Meet the 36 Superyacht Design Symposium 2017 speakers

Guillaume Rolland is presently in charge of Studio Liaigre’s yacht design division. Guillaume joined Christian Liaigre’s team in 2002 and became the principal in charge of the design studio and has since been involved in all the projects developed. Before this, from 1998 to 2001, Guillaume worked with Philippe Starck.

Guillaume Rolland is an active sailor. He has been cruising and sailing since his early childhood and races an olympic keelboat all year round. He frequently participates in regattas on maxi-yachts.

Guillaume Rolland graduated from the Paris Beaux Arts School in Architecture and Fine Arts.

Projects include: Wedge 2, Rosehearty, Vertigo, Seahawk, Cloudbreak

Tom Cheesewright is the founder of applied futurism practice, Book of the Future and creator of the Futurist's Toolkit, a suite of tools for agile organisations.

Through consulting, speaking and media work Tom helps people to see, share and respond to a coherent vision of tomorrow. Clients range from charities and public sector organisations to FTSE100 enterprises and global technology corporations, They include LG, Nikon, Sony Pictures, the NHS, Manchester University, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and the Institute of Leadership and Management.

Tom followed a degree in Mechatronic Engineering with 14 years in the tech industry, working with global brands such as BT, EE and IBM, and subsequently founded a series of technology-driven companies. Most recently Tom co-founded venture-backed big data analytics start-up CANDDi, of which he remains a shareholder. He acts as an advisor to a number of technology-driven start-ups.

Tom is a frequent presence on TV and radio, appearing across the BBC from the Breakfast sofa to Newsround and World Business Report, and as a regular contributor to 5live and Radio 4. He has shared his thoughts on the future with Channel 4′s Sunday Brunch, Sky News, the Guardian, Evening Standard, Entrepreneur Magazine, Stuff and MSN.

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.

Terence Disdale Designs is one of the world’s leading companies specialising in yacht design. The company employs a team of 15 and was formed in 1973.

Prior to this Terence worked as one of Jon Bannenberg’s two design assistants for a few years. His other experiences were in the hotel design industry and with shop fitting and joinery specialists.

In his forty years of experience Terence has participated in the design and construction of more than a hundred yachts including fifty of these above the category of 45 meters. Eighteen of his projects have been completed above the category of 60 meters & he is the holder of thirty international design awards for his projects, including their latest creation the 81 metre Kibo which won the 2015 Showboats Holistic Design Award.

In 2015 the 163 metre Motor Yacht Eclipse was recognised by Boat International with the status of ‘Motor Yacht of the Decade’ which incorporates Terence Disdale’s exterior styling, general arrangement and complete interior design.

His forte is in creating the total design concept of the yacht from the water line upward. The design team develops the complete deck by deck planning, the superstructure lines, design and detail as well as the complete and totally bespoke interior.

Occasionally they have been invited to work on the interior of private aircraft and the houses of various clients where they have carried out extensive architectural work, landscape design and interior design.

Charlie Hagan is Co-Managing Partner and Head of Training and Nutrition for luxury personal training and nutrition firm Hagan & Pappin.

Charlie spent several years in the health & wellbeing industry advising individuals, families and corporates on fitness & nutrition optimisation before setting up Hagan & Pappin in 2014. He has worked with leading international exercise labs and for private clients across the Middle East, the US and Europe.

Hagan & Pappin manages and optimises the health, nutrition and physical activity of individuals and families across the globe. The firm’s team works with designers to custom build bespoke fitness areas into clients’ Superyachts and private homes specially tailored to their needs and physiology. They also deliver nutrition training to on-board chefs and supply on-board trainers and physical therapists.

Charlie has an early background in the industry. His father is an Offshore Powerboat Racing World Champion and Superyacht designer. Charlie is a competitive offshore yacht racer with an RYA Yachtmaster.

He has a BSc, Chemistry from the University of Bristol. He qualified as a Personal Trainer in 2002 and holds successive advanced qualifications in fitness, nutrition and physiology. He was a corporate M&A lawyer in London before moving into health.

Peder Eidsgaard founded Eidsgaard Design in 2005 to create exterior and interior designs for superyachts. The company is headed with partners Ben Harrison and Ewa Eidsgaard.

The company’s team of eight is based in London, from where they have delivered designs for yachts including Tango, Saudade, Angel’s Share, Halo and Vanish.

“- We enjoy creating yachts that each have a unique character to reflect the owners personality. Only the engine room location is conventional in our layouts, which are fully created from scratch around the lifestyle of the owner.”

Eidsgaard’s exteriors aim to each have a certain dynamic elegance, but every profile is made to be individual and recognizable.

Peder decided on his chosen career after reading about London’s superyacht designers in a magazine when he was 12 years old.

He was born in Great Britain but grew up in Oslo, Norway, and gained a Bachelor of Science degree in design in Switzerland, before he spent nine years working for Andrew Winch Designs in London.

Since 2005 Peder Eidsgaard has also delivered 23 V-VIP private jets under his separate company Pegasus Design: “- Superyachts and private jets are vastly different in that one is a holiday home and the other a business tool, but both disciplines share the same design process and the same design-conscious clientele.”

For several of Peder’s clients the team has designed both the jet and yacht.

Peder’s spare time is spent with family and friends on the ski slopes in the Winter and on his small boat in Norway during the Summer.

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.

Bill Duker is the founder of Amici LLC, acquired by Xerox in 2006 for $174 million. Founded in 2002, Amici is a leading provider of electronic-discovery (e-discovery) services, primarily supporting litigation and regulatory compliance. E-discovery is the identification, filtering, production and storage of relevant data from paper or electronic documents, like e-mail, text files, memos, databases, presentations and spreadsheets.

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.