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
Christian Breinholt
Board Member Since 2016, Chairman 2018-2021
Christian joined QACE in November 2016. He began his career as a deck officer in the merchant fleet followed by 39 years of service in the Danish Maritime Authority. The last 13 years in DMA he held the position of Deputy Director General and was responsible for maritime safety, security and protection of the marine environment.
In addition Christian was the representative of Denmark at a number of international, regional, multilateral and bilateral events, including IMO diplomatic Conferences, Assemblies and sessions in the Maritime Safety Committee and Marine Environment Protection Committee since 1988. He was the Chairman of the Maritime Safety Committee in the years 2012 – 2015.
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
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.
Alima Kamara
Administration Manager
Alima joined QACE in January 2015. Her responsibilities include business operations, management of the QACE assessment programme and financial management.
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).
Mike Jennings
QACE Assessor
Mike has joined QACE in 2015 after over six years with IACS as an Audit Manger, auditing and observing member classification societies for QSCS requirements. He spent seven years with an IACS class society as a Senior Surveyor, Lead Auditor and Country Manager also carrying out ISO audits for an Accredited Certification Body. Mike spent ten years in ship management from Superintendent, to Technical Manager, to Fleet Manager running UK operation of oil, product and chemical tankers, including a fleet renewal programme. Mike had fifteen years at sea from cadet up to Chief Engineer, sailing on dry cargo, tankers and container ships.
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.
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: