Career Paths: Nick Chubb, Thetius

Nick began his career as a ship’s navigator before transitioning to work on maritime digital transformation and research ashore. He believes that the best investment in one’s career is to consistently add value as a professional. This is why he invests significant time and resources into his personal development, always striving to increase the value he brings. Regarding the maritime industry, Nick commends the sector’s efforts to embrace new technologies but advocates for more funding, skills, and focus on exploring new concepts, rather than solely relying on established methods.

SAFETY4SEA: How did it come about that you joined shipping industry and your field of expertise specifically?

Nick Chubb: When I was 15 I was looking for a career that would allow me to get out of my home town, travel, and take on some responsibility. I originally applied and got offered a place to go to sea at age 16, but my mum refused to give her permission, insisting I finished school first. Since moving ashore, I’ve worked mostly in technology, in and out of the maritime industry and I started Thetius after growing frustrated at the lack of good research tools for maritime technologies.

S4S: What about your current job/ role most excites you and why?

N.Ch.: Thetius is a research firm that helps maritime industry leaders make strategic technology decisions. We provide industry, technology suppliers and investors with the information they need to make decisions on emerging technology quickly and with confidence. In my view, maritime is the most important industry in the world. It is currently going through two enormous, technology-led transformations, the first being digitalisation and the second being decarbonisation. It’s incredibly exciting to be able to provide research to our customers to support decisions which will continue to have an impact for decades to come.

S4S: What is the best and what was the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given and why?

N.Ch.: The worst piece of advice I received was that you should work somewhere for 2+ years before you consider moving on from a job. I was a serial job hopper in my early career. But I learned a huge amount in that period. Long term, finding opportunities that compound and allow you to learn is far more important than time serving in a particular role. If you stop learning in a job, move on.

The best advice I received was to not be afraid of failure. If you aren’t failing in some way all of the time, you aren’t pushing hard enough. I’ve failed in my career more times than I can count. I’ve failed in jobs, failed in work projects, and in the businesses that I’ve started. People very rarely remember your failures, but you won’t have any success without them.

S4S: What is the most worthwhile career investment (in energy, time, money) you’ve ever made?

N.Ch.: If you believe that your career success is a function of the value you personally bring to work, then the best investment you can make is in yourself. I invest huge amounts of time and money into my own personal development in an attempt to always be growing the value I bring to the work I do.

S4S: In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your business life?

N.Ch.: A strong bias for action can overcome almost any obstacle.

S4S: What would you like to change in the current maritime landscape and your area of expertise specifically and why?

N.Ch.: Across maritime, we are very good at R&D and testing new technologies, and the industry is generally very good at buying established technologies. But there is a gap in the middle and the industry generally struggles to come together to scale promising technologies. I would like to see more funding, skills, and focus put into scaling technologies that have been proven to work on a small scale.

The views presented are only those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.