How I got into becoming a Yacht Charter Broker
We start 6 years ago, I was 16 and I spent three weeks in the heart of Ghana, living in the middle of nowhere and stripping life down to its essentials. That experience opened my eyes and shaped how I viewed the world. Around the same time, I started my first business, reselling PlayStation 4 consoles. It taught me the art of negotiation and the importance of always prioritizing the client—a mindset that has stayed with me ever since.
At the end of 2021, as I looked for an internship during university, my journey took an unexpected turn. I applied to over 20 companies in the car industry and received no responses. Frustrated but determined, I stumbled upon an Excel file from my university listing potential companies. One name caught my eye: SuperYachtTimes. I thought, " Fuck it, cars won’t work, let's take it to another level." I sent an email to the old email address of Merijn, the company founder, and two days later, I had a phone call with him. 2 weeks later, I was meeting Peter, their Commercial Director, for breakfast in Barcelona (I used to live there at the time). So these small things of it all working or falling together is a little bit of a sign. I was not fully realizing what I was getting into but because it all pieced together I was ready to go all in.
I started at SuperYachtTimes as a marketing intern in Feb 2022, quickly pivoted to sales, and found myself managing clients and contributing across multiple departments. Two months into my six-month internship, I saw a future in the industry and I was genuinely enjoying it. Here comes one of the most important parts. I told Merijn that I really liked working with the team and that I saw a future at the company as well. This will show genuine trust and very quickly resulted in me getting way more responsibility and an actual job instead of internship. When it was time to move on, I leveraged my time and resources wisely, with permission, by using the company’s CRM and network to apply for roles post-graduation. Plus using the email address of the company (that way it comes across more professional). This time, I applied to three companies and received three offers, I WAS IN!
I chose MY OCEAN for its clear vision. Landing the role wasn’t easy—it required a looooot of chasing to finally get that interview and then again chasing them on a final answer, a massive financial sacrifice, and a lot of risk-taking. While working full-time, I also tackled my thesis, despite being advised to focus solely on academics, this allowed me to build experience whilst wrapping up my degree (I cannot even begin to explain how insanely powerful this was in terms of time-leveraging). Balancing 40 hours of work and 20 hours of thesis writing per week was grueling, and I failed my first attempt at graduation. But I pushed through, adjusted my focus, and successfully completed my degree. In the 3 months I quite literally almost went bankrupt but I had a job and that was most important to me. Again during this internship I aired my thoughts and ambitions and made quite blatantly clear that I wanted to stay with the company long-term.
At MY OCEAN, I immediately took on significant responsibilities. Within two months, I was managing charters under challenging circumstances—Jonny my CEO was in Bali with an 8 hours time difference and Michelle my MD was in Africa without internet. It was a trial by fire, they let me fall flat on my face, making mistakes and allowing me to learn from that. As they know I was with the company to learn, build experience and a network, not to make money. This resilience led to even greater trust and responsibility, transitioning me to the role of Operations Executive. I oversaw all things yachts-related—sales, charter, and management.. This means figuring out what kind of milk they like and at what time, to making sure all accounts are in order before the charter starts, during the charter and after the charter has ended. A full 360 approach
As MY OCEAN grew, I got the opportunity to specialize a bit more and I fully dedicted to becoming a Yacht Charter Broker, also known in the industry as retail charter. Since then, I’ve successfully completed charters worldwide, from Indonesia to Croatia to the Mediterranean, on yachts ranging from 30 to 90 meters. Many clients have returned or referred friends, a testament to the service and trust I strive to deliver. Each step of this journey has been about pushing boundaries, embracing challenges, and building meaningful relationships—core principles that continue to drive me today. Now this is 3 years condensed in a not even a 2 page story, so there is an incredible amount of practical information, experience, life lessons, pitfalls to evade and more where that came from which you will all find in this academy!
Why have I created this?
Almost every conversation with someone new, or even friends/family I have known for years will at some point head towards how I got into yachting or what my life looks like. Be it online, in a bar, in meetings or at events. And I love telling the story, because getting into yacht brokerage is not a straight path, it will be different for everyone and might not even be planned like with me wanting to get into the car industry.
Then I often get the follow up question of what must be done to become a yacht broker and I tell them there is no straight path but I always love to explain the dedication needed, how the industry operates and what my day sometimes looks like. The more these questions started to come in, the more I thought and the more I figured there must be so many of you wanting to learn more about yacht brokerage.
But there are very few examples or people willing to publicly open up regarding this subject. Next to that it seems like a lot of people like you think it is absolutely impossible to get into yachting, which is very untrue, of course there is some barrier to entry but nothing is impossible with the right support and handles! Which this acadamy DOES have!!!
It always has to start with yourself, I can only do so much and that will be key in this academy, I will hold your hand a little bit, but when it comes down to the practical exercises I want you to take the lead, fuck around and find out during the interactive sessions and hopefully fall flat on your face just like I did, learn from it and move upwards.
I did some one on one sessions and that helped people a lot to work on next steps and point them in the right direction, but the passion is deep in yachting and I wanted to reach YOU, because the new generation needs to start to take over the yachting industry. The sooner we start, the better we can develop yachting!