Willy J. Simon 

Chairman

Mr Simon, has been Chairman of the DUCAT Group since 2014 and sits on the global; risk, investment and audit committees. Mr Simon has been CEO of a top ten European Asset Manager (Fortis) and Board Member of Generale Bank NL.
 He brings extensive expertise in treasury, capital markets and asset management. He started at Kredietbank in 1975, before moving to Citibank in 1984, where he eventually became Global Head of Investment Structuring Private Bank. He joined the board of Generale Bank in 1997, following its acquisition of Credit Lyonnais in the Netherlands. Subsequen to which he became the CEO of Fortis Asset Management, a division of Fortis with an AUM of $110 Billion and 700 professionals worldwide, with a remit to integrate the investment management activities that had grown through multiple acquisitions. He later served as a Director of IMC Holding and CEO of Holland’s oldest bank, Oyens & van Eeghen. He currently sits on the board of a number of listed companies. He is graduate from the University of Louvain (LLB) and IHEE, Strasbourg (European Law &Economics).

Languages: French, Flemish, English.

Adrian Beciri

CEO

Mr. Beciri started as an investment banker at Macquarie Bank, specialising in risk management solutions including derivatives and structuring within commodities. Adrian then went on to establish at Macquarie, as a Senior Manager, a physical freight trading desk, specialising in the freight trading of coal, iron ore, sugar and rice, handling up to 4 million tonnes a year. Mr Beciri is the CEO of the Group’s activities in addition to running the ocean freight desk. He is an Economics graduate of the London School of Economics (LSE) with a postgraduate degree in Financial Computing from University College London.

Languages: Greek, English.

George Koudounas

Mr Koudounas heads the global operations team in the DUCAT Group and runs the post fixing desk for ocean going transport. A graduate of the Merchant Naval Academy of Aspropirgos (Greece), he served as a first officer in wet tankers before joining DUCAT in 2016.

Languages: Greek, English. 

Andri Kefalou

Mrs Kefalou heads the team in DUCAT Limassol, as the Office Manager with HR responsibilities and post fixing teams as well as administration and operation matters. Andri joined DUCAT in 2016, from Wenzel Marine where she had been General Manager and previously had worked as a Purchasing Manager at Wenzel Marine GmbH & Co.KG. 

Languages: German, Greek, English. 

Anastasis Gagatsis

Anastasios Gagatsis is a seasoned analytics and claims professional with extensive experience in conflict resolution, optimization, and research and development. He is a graduate of the Universities of York and Edinburgh (MSc in Geographic Information Science) in the United Kingdom. In 2018, he joined DUCAT's operations department and has since advanced to lead the company's analytics, optimization, and dispute resolution departments. Before joining DUCAT, Anastasios worked as a consultant and engineer on numerous research and development projects in collaboration with universities, government entities, and the private sector. He has been involved in key roles in both the design and implementation of logistics and monitoring platforms, ranging from stakeholder engagement to development. He has co-authored articles in journals and conferences and has presented his work at leading engineering conferences.

Languages: French, Greek, English. 

Demos Evripidou

Demos runs the Treasury team for DUCAT’s global operations and is the CFO of DUCAT Maritime. Demos qualified as a chartered accountant ( ACA ) at Deloitte where was an Assistant Manager. He studied at University College London (UCL) where he obtained a first class degree in Pure Mathematics.

Languages: Greek, English. 

Elena Hadjikyriakou

Group Head of Insurance and Claims. She joined in 2019, where she had previously been a director of Manatus Shipping & Chartering Services. She had previously worked 2012-2016 at MSC as an Insurance & Claims Officer. She has a MSc in Maritime from London Metropolitan University and a BSc Transport and Shipping. She is a member of the Insitute of Chartered Shipbrokers. 

Languages: Greek, English

Grigorios Tsimilas

Grigorios is an Operations Analyst examining fixture and post fixture data. He joined as a Junior Operations Analyst in 2019 after studying Mathematics and Data Processing at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). 

Languages: Greek, English

Ourania Lazarou

Ourania sits in the legal department of DUCAT Maritime. A graduate of City University [University of London] (LLM) and University of Sussex (LLB), she has worked in private practice and as a Claims Negotiator in the Norient Product Pool. 

Languages: Greek, English.