Procureship, provider of one of the world’s leading e-procurement platforms for marine buyers and suppliers, has appointed Carsten Schmidt as Vice-President of Sales to lead the company’s ambitious expansion in Northern Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.

Schmidt joins Athens-based Procureship following a nine-year tenure at ShipServ where he most recently held the position of Executive Vice-President, Head of Enterprise Relations, EMEA.

Having started his career in procurement at Maersk in the 1980s, Schmidt boasts more than four decades of experience across a number of industries, including shipping, retail, IT and marketing. He has also developed specialist knowledge in digital business models, B2B digital marketing services and global sales and account management. He will be based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Procureship has carefully crafted an innovative e-procurement platform for marine purchasing that is already proving to be a game-changer for the industry. I have been so impressed by the company’s offering and proposition to the market, as well as the team’s success in building such a strong portfolio of products and clients in a relatively short space of time. The market needs a more effective, efficient and automated way of procuring all manner of marine equipment, services and solutions, and Procureship is ideally placed to offer that platform,” Schmidt stated.

“The shipping industry is becoming more digitally mature and we have benefitted from a growing readiness to invest in digitally driven solutions that make the procurement process more efficient and cost effective. Procureship offers an independent platform that connects buyers and sellers, underpinned by reliable and technologically advanced processes and support infrastructure. This means both buyers and sellers can focus on what they need or what they can provide using a smoother, faster and more secure procurement platform,” said Grigoris Lamprou, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Procureship. “Procureship levels the playing field,” he added.

“As Vice-President of Sales, Carsten will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience that will help us expand our cooperation with global maritime buyers and suppliers as we continue to increase the efficiency of our entire procurement process,” he added.

Schmidt will lead the company’s expansion into new markets, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom, as well as the Americas and Asia.

As part of Procureship’s growth into new markets, the company officially welcomed The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd, India’s largest private sector shipping company with an operating fleet of 43 vessels, as an official buyer on the Procureship platform in January 2023.

Procureship has also recently updated its platform to include new features such as IHM maintenance documentation compliance, advanced e-invoicing processing and detailed freight forwarding optimisation, all of which utilise advanced analytics as well as machine learning to improve the operational efficiency of the entire procurement process.