Simon Bennett has been a Director of the World Ocean Council since 2019.
He was the General Manager for Sustainable Development for the Swire group shipping companies: Swire Shipping; which provides high frequency liner shipping services in the Asia Pacific market, Swire Bulk; the dry bulk trading division operating a fleet size of over 150 Handy-size and Supra-,Ultra-,Pana-max vessels, and for Swire Pacific Offshore, which owned and operated a diverse fleet of more than 70 Offshore Support vessels until its sale to a peer group company in mid-2022.
He started his marine career as a deck cadet with British and Commonwealth/Union Castle in 1974. After a three-year sabbatical post gaining his Class 3 (FG) CoC, to take an honours degree in Environmental Sciences at UEA in UK, he worked for the Swire group shipping companies for 40 years, latterly at sea as Master before coming ashore in 1991. Since then, he held a variety of managerial rôles; for the last 16 years as the General Manager for Sustainable Development. He fully retired from the Swire group in mid-2024.
Simon was on the Council of the Nautical Institute from 1989 – 1994 and a Lieutenant Commander, RD, in the Royal Naval Reserve at the time of his retirement from the RNR in 1996 due to work commitments in Asia. He has been a Director of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative since 2015 and was on the Steering Group of the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative from its inception for six years. Simon was both a Director of the Singapore Environment Council for 5 years and a Trustee of the Free Community Church; also guest-lecturing at the four senior Universities in Singapore on Sustainability, whilst he lived in Singapore.