among those currently under way is SMART, a UKRI RiSC+ funded project preparing UK fashion and textile SMEs for the EU Digital Product Passport, delivered in close collaboration with industry partners across the supply chain. She is Associate Editor of The Case Journal and Social Media Editor of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management, and she is Conference Chair of the EurOMA Service Operations Management Forum 2027, hosted by The Open University.
Her doctoral studies were completed at Izmir University of Economics and the University of Miskolc, followed by post-doctoral research at Cranfield School of Management and the University of Plymouth. Before joining The Open University she held academic positions at Izmir University of Economics, the University of Liverpool and the University of Roehampton, and she began her career in marketing in the banking sector. She is a visiting lecturer at EM Normandie Business School, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and supervises doctoral students in the UK and internationally.