Seagull & Videotel announce leadership appointments

Industry veteran Manish Singh joins leading maritime knowledge services group as CEO, with Roger Ringstad assuming role of Executive Chairman.

Acquired by Oakley Capital in May 2019, Seagull and Videotel collectively serve over 20,000 ships and marine installations globally, helping develop proficiencies for about a million seafarers across international maritime pools and tonnage types. Between them, these businesses have an unmatched pedigree and diverse experience in maritime learning, competence development and compliance over four decades.

Commenting on the appointments and the vision for the Group, Roger Ringstad said:

“Enhancing safety and efficiency at sea through knowledge and awareness, is at the heart of what we deliver. We want to enter into closer partnerships with our customers and users introducing state of the art technology and developing proficiencies, at sea and ashore.
We are delighted to welcome Manish Singh as CEO of Seagull and Videotel. His appointment adds to our maritime expertise, passion for safety and industry thought leadership. He will focus on developing closer relationships with our clients and will lead on our investments to further to enrich our content, transform our user experience and introduce further digitally enabled solutions.”

Alex Collins, Partner at Oakley Capital commented:

“We have a tremendously driven leadership team in Roger and Manish and look forward to backing them in delivering safety at sea and incremental value to our users. Roger Ringstad will Chair the Group and help the leadership team shape the vision for the coming years, enhance partnering relationships with our customers and acquire further capabilities and digital technologies to deliver new maritime knowledge solutions.”

Commenting on his appointment, Manish Singh said

“Through my career, I have been a user, a client and a peer of Seagull and Videotel. I regard these businesses as being uniquely placed to partner with our clients, maritime administrations and the Organisation, to keep our seafarers, our ships and our seas safe. Users of Seagull and Videotel have relied on us as a benchmark for demonstrating proficiency development, competence management, reflective learning and on-board training. We have a considerable pipeline of initiatives, that will further help our clients improve proficiency and decision making amongst seafarers and colleagues ashore.

Seagull and Videotel provide e-learning content on a diverse range of safety and operational aspects of ship operations, delivered through their proprietary Learning Management Systems (LMS). Clients are also able to set learning profiles in the proprietary Competence Management System (CMS) and set expected proficiencies for individual ranks. This forms the basis of screening and selection prior to engagement of personnel and subsequently, as part of their learning and development as well as career development tool, by specifying proficiencies that individual users need to demonstrate in-role and prior to promotions.

Commenting on how new technologies will influence the market that Seagull & Videotel serve, Manish Singh added:
“High quality content will remain the cornerstone of our value proposition. We are investing in 3D animation and adopting gaming technology, to make learning more interactive and enhance the experience for our users. We have started to make significant investments in our technology platform and software development to offer new tools and insights that will become an intrinsic part of our client’s risk management and talent development framework.”

Manish Singh is a third generation seafarer, Master Mariner and maritime services professional with diverse industry experience spanning more than 25 years.
Source: Videotel