Okazaki, who replaces Takeshi Okamoto, was formerly president and CEO of Japanese shipowner and shipmanager IMECS, a subsidiary company of ITOCHU Corp.
He has nearly 40 years’ experience of working at an executive level in the shipowning and ship sales and purchase sectors in Japan, South Korea, and Europe.
Okamoto will return to ClassNK in June after more than five years at the Liberian Registry.
In addition, Yoshimi Uraguchi has joined LISCR from ClassNK, as technical manager of the Tokyo office. Uraguchi has gained extensive experience of class and statutory surveys, condition and risk assessment programmes, and class maintenance surveys since joining the Japanese class society in 2003.
Philippe Donche-Gay, president of class society Bureau Veritas, has been promoted to senior executive vice president, reporting to the group’s CEO, Didier Michaud-Daniel.
His new role sees him lead the implementation of BV's strategic plans in parallel with his position as president of the Marine & Offshore Division.
Donche-Gay, said: ‘We have ambitious targets to continue the transformation of our entire business. One of the areas I will be building on across the whole Bureau Veritas organisation is the progress Marine & Offshore has seen in pursuing a digital strategy. Additionally, the larger Bureau Veritas Group is an important source of expertise and capability that will benefit our marine and offshore sector markets. We expect to continue to broaden and deepen the services we offer to these important sectors.’
To further strengthen the Marine and Offshore Division, Matthieu de Tugny has been appointed COO of the division. Under him will be the central departments of Marine Operations, Marine Technical Management and Marine Marketing & Sales.
Communication and safety at sea company Ocean Signal has appointed Neil Jordan as senior project manager.
Jordan will work with the R&D, sales and business development teams based at Ocean Signal’s UK headquarters and marine communication facility in Margate, and will also support sister company ACR Electronics in the US, to further enhance product development.
Bringing more than 20 years’ experience in the maritime and land electronic safety beacon industry, he was recruited for a new project-based role at Ocean Signal focusing on areas including Cospas-Sarsat 406MHz beacons, AIS man overboard devices, VHF and satellite communications products.