Young Talent Recognized By Fiata Young International Freight Forwarder Of Year Award

The twelfth Young International Freight Forwarder of the Year Award, presented recently at the Annual FIATA Conference in Bangkok has been won by 23 year-old Philipp Kueffner, a shipping and forwarding agent with Karl Gross Internationale Speditions GmbH based in Bremen, Germany.

Regional winners were South African, Rion Henning for Africa / Middle East; Canadian, Claudia Ramirez for the Americas; and Singaporean, Ng Kah Yong for Asia / Pacific.

The TT Club has been a sponsor of the award since its inception and firmly believes in the importance of individual training and development within the industry.

Speaking at the award ceremony, TT Club’s General Manager, Europe Andrew Kemp, said, “We are delighted to continue partnering FIATA through our sponsorship of this award. The TT Club is well known around the world for the emphasis it places not only on comprehensive cover, efficient claims handling – but, also on sound loss prevention advice”.

The award offers the winners a chance to undertake practical and academic training, including a week based at the TT Club’s regional centres in London, Hong Kong or New Jersey; to attend the ‘Insight into Transport Law and Insurance’ course in London; and a week-long course at an IATA training centre.

Andrew Kemp went on to say, “We hope that the international winners, who come to us for training, will return to their employers with a greater understanding of the nature of risk in the supply chain – and, the importance of managing it effectively.”

“We would very much like to make the award a challenge that appeals to a greater number of individual candidates and that allows those candidates the ability to call on their own day-to-day experiences – whether they work for a small customs agent or a multi-national multi-functional operator.” said Mr Kemp.

This year’s candidates were set the challenging task of transporting two pieces of equipment for an experimental power station, firstly a 100 tonne crankshaft, by sea and then by road, and secondly a 45 tonne alternator which due to time constraints had to be moved by airfreight.

“All of the dissertations that we received this year were of an extremely high standard – which made the judging of them almost as complex as the subject itself.” concluded Andrew Kemp.