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Albert Einstein once said, "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious," while the massively gifted athlete Cristiano Ronaldo said, "Talent without working hard is nothing." In many ways, these things reflect the entrepreneur Thierry Birles, a man who is just at home at sea as he is in the various boardrooms of the corporations he has helped.
Being naturally curious, Thierry Birles has not shied away from the troubles plaguing the business scene and the maritime industry. He pits his inquisitive nature and adaptive mind to see how these issues and concerns might be solved. He typically approaches any problem-solving task armed with research and data, having done all the information-digging himself just to make sure he is on point with what is needed.
More than just a person with a good marketing facade, Thierry Birles has gained the trust of high-profile clients with his knowledge and experience of both the appeal of the high seas and the troublesome nature of business ventures.
Thierry Birles's rise in prominence in the industry as one of the most respected business consultants coincided with an uptick in the classic yacht restoration market. With the global yacht maintenance and refit market surpassing USD 2.5 billion in 2023 and projections of an 8% annual growth rate, Birles' experience put him in an excellent position.
"The restoration of classic yachts is more than just maintenance; it's about honoring maritime heritage and passing on a legacy," Birles says. This is a philosophy borne out of spending years at sea and with yacht restorations, which is more than enough to give a person a practical insight into many things
"When restoring classic yachts, we often encounter challenges such as sourcing authentic materials or adapting modern safety features without compromising the vessel's historic essence. It's a complex but rewarding process," Thierry Birles stresses, pointing to an analogy between efforts to bring back a high-quality yacht's pristine appearance and performance and how best to address and resolve issues and concerns that arise while running a business.
This insight has proven useful given the massive outcry for safer and more conscientious operations relevant to the environment. Considering that the maritime industry consumes an estimated 300 million tons of fossil fuel per year, roughly 5% of global oil production, any mitigating methodology or idea would be welcome.
“We in the maritime industry carry 90% of the world's trade, but that doesn't exempt us from responsibility for our environmental impact,” Birles says, “Autonomous systems that optimize every aspect of a voyage, from speed to engine performance to weather routing, can reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%. The impact is enormous when you multiply that across the global fleet."
This thinking has sometimes put Thierry Birles at odds with industry traditionalists who prioritize short-term economics over long-term sustainability. Birles, however, remains undeterred. "I've spent my life at sea," Birles says. “I've watched the waters change: more plastic, fewer fish, increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. I cannot, in good conscience, not act on what I've witnessed."
Thierry Birles has bridged the two opposing ideologies and practices of traditional maritime professionals and tech enthusiasts with little to no practical seafaring experience. "The biggest misconception I encounter is that autonomous shipping means ships without people running it," Birles points to how much automation is taking over most of the modern world.
Traditional captains sometimes view Thierry Birles as too eager to embrace modernity, while tech companies find him insistent on maintaining human oversight of critical systems.
Recently, an incident justified how insightful and practical his stance is regarding how traditionalism should find a way to embrace modernization. A fully automated cargo vessel reportedly suffered a navigation system failure near the Norwegian coast. Thankfully, the skeleton crew onboard had been trained under protocols Thierry Birles had helped develop, allowing them to prevent what could have been a disastrous grounding successfully. "The incident wasn't a failure of autonomous technology but a triumph of proper human-machine collaboration," Birles notes.
Thierry Birles's many ventures have grounded him in reality, practicality, and humility. Having experienced the hardships brought on by nature, human misunderstandings, and the challenges of the corporate world, Thierry Birles knows that for as long as a person is breathing, there is always a learning opportunity.
This perspective allows Thierry Birles to not only harness his many talents and use them optimally but also acquire yet even more talents that could prove equally invaluable for the industry.
