Ronno Schouten is manager of Feadship's design department responsible for layout, styling and technical feasibility of new projects.
Since joining De Voogt Naval Architects in 2003, Ronno has held roles including manager of Yacht Services, responsible for refits, as well as manager of the Naval Architecture department. Before De Voogt Naval Architects, Ronno worked on several yards mainly involved in yacht building.
Ronno has a masters degree in naval architecture as well as marketing.
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.
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.
Burns Fallow is Head Sail Designer and Director for North Sails as well as Global Superyacht Manager for North Sails, a job combining design and management skills. Prior to this Burns was Managing Director of North Sails New Zealand from 2008 until 2014.
From 1993 until 2013, Burns was a member of Team New Zealand (now Emirates Team New Zealand) through five America’s Cup campaigns, being part of the winning team twice. He was head of the Sail program, and in the 2013 campaign he also headed the Wing Aero development team for the AC72 foiling catamarans.
Burns designed his first Superyacht sails in 1991 and he has been involved with over 50 Superyacht projects since that time.
He joined North Sails in 1988 straight from the University of Auckland where he was the first person to graduate from the Yacht Research Unit. For the next few years he learned sail design, interacting with many of the top trimmers from his homeland during that time. His sail designs have appeared on many top level racing programs.
As head of AMELS’ in-house design and naval architecture department, Hans is intimately involved in the construction of luxury motor yachts of the absolute highest quality, working closely with the most renowned pedigree yacht designers and suppliers. As well as the AMELS Limited Editions range, Hans and his team of talented naval architects and experts in large yacht construction handle AMELS Full Custom design and proposal bids. Among the almost 60 AMELS yachts delivered, Hans has worked on milestone projects such as the first MCA-compliant TIGRE D’OR, the avant-garde EVENT and the recently delivered 74-metre PLVS VLTRA and 83-metre HERE COMES THE SUN. In his role, Hans applies his extensive production experience at AMELS as well as from his previous role in shipbuilding at a Fincantieri yard in Italy.
Before entering the superyacht world, Hans began his career as a Navigation Officer for Holland American Line (an affiliate of the Carnival Cruise Line Company). He is a graduate in both Marine Engineering and as a Naval Officer at the HZ University of Applied Sciences in Vlissingen, the Netherlands.
Paola Trifiró is the owner of S/Y Ribelle, a 107ft carbon yacht in build at Vitters with Malcom McKeown and Remi Tessier interiors which will be delivered in Holland between the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. As a passionate Regatta participant, with Paola’s husband Salvatore, this new boat focuses on lightness and speed for racing, without sacrificing the space and transparency for cruising pleasure and sea life.
Paola has been involved with many sailing yacht building projects, from just 7-meters as a young student, to the impressive S/Y Zefira, a 50-meter Dubois design, receiving critical acclaim for lightness, elegance, speed and modernity. As a lover of design and art, Paola has always been a sailor at heart. In particular, she is fond of adventurous sailing to far distant seas and has cruised the oceans from the South Pacific – Fiji and Samoa, to Norway and Alaska, and not to mention Panama and California.
As a passionate bibliophile, she has an impressive personal library of more than 14,000 books containing a special collection (recently catalogued and available online) entirely dedicated to history of food, gastronomic culture and science, international cooking - including many incunabula and rare editions.
Paola is a professional lawyer, specialising in Family and Inheritance law, graduating at Università degli Studi of Milano magna cum laude with a degree thesis on ancient Roman Law and has been Research Fellow in Civil Law for some years.
Sara Gioanola joined Heesen in 2009 as the role of PR and Press Officer. She shares her enthusiasm for the Heesen brand via the media, with extensive content in print publications, digital platforms, videography, events and trade shows. She has helped raise Heesen’s profile considerably thanks to her skills in communication coupled with a thorough understanding of luxury brands and marketing, all around the world.
Prior to Heesen Yachts, Sara worked with Baglietto as a fast motoryacht specialist and Perini Navi, the major superyacht builder specialising in large sailing yachts, from 2005 – 2008.
Sara graduated in 2001 with a Master’s degree in Philosophy. She has always been a passionate sailor and is fluent in three languages.
Ron Gibbs is the owner of a 35 metre yacht M/Y Elysium and has owned a series of motor yachts over the last 20 years. Ron has numerous international business interests, including being a founding shareholder and Chairman of Silver Arrows Marine Limited, which last year launched the new Arrow460 Granturismo with Mercedes-Benz.
In 2006 Ron became a Partner in the China National Aviation Fund, a founding shareholder and Chairman of Cammel Laird (Gibraltar) and the Chief Counsel and Chairman of the Board of Protectors to HRH Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz. In particular, he was responsible for the tender, new-build and financing of the 124 metre M/Y Golden Odyssey which was delivered by Lürssen in 2015. He was also the legal advisor to the Board of the Khaled Bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation – which supports research of coral reefs world-wide.
As a solicitor and then partner with the international law firm Linklaters, Ron was the head of the Firm’s international Shipping and Aviation Practice, managing a substantial superyacht practice, including the new-build, refit and chartering of the yachts within the “Golden Fleet”.
Ron qualified as a lawyer in England and specialised in Aviation and Shipping Law at University College London. Ron is also a Yachtmaster and a Master Scuba Diver.
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.