Our new CEO, Andrew Oliver, in his own words...
- David Laister
- Jul 22
- 5 min read
Grimsby Fish Dock Group’s new chief executive has introduced himself to wider port stakeholders as he settles into the role.
Andrew Oliver officially started as CEO this month, having served as chair of the rebranded organisation for the past four years.
He welcomed members of the seafood, offshore wind and wider port sectors to Humber Cruising Association to outline his vision for the multi-faceted business, while unveiling a new brand identity and website for what was Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises Ltd.
Mr Oliver, a highly respected maritime lawyer, told how since qualifying with Andrew Jackson Solicitors in 1990 he had been ensconced in the industries GFDG unites, working across sea fisheries, marine and environmental law, marine health and safety and more recently offshore energy.
“GFDE was set up in 1993 when we built the new fish market and initially it was fish, fish fish, and we had a lot more shareholders, all involved in fish,” he said. “Since that time the offshore renewables industry has developed and is now a major part of our business. One of my jobs now is to try and reflect on the board, and in the shareholding position, a little more of our stakeholders. It is evolution not revolution - ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it!’.”
Joined by his wife, Sarah, on what was their wedding anniversary, Mr Oliver gave a flavour of his leadership style. “I am a team player; I want to build up the team. It is the people at the heart of GFDG who really matter. The best managers are the people who surround themselves with people who are better than themselves, so I’m already ahead of the game on that. I have a great team. I’m looking forward to working with them.”
And collaboration won’t stop at the office door. “I want to see more collaboration across the dock estate,” he said. “There are people we have as tenants, people who use the dock, and our suppliers, and we all have something in common - the dock - and we as GFDG have been a little isolationist, people didn’t know who we are. I’d like to see us all coming together more often, working together. There will be people in this room who might not have met each other before or didn’t know who our shareholders were, and in fact might actually be able to do work together and help each other. If there’s a problem, there might be an answer in the room. I know we all compete in different ways, and people pay us rent etc, but I want it to be a team effort, right across the dock, and to that end you can always knock on my door.
“We work closely with our neighbours, their tenants, Humber Cruising Association in particular, and a lot of people will be aware of the plans to rebuild The Ice Factory and put up a 142-bed branded hotel. We're looking forward to working with Tom Shutes on this plan. I have warned him we don’t want any hotel guests getting crabby and complaining about fish wagons going past at 3am, so as long as they accept that, we will help! It is about working together.
“Inevitably I will make decisions that people won’t like, but I’ll have made them for the right reasons – for us, the business, and hopefully everybody. In particular, I want to foster greater openness, communication and engagement.”
Mr Oliver said this was a key driver behind the rebranding, delivered by Fred Marketing in a consultative approach with shareholders and stakeholders. “A lot of people didn’t know what GFDE was or what it stood for, and one of the big problems we saw, was that we have the fish market, and that was all people saw,” he said. “When I first came into the chairman’s role, Rob Walsh, then chief executive of the council, said ‘that fish market has got to stay there – it is part of the DNA of Grimsby as much as the Dock Tower is’. We have its history, and on the other hand we also have the future, the wind farm industry and offshore energy. It was how we blend that as one company.
“We discussed with staff and customers, and we decided we needed to change it around a little bit. We’re going to be known as Grimsby Fish Dock Group, and we have the four brands of Offshore Training Centre, Port of Grimsby East, Grimsby Shipyard Services and Grimsby Fish Market. We have a new logo, and it looks really good. There were three or four ideas, but we all unanimously honed in on the chosen one.”
Uniting the businesses as a family, the fish head 'G' remains, with the other elements taking the lead from the simplified graphic, recognised across the UK and beyond. “It is amazing how far that brand goes and we didn’t want to disturb that,” Mr Oliver said, referencing sightings in the South West on mobile fish vans as he has returned to the region from court hearings. “We have preserved the history,” he added. “The fish market is still working well, and we even had a landing of British caught fish last week, a UK registered vessel landed haddock, and it was nice to see UK caught fish from a UK vessel sold on our market.”
Grimsby Fish Market also operates as a trans-shipment hub and import centre for third party businesses now, without seafood touching the daily shout auction. And he sees huge potential with the two latest elements of the group. “Grimsby Shipyard Services lifted more than 120 vessels out of the water last year – a mixture of fishing boats, offshore wind crew transfer vessels and other vessels - and we want to build that up. We lift them out, and we can clean them, but we need other skills and trades, and we are seeing a lack of that, so we are trying to build a cluster around that so we can offer a full service - that’s one area we’re looking at.
“Offshore Training Centre’s Global Wind Organisation accredited status is excellent. It is based at our GRO Centre (on the opposite side of Port of Grimsby East to the fish market) where we have our own mock tower. A wind technician can do a qualification with us, here, and be qualified to work anywhere in the world - that’s going from strength to strength.” He’d like to see wider opportunities for seafarers, but the realistic environment is proving too much in some cases, where the need to be able to stand in warm water is perplexing him, somewhat.
The property element of Port of Grimsby East, the operational name for the fish docks and surrounds, is also being furthered, with offices, processing facilities, logistics and storage operations all to capitalise on. “For all of this, we have a new website bringing it together, and we're all really proud of it,” Mr Oliver added.