The Board
The QACE Board comprises of industry experts from the major marine interest groups, ship builders, owners and flag Administrations, but also different geographic regions. The Board members have no current affiliation with the Recognised Organisations.
Ashok Mahapatra
Board Member Since 2019, Chairman Since 2021
Dr Nikos Mikelis
Board Member Since 2018
Nikos has worked in ship classification; and then for a shipping company as superintendent, technical manager and director. He joined the International Maritime Organization in 2006, where he was the Head of Marine Pollution Prevention and Ship Recycling section.
Nikos has served in senior positions in various shipping industry bodies, has written over 50 papers, numerous articles in the maritime press and is a freeman of the City of London.
Niels-Bjørn Mortensen
Board Member Since 2019
Peter Hinchliffe OBE
Board Member Since 2022
The Secretariat
The Board has appointed an Executive Secretary to manage the assessment and certification of the Recognised Organisations; a Company Secretary to oversee QACE’s corporate operations; and an Administration Manager.
Anantha Padmanabhan
Executive Secretary
Ananth joined QACE on 15 June 2020. He has a wealth of experience in all aspects of Ship Classification Societies and Statutory services of Recognised Organisations (RO), having worked for three different Class Societies in his past career. He has been involved with Quality Management for the past 22 years in various roles and capacities. He has represented all of the three Class Societies in the Quality Committee of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) for 15 years, and he was its Vice-Chairman for 3 years. He was the GL Representative in the RO Group that established QACE. In the last year immediately prior to joining QACE, he has worked as an auditor for three different Accredited Certification Bodies now engaged in the certification of the Class Societies/ROs.
Dr Nikos Mikelis
Company Secretary
Nikos has been a Board Member since 2018 and became the Company Secretary from 15 June 2020. He remains on the QACE Board.
Matina Biniakou
Administration Manager
Matina joined QACE in September 2021. She has extensive experience in different business areas as well as a Bachelor degree in Maritime Business and an ongoing Master Degree in Financial Trading. She is responsible for QACE’s smooth day to day administrative and operational activities.
QACE Assessors
QACE contracts Assessors to execute the assessment programme. The Assessors are experienced maritime professionals drawn from different geographic regions.
Tim Ho
QACE Assessor
Gur Sarup
QACE Assessor
Gur (Sarup) joined QACE in 2011 after serving fifteen years with IACS as an Audit Manager. He has extensive experience with Class having served the Indian Register of Shipping for seventeen years in various capacities, including responsible for Classification & Statutory services. A marine engineer by profession he sailed as a Chief Engineer. Sarup is a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineers (India).
Alvin Shepherd
QACE Assessor
Al joined the QACE team in 2017 upon retiring from the American Bureau of Shipping as Corporate Manager of Management Systems Certification and Principal Surveyor. Responsibilities include training new and experienced auditors to ISM, ISPS and MLC requirements. Previous experience includes twenty years as a U.S. Coast Guard Flag State Marine Inspector, Investigator and Marine Engineer. Al also audits for an ISO Certification Body for various ISO Standards.
Captain Hartmut Nickel
QACE Assessor
Hartmut joined the QACE team in 2014 from the German flag State Administration. Hartmut has long and varied experience most recently as a German flag state surveyor, senior Port State control officer, ISM / ISO 9000 lead auditor and MLC inspector to the German Ship Safety Department. He has been involved with RO oversight for the Administration.
Abhay Shah
QACE Assessor
Abhay joined the QACE team in January 2020 following 20 years with Lloyd’s Register where he held senior governance, assurance and improvement positions at both a global and regional level. Abhay has a background in technical performance highlights include responsibility for a transformation programme that helped improve ship maintenance and awareness of common deficiencies, through pre-arrival checklist booklets, now widely used by the marine industry. He was heavily involved with internal and external audit and was responsible for introducing both risk-based and remote ISO audit methods.
Ganapathy Varadharaj
QACE Assessor
Ganapathy Varadharaj (Raj) joined QACE in 2021 with forty years of service in the shipping industry in a variety of roles. He has extensive experience with Lloyds Register, including responsibility for Classification & Statutory services and having been a member of the Classification Executive. He has experience of commercial and technical operations of ships, legal aspects and new building projects with the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (now Bahri) and Gearbulk of Norway. At the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), he was associated with developing maritime regulations and assisting countries with Port and Shipping development. A marine engineer by profession, he sailed as a Chief Engineer. Raj is a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineers (UK) and a Chartered Engineer.
Priyabrata Patnaik
QACE Assessor
Priyabrata (Pat) Patnaik joined QACE in 2022 with 45+ years of experience with compliance, risk and consultancy services in the marine industry. He worked with Lloyd’s Register (LR) across a range of their global offices over three decades. He leveraged his expertise in class and statutory services to serve as the chairman of the Devolved Classification Executive of the Americas chapter and as LR’s Technical Performance Manager (TPM) for the Americas and an internal auditor. As the TPM, he was responsible for ensuring the services delivered met LR’s quality objectives as well as IMO, various flag state and other regulatory requirements. Trained as a naval architect, he has experience in ship design, ship building, classification and statutory compliance, and all technical aspects of new building projects. He is an experienced ISM/ISPS/MLC auditor
Accredited Certification Bodies
QACE, as part of its certification process, utilises the services of the following Accredited Certification Bodies (ACB) to audit the quality management systems of the Recognised Organisations: