The Executive Committee of SNAME NTUA Greek Student section organized the third Young Professionals panel for the year 2016-2017. On the 21^st of December, five keynote speakers from several fields of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers expertise and the students of National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) were able to come together with the support of the SNAME Young Professional Greek Section.

The event was aiming to establish a dialogue between students and speakers regarding their future career paths and their different areas of expertise. The event was kindly hosted in the Auditorium of Maran & Alpha Tankers and was moderated by Alexandros Senteris and Vasileios Tsarsitalidis.

·         The 1^st  presentation was given by Ilias Soultanias, on behalf of Vgroup.

 Ilias Soultanias entered the school of NAME at NTUA in 2008 and pursued an active and diverse path for the following 6 years. Building a strong academic status during the first years of his studies, he moved on to TU Berlin for an exchange semester and later on, he went on internships in Athens, Berlin, Hamburg and Istanbul at different industry fields. At the same time, he remained an active advocate of student initiatives and organizations and especially SNAME by leading the NTUA section and participating in the  SNAME Student Steering Committee of 2014.

In his presentation, he made an overview of his resume and demonstrated the benefits of being a part of Vgroup, the internationally acknowledged provider of global maritime services. He also presented to the students, the graduate development program, underlining the variety of opportunities and potential that the organization has to offer, either at sea or ashore.

·         The 2^nd  presentation was given by Eleni Lazaratou. Mrs Lazaratou was the 2^nd graduate student of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 2015 and she currently works in Operations Department of Maran Gas Maritime Inc, mainly specializing in compatibility and performance issues.

also pointed out how important the Operations department is for a shipping company and the diversity of its responsibilities that mainly include:

• Fleet performance
• Charter party compliance
• Terminal relations
• Cargo management
• Navigational procedures
• Legal issues relevant to cargo custody
• Safety and security
• Preparation for inspections and audits

• The 3^rd presentation was delivered by Evangelos Avgoulas, Research Associate in University of Cambridge.

  Mr. Avgoulas graduated from NTUA with a specialization in structures and he completed a Master’s degree at the Imperial College in London regarding the advance composite materials. Afterwards, he received his PhD degree by the University of Cambridge, in joining composite and metal structures.

  In his presentation, he indicated what’s involved in the PhD research process and the reason he was seeking an academia career at his first steps as a graduate naval architest. He emphasized on professional development, mentioning that how a modern PhD could be viewed as a flexible qualification. In his opinion, one can follow an alternative career, either related to his subject of specialism or drawn upon the advanced research skills their PhD has developed.

   

• The 4^th presentation was delivered by Panos Koutsourakis, Machinery Supervisor in Gaslog LNG Services Ltd. Mr. Koutsourakis, also a graduate of NTUA, titled with a Diploma in Management by the London School of Economics offered valuable information in the understanding of LNG shipping and shared his experience from his career so far. He focused on the opportunities of LNG transportation, LNG building and management challenges.He pointed out the technology offered by GTT cargo storage, that has already been proven efficient  and suggested ways to optimise the space of cargo storage. Also he analyzed the LNG propulsion technologies and focused on the new trend towards higher pressure propulsion systems, which in his opinion, are promising greater energy efficiencies. At the end, he mentioned the importance of innovative management in order to enhance the company’s value while achieving its goals.

• The 5^th presentation was delivered by Giorgos Plevrakis. Mr Plevrakis presented an overview of his resume and told us some things about his experience.

Mr. Plevrakis is a graduate student of Mechanical Engineering from NTUA with an intense interest for marine sector. After his graduation, he worked as a project engineer for a shipping Broker in Athens and he was later awarded an MBA by Athens University of Economics. Afterwards, he offered advisory and assurance services to acknowledged multinational corporations while working for Ernst & Young. Apart from this, he has also been responsible for the product development of certain Aluminum products in the international market for ELVAL. Later, he started working for MAN Diesel & Turbo for five years becoming familiar with every aspect and activity of the group; from after sales to new sales and from management of big maintenance projects to managing new plant projects. To conclude, Giorgos poses eight years of experience in the marine business and currently he is working as Business Development Manager of RINA Class for Greece

The presentations ended with the questions of students concerning the respective experience of speakers.

Highlight of the event was the strong participation of the audience to the discussion with endless questions and proposals which made clear the need for more events like this one.