Over the past few months we have had new team members join Rigel Shipping.

Patrick Kirkness

He started his shipping career in 2007 with a small Operator in London before being sent on a years secondment to a ship broking company in Singapore. After a brief return to London in 2008 he took the opportunity to return to Singapore in 2009 and continue his shipbroking career there. Predominately focused on the Supramax segment he initially worked the spot market before moving to focus on longer term period business in 2013. He returned home to the UK, and to London in the spring of 2019. He had of course known Rigel Shipping and their fantastic reputation throughout his career and in Summer of 2022 jumped at the opportunity to join our fantastic team here in our new offices in the city of London.

Dean Seacombe

Dean started his career at grain broker Alexander Partners. From there he spent 5 years working for two steel trading companies before being invited to join Seaways Maritime. When the management of Seaways decided to go their separate ways Dean formed his own Shipbroking business concentrating on the the steel and coal sector. This successfully ran for 12 years and Dean was approached to join JE Hyde (later becoming ICAP Shipping) where he worked for 7 years as head of the cargo desk and 4 of which as Managing Director of the handy/supra division developing special projects such as commercial vessel management and introducing security teams to owners for Gulf of Aden transits. In recent years he has spent 4 years working for an owner operator before returning to London and joining Arrow. Dean was keen to return to the City and is highly motivated to help Rigel grow their business and make the most of this exciting opportunity.

Matthew Taylor

After graduating from University in 2010 he has been actively involved in shipbroking within the dry cargo sector. The former part of his my career had consisted of focusing mainly on the Panamax and partly on the Cape size sectors servicing mainly European owners and end users/operators whilst working within Gibsons and Clarksons. Latterly, he has been focusing more on the Supramax and Ultramax markets with a focus within the Atlantic, more specifically ECSA.

Katerina Kalaitzian Career in shipping started late 2010 as a chartering assistant and dry cargo operator in a ship broking office in Athens, where she was handling the vessels for our exclusive shipowners. At the same time, she was working as a Marine Lubricants trainee for the same employer. Three years later, she joined Carriers Shipbrokers, also based in Athens as an operator for eight months then she relocated to London to join GFI. Almost three years later, she moved to Andros Maritime, a Greek shipowner and from there to Clarksons, where for four years she worked as a Dry cargo operator. In June 2022, she joined Rigel Shipping as an Operations manager.

Tracy Franklin

After spending the last 18 years working in the commercial property development and investment sector she felt it was time for a career change. She's now looking after day to day administration whilst looking after the Brokers needs as well.