💡 Interested in getting to know one of our own?
🤝 Meet the Global Maritime Forum team! 🌊 Rita Hjelm is the project coordinator for our transparency initiatives, the Poseidon Principles and the Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance. She works closely with the initiatives’ many varied stakeholders and was the lead author on the recently released annual disclosure reports for both the Poseidon Principles and the Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance. She also supports our other transparency initiative, the Sea Cargo Charter. Rita has long been passionate about the health of our oceans. Growing up in coastal New Jersey (a state she swears does not deserve its many unflattering stereotypes), she fell in love with the beautiful beaches of the Sandy Hook peninsula. She took up surfing as a teenager and says the ocean has “always been a part of my life”. 🏄♀️ This passion would shape her education and career. Rita obtained a bachelor’s in marine sciences from the University of South Carolina and, through the NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Hollings Scholarship Program, was involved in climate change research, fisheries research, and outreach programmes at NOAA. Along with two of her friends and NOAA colleagues, Rita founded the Plastic Wave Project to highlight the issue of plastic pollution along the Jersey shore (she begs you not to picture the trashy reality TV show of the same name). ☀️ In 2021, Rita decided to continue her education at Lund University in Sweden, a country she knew well through visits to her Swedish father’s family. She obtained a master’s in environmental studies and sustainability science last summer and joined the Global Maritime Forum shortly thereafter. Although she says she didn’t necessarily see herself as working within the shipping industry, her role seems like a natural extension of her previous focus on marine ecosystems. “My thought was, ‘Can you really work to save the ocean without understanding the biggest industry that works on it?’ When you first dip your toe into ocean conservation, you think about things like plastic straws, saving the turtles, and so on, but then quickly realise that there are much larger, systemic issues to solve. Affecting policy through finance and insurance may not seem as hands-on as ridding the ocean of plastics, but it's arguably much more effective,” she says. 🧘♀️ When not at work, Rita is an avid yogi and has even worked as a yoga instructor in New Jersey and Sweden. Famous around the Global Maritime Forum headquarters for nearly always standing at her adjustable desk, Rita jokes that she feels a bit antsy when she’s not on her feet. 👣 To learn more about Rita’s work, click through to the Poseidon Principles for Marine Insurance annual disclosure report in the comments below. 👇
