Richard Janssen

Richard Janssen is the Managing Director of Smit Salvage and a former President of the International Salvage Union. He has more than 25 years of experience in the marine salvage, towage, offshore, and energy sectors. He was part of Smit’s teams that delivered many well-known and complex emergency response and wreck removal projects, often involving Port of Refuge issues, innovative engineering solutions, and pollution prevention challenges. This experience taught him the importance of teamwork, client communication, and the close relationship between operations, engineering, contracting, project controls, and financial management.

Richard began his career in towage in Rotterdam before joining Smit in operational and contract management roles. He subsequently headed the commercial team and was involved in almost all major Smit Salvage projects. He later moved to Smit’s terminals division as Commercial Manager for Africa, primarily working on LNG and FPSO marine support projects, before leaving to take on contract and business development roles in the offshore oil and gas sector.

Richard studied business in Rotterdam and has completed a number of international commercial, contracting, subsea engineering, and management courses. He was a member of the ISU’s Salvage Sub-Committee, has served on the Executive Committee since 2015, and is currently a member of the BIMCO working group responsible for revising the suite of “Wreck Contract” forms.