New IMO Secretary-General Announces Positional Changes to IMO Secretariat

In one of his first dealings as the new IMO Secretary-General, Mr. Koji Sekimizu of Japan, announced a number of changes in the structure of the IMO Secretariat in order to better address the various issues facing the global maritime industry.

“The biggest challenge I see in the coming years, in terms of management of the Organization, is how to improve the ‘delivery mechanism’ in the Secretariat to address the demanding issues we face, such as anti-piracy measures, the introduction of the mandatory Member State Audit Scheme and our ever-increasing workload,” said Mr. Sekimizu. “To address this will require effective human resource deployment and redeployment, the creation of new ways of handling our work and improvements to our working methods. It will also require close co-operation between the Secretariat and Member Governments.”

Among the changes, Mr. Sekimizu has transferred Assistant Secretary-General, Mr. Andrew Winbow, from the Administrative Division to the Director of Maritime Safety Division. Meanwhile, Mr. Jo Espinoza-Ferrey from the Marine Environment Division has been tasked to head the Administrative Division as its Director, and consequentially promoted Mr. Stefan Micallef to the post of Director of the Marine Environment Division.

In dealing with the issue of piracy, Mr. Hartmut Hesse has been appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Maritime Security and Anti-Piracy Programmes, tasked with taking responsibility for the implementation of the Djibouti Code of Conduct and act as the IMO representative to conferences and meetings dealing with piracy issues. Mr. Hesse, who has been with the IMO for over 20 years, was formerly Senior Deputy Director of the Maritime Safety Division where he acted as liaison with other United Nations (UN) entities and relevant international organizations on counter terrorism issues, particularly the implementation of the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy and member of the UN Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), according to his LinkedIn profile.

Mr. Sekimizu has also reorganized the Sub-Division for Implementation and Coordination of the Maritime Safety Division into a Department for Member State Audit and Implementation Support in the Maritime Safety Division with Laurence Barchue appointed to head the new department.

Finally, the Secretary-General also decided to strengthen the functions dealing with internal audit and matters of ethics and appointed Mr. K-R. Min as the Senior Deputy Director in charge of the Internal Oversight and Ethics Office.

Further changes to the IMO Secretariat are as follows:

• Assistant Secretary-General/Director, Maritime Safety Division, A. Winbow
• Assistant Secretary-General/Director, Legal and External Relations Division, R. Balkin
• Director, Conference Division, O. O’Neil
• Director, Technical Cooperation Division, J. Zhu
• Director, Administrative Division, J. Espinoza Ferrey
• Director, Marine Environment Division, S. Micallef
• Special Adviser on Environmental Protection Standards, D. Du
• Head, Department of Member State Audit and Implementation Support, L. Barchue
• Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Maritime Security and Anti-Piracy Programmes, H. Hesse
• Senior Deputy Director, Internal Oversight and Ethics Office, K-R. Min
• Head, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, J. Thompson
• Head, Policy and Planning Unit, J. Loldrup

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