Singapore-based logistics education specialist Thomas Sim assumes FIATA presidency following his six-year tenure as senior vice president
Freight forwarder association FIATA has elected a new team of freight forwarding leaders, including president Thomas Sim.
The new president previously served as senior vice president of FIATA for six years.
Outgoing president Turgut Erkeskin, from the Association of International Forwarding and Logistics Service Providers (UTIKAD), Türkiye, served from October 2023 to October this year.
Sim was chairman of the FIATA Advisory Body Vocational Training (ABVT) from 2005 to 2019. The body oversees national associations’ training programmes in over 118 countries, assisting to setup and qualifying the standards of international freight forwarding & logistics training materials/curriculums, and the eventual FIATA validation of their national training programmes.
Additionally, Sim has also been the lead global master trainer for the FIATA Foundation Vocational Training (FFVT) since 2001.
He joined the Singapore Logistics Association (SLA) in 2000 and served as the first deputy chairman from 2008-2014. He has also chaired the SLA Human Capital Development Committee since 2004 and has been the academic director of The Logistics Academy (TLA) since 2010.
He has further served as chairman of the working group on education & training under the ASEAN Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (AFFA).
As well as multiple academic positions, he is group chief executive of The Topocean Group in Singapore.
Sim said of his appointment: "As your President, I pledge to continue serving with humility, transparency, and dedication—to be a bridge between cultures, sectors, and generations with collaborative spirit, ensuring that our Federation (FIATA) remains not just relevant, but indispensable in shaping the future of logistics and trade.
"In this interconnected world, FIATA’s strength lies in our diversity and our shared vision of facilitating trade for prosperity. Our true strength lies in unity—in the collaboration of thousands of members across continents who believe in the same mission: to connect the world through logistics, to facilitate trade, and to create prosperity."
Senior vice presidents elected include Jens Roemer, FORWARD Belgium W.E.B., Belgium; Nadia Abdul Aziz, National Association of Freight and Logistics (NAFL), United Arab Emirates; and Yukki Hanafi Nugrahawan, Indonesian Logistics and Forwarders Association (ILFA), Indonesia.
New appointments were also made to the extended board, and chairs of institutes, regions, and advisory bodies.
Geneva-based FIATA is a non-governmental, membership-based organisation representing freight forwarders in some 150 territories. FIATA’s membership is composed of 111 associations members and more than 6,000 individual members, overall representing an industry of over 40,000 freight forwarding and logistics firms worldwide.
