Meet the 36 Superyacht Design Symposium 2017 speakers

Richard Woolley is the studio director for Special Vehicle Operations, working under the direction of Gerry McGovern, Jaguar Land Rover board member and Land Rover’s chief creative officer.

Richard leads a team of creative designers looking at new product opportunities. This includes design responsibility for the Special Vehicle Operations business within Land Rover, which develops high-end luxury bespoke and extreme performance vehicles, including the range Rover SVAutobiography and the Range Rover Sport SVR. His significant design achievements include the 2003 Range Stormer Concept, 2004 Range Rover Sport, 2007 Freelander and 2009 Range Rover. He also led the design team working on the all-new 2012 Range Rover.

Before Land Rover, Richard spent time working in Detroit for Ford Design North America as well as the Rover Group on numerous passenger vehicle programmes including Rover, MG, MINI and Land Rover Vehicles. During this period he also worked in Tokyo, Japan and Munich, Germany.

Richard started his career in the UK, completing studies at Swansea University College of Art and Design before taking on his first design role at Airbus Industry in Hamburg, Germany.

Celia Sawyer is a renowned interior designer with clients across the globe. With an uninhibited sense of style, merging classical with contemporary, she is deeply inspired by architecture and experimental design. Being extremely hands-on in her Mayfair design studio, Celia has worked with an impressive roster of people, from film stars, musicians, leading business icons, not to mention names worthy of the Forbes rich list.

As an interior designer, Celia holds an impressive command over furniture design. Working from sketches of her own vision, Celia will create bespoke and beautiful pieces for clients. Her signature look encapsulates use of textures, colour and creativity, amounting to a design style that exudes opulence and sophisticated glamour.

Celia’s design intuition and personal connection to each project echoes throughout homes, aviation and marine across the globe. It is her attention to detail, unflinching dedication and dignified charisma that have contributed to the notable success Celia has achieved, both in and out of the public eye.

Celia is frequently in mainstream press and national television, alongside being an official columnist for the MailOnline, Hello! and the Huffington Post. She recently joined the Board of Advisors for Football for Peace. This is a global organisation that has had HRH Prince William and the Prince of Monaco, as well as various sporting legends, support the cause already.

Passion and precision embody Celia’s work life; many designers say there are not enough hours in the day, for Celia she always finds them. She intends to leave a legacy trailing behind her in gold and will continue to create bespoke, glamorous interiors for very special clients.

Andrew Winch is the founder and creative director at Winch Design, his position enables him to inspire both clients and design teams with his vision, passion and energy. Winch Design was founded in 1986 by Andrew and Jane Winch as a specialist Exterior and Interior Yacht Design Studio. Over time, the studio has added Aviation, Architecture and Interiors teams to its yacht portfolio and is now a multi-disciplinary studio employing over 75 people, made up of architects, engineers, graphic, interior, textile and furniture designers plus project managers and support staff. Currently working on numerous international design projects on land, in the air and at sea, Winch Design creates spaces which are majestic, timeless and unique. Based in an old fire station on the banks of the River Thames in London, Andrew Winch is celebrating 30 years in business this year.

Prior to Winch Design, Andrew worked at Jon Bannenberg Ltd as an apprentice designer after having spent a year sailing as a crew member across the Atlantic and in the Caribbean on a private 52-foot sailing yacht.

Andrew’s formal training took place at St Martins’ School of Art, London and Kingston College of Art which laid the foundations for his career. Andrew grew up sailing on the south coast of England in dinghies and cruising yachts, his love of the sea embodies all of his work.

Tim Heywood founded Tim Heywood Designs, with his partner Vanessa Reville, in 1996. New projects followed very quickly and he became involved in ever increasing sized yachts, M/Y Pelorus, M/Y Carinthia VII, M/Y Dilbar, M/Y Ice, M/Y Radiant, all built by Lürssen, M/Y Mayan Queen IV, M/Y Baton Rouge, M/Y Cakewalk, M/Y Kogo, M/Y Al Mirqab, M/Y Symphony and, again with Lürssen, M/Y Quantum Blue and M/Y Topaz, (being the largest yacht he has designed to date, at 147 metres.)

Tim’s working relationship with the Amels Ship yard and the Limited Editions series of yachts, now totalling over 30 yachts in the last ten years, has been extremely successful and continues to this day. Tim has worked with nearly all the major yacht building yards of the world, Lürssen, Amels, Feadship, (both Royal Van Lent and De Vries), Blohm & Voss, Kusch, Fincantieri, Icon, Alstom, Direcktor, Oceanfast, Oceanco, Benetti and Picchiotti.

The flowing lines of his exterior designs, often matched with twisting structures, large windows and large wing stations, give his designs an original, individual and strong presence that makes his designs stand out from their contemporaries. Tim’s work has been very influential, he enjoys pushing the building yards, gently and with good humour, to create, what he considers to be, timelessly, elegant yachts.

Tim entered the yacht design world in 1972 at the Chelsea studio of Jon Bannenberg, prior to this he studied Industrial Design Engineering.

John Leonida is a partner at Clyde & Co and heads up the superyacht practice. John's legal specialism lies in transactional work where he is regarded as a "leading individual" by highly regarded Chambers & Partner legal directory. He also advises on regulatory issues relating to the ownership of ships and has extensive experience in negotiating shipbuilding and ship financing documents. His clients are either shipping entrepreneurs or, in the case of John's superyacht work, high net-worth individuals, superyacht builders, designers and banks. He is a regular contributor to Boat International.

Maurizio Minossi is the technical Director at Videoworks which he joined in 1998. He is also a member of the Board and Director of research and development. Maurizio is currently focused on smart environments, IT redundancy, weareable devices and virtualisation of AV devices.

Videoworks entered the Luxury Yachts Market in 1998 and has been involved in more than 80 projects from 27 to 330 feet in Italy, Netherlands, US and China.

Maurizio began working in Industrial Automation and Industrial Networking in the early 1990s. He has an MBA from Institute Adriano Olivetti ISTAO, 1994 and graduated in Electronic Engineering at the University Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona in 1991.

Thomas Haffa has been passionate about boating from an early age, inspired by a little folding boat with sails that his uncle gave him. Thomas’ enthusiasm for boats has remained constant and his passion has grown with his age and wealth in size and scope. So far, Thomas Haffa owned 33 boats –including the famous Wally Tiketitoo. While racing this boat for several years, he invented, together with Massimo Perotti, his Sanlorenzo Alloy No. 1 4H. – winner of the 18th Showboats Award 2008 in Monaco. Recently, he developed the Cantieri di Pisa 22 together with Luca Dini and currently he is discussing an explorer project with Sanlorenzo.

Thomas Haffa is a German entrepreneur, well-known as founder of EM.TV AG, a German Media Company. Thomas Haffa was the

company’s CEO and major shareholder until July 2001, when he sold his shares. Today, Thomas Haffa operates Air Independence GmbH, an exclusive air charter company based in Germany and Austria, amongst other entrepreneurial activities. His latest venture is dotbooks GmbH – an electronic book company.

Thomas Haffa is founding member of the International SeaKeepers Society (www.seakeepers.org). For charity commitment, Thomas Haffa runs the Thomas Haffa Foundation (Thomas Haffa Stiftung).

Superyacht charter was part of family life for Roy Nasser from a young age, and his passion for boats and the sea was instantly apparent. Roy’s family purchased their first boat in the early 2000’s, and for them, yachting remains to be about family time. Since then, the family has bought, refitted & built 5 yachts, ranging in length from 13m to 43m. They have been involved in builds/refits over 3 continents and have cruised extensively, often spending months on board. Roy’s Mother & Sister, Sabina, (after whom the yachts' name M/Y Bina comes from), are extremely design oriented, with a unique approach to form "AND" function, as opposed to form "over" function. In contrast, his father and Roy are both from an engineering/technology background and have always been interested, aware and very involved in everything "behind the scenes". This unique family dynamic has produced incredible results and M/Y Bina’s extensive refit is the latest showcase of our work.

Roy studied at the British School in São Paulo, then pursued studies in Boston, MA before then returning to São Paulo to continue the business he started at 15yrs old. Roy’s software technology company has 'taken off' in the past 4 years which means he now divides his time between São Paulo, Miami, New York (where his sister lives), and Europe (where his mother and grandparents reside).

Bob Corcoran has been the Captain of 77m M/Y Samar for 9 years, traveling extensively from the Fjords of Norway to the Persian Gulf. He is currently involved with the project management of a new 107m motor yacht, project Zoza, a project on the cutting edge of technology and innovation. In addition, he has been involved in 2 previous new builds (being Yard Captain for Broward Marine) and several extensive refit projects as well as offering consultation services on a freelance basis, for new builds and to the development of yachting in Malta.

Bob has been in the Luxury Yacht field since 1984 as Captain, commanding both Charter and Private yachts. He grew up on boats in the waters of the Great Lakes in Michigan. After receiving his first commercial license in 1979 at the age of 20, Bob attended Michigan State University Kellogg School to study Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management.

Bob currently holds a Master 3000 ton License, Cayman Islands Endorsement and a Chief Mate Unlimited License and is working towards a Master Unlimited License.

Nicola Nicolai is Product Development Director of Benetti, Azimut|Benetti Group, in charge of product development of semicustom and full custom new projects. Starting as Project Manager of full custom yachts in 2006, he soon was appointed Head of Project Management Department after managing with success many custom new builds, and then Director of Product & Project Management Department in 2012, managing new builds of semicustom and full custom projects from 30 up to 90+ mt. At this time Nicola Nicolai, acting as Interim Sales Manager, leaded the “Benetti Design Innovation Project” working along with a selected group of top designers of the superyacht industry to rethink the future exterior lines of Benetti’s custom projects.

During his career Nicola has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most important owners, designers, naval architects, brokerage and management companies in the industry. He managed projects such as Benetti’s 70mt Spectre, 45mt Domani, 61mt Diamonds Are Forever, 65mt Seanna, 64mt Silver Angel, 56mt Annaeva, Riva 115’ Athena series, Genesis 153’ and many others.

With over 16 years’ experience in the superyacht industry, Nicola worked at Riva, a Ferretti Group Brand, in 2003 as Project Manager after starting his career in 2000 as Design and Engineering Coordinator for North American Yachts and Shipbuilding.

Combining his professional experience together with his natural passion for yachts he developed a 360 degrees knowledge of product and process, from negotiation to design, engineering, production and delivery of superyachts. Nicola always had an incredible passion for sea and yachting that he developed when still a student sailing as skipper for charter cruises and regattas. He graduated in Architecture and Yacht Design from Florence University of Architecture.