Interview With Michael Fernandez, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vela

In this edition of the founder spotlight series, we have a prominent figure in sustainable transportation: Michael Fernandez-Ferri – Co-Founder and Managing Director of VELA, a pioneering French company focused on 100% wind-powered maritime transport. Through VELA, Fernandez-Ferri envisions a future where shipping is faster, more cost-effective, and fundamentally aligned with ecological sustainability, thereby addressing climate change and social responsibility within the maritime industry. Fernandez-Ferri’s mission with VELA is to innovate within the shipping sector and address broader climate challenges.

Let’s hear Michael’s story about VELA.

Your career spans various sectors, from strategy and business development to working with major technology players. We’d love to hear about some key experiences that have shaped your leadership and innovation approach.

Having worked for large corporations such as Stellantis or Decathlon has helped us understand both customers expectations and market dynamics. For instance, there are a lot of similarities between what happened in the automotive industry 20 years ago with the CAFE CO2 regulation that pushed for the electrification of the fleet, compared to what is currently happening in the maritime industry with the IMO CO2 regulation pushing the “windification” of the fleet. And at VELA, we’re going 100% sailing like others did back in the days with 100% electric cars.

How does Vela differentiate itself in the logistics industry, and what unique solutions does it bring to the market?

First of all we provide a competitive transportation offer in terms of price and lead time, being both cheaper than air freight and faster than sea freight. In addition, we offer a quality of service that is directly inspired by air freight highest standards to address high added value goods such as pharmaceuticals, luxury or wine and spirits products. Last but not least, being 100% wind-powered, we reduce the carbon footprint of our customers’ transportation by 99% compared to air freight and 80% compared to sea freight in a full life cycle analysis.  

Could you share some exciting innovations Vela is working on to help reduce its carbon footprint and boost sustainability?

First, we replace the engine-powered propellers with 100%-wind-powered sails directly inspired from ocean racing, such as the masts and the sails that are reinforced with carbon. Once you remove carbon emissions from the propulsion, you’re left with decarbonizing the on-board energy for the so called “hotel loads” that include the crew’s daily life, sails manoeuvering systems and the hold air conditioning unit. For those needs, we have decided to combine renewable energies such as solar panels and hydrogenerators to leverage all available energy sources: in good weather conditions, we can leverage the sun, while in rough wind conditions we will have enough power in the sails to suffer the extra drag from the hydrogenerators in the water.

Supply chain disruptions have impacted many industries. How has Vela adapted its approach to mitigate risks and improve resilience in its supply chain?

By being 100% wind powered, we step away from oil dependence, which is the most important cost for conventional shipowners. While this is good for the environment, it also provides us with a strategic independence and a full control over our supply chain. Having smaller vessels (67-meter long ndlr) also allows us to access secondary harbors that are less congested and in a sense more secure. Last, by handling pallets instead of containers we avoid having to deal with empty containers, which has been the bottleneck of sea freight in the last years, especially during covid.

With sustainable logistics gaining traction worldwide, what regions or markets are you most focused on expanding into, and what factors guide those decisions?

We are laser-focused on building a fast shuttle service between the USA and Europe by building a direct route and a high frequency service (up to 1 departure per week). The North Atlantic is a fantastic playground for sailing transportation with predictable wind and tons of goods in both ways. There are many other opportunities elsewhere. The ocean is the limit!

What have been the biggest challenges in scaling Vela, and how has the company adapted to the ever-changing transportation landscape?

Building a shipowner from the ground up is not an easy one and usually takes generations to achieve. Managing to align customers’ interest with investors’ returns, banks’ risk mitigation and competitive shipbuilding have been the most challenging steps. We consider ourselves very lucky to have climbed that first step in only 18 months. While this creates a high entry barrier for competitors, it also brings solid partners such as the Credit Mutuel-CIC Group (first French retail bank), BPI (French investment bank), the Schmidt Family Foundation through the support of 11th Hour Racing Charitable and AUSTAL, our $1,6 billion revenue Australian shipyard.

Building a strong company culture is essential, especially in logistics. How do you foster a culture of innovation and collaboration at Vela?

We have a very horizontal managerial approach with 5 committed co-founders. We decided to found this company together because we all shared a joint passion for the ocean. Ocean racing is our DNA. François Gabart, one of the founders is the world record holder for circumnavigating the globe solo in 42 days on a sailboat. Performance is one of our corporate values. Like Formula one inspires the automotive industry, we derive from ocean racing the technology we need to keep on innovating. Innovations deployed include high performance materials and systems as well as weather routing models to ensure predictable and reliable lead times.    

What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve picked up during your career, and how has it influenced your approach at Vela? Also, we’re curious about your main goals in your role. How do you envision your contributions making a difference in the industry in the coming years?

Timing is the key. I remember reading  this study stating that timing was the main reason for startups’ success or failure, accounting for 42% of cases. I actually experienced it myself in my previous venture in the connected car space where we found ourselves trapped 10 years ahead of the market. I believe Vela is spot on. Covid served as a global eye-opener on supply chains’ fragility, pushing consumers and companies to look for more resilient solutions. Wind is an amazing source of energy: infinite, available 24/7, free and harmless to the environment. Modern sailing technology enables us to capture that energy to build a resilient and reliable transportation offering that will keep reinforcing itself as we move towards oil resources scarcity and global warming urgency.

As a leader in the logistics world, what exciting trends do you think will shape the future of transportation? And how is Vela getting ready to embrace those changes?

Across our 5 co-founders, we are fathers of 11 children. We can’t wait to show them how we make it possible to build sustainable business cases in terms of both economic growth and environmental efficiency. We call it “sustainable efficiency”. While the next few years will be focused on the USA to Europe route, we are aiming at expanding that model everywhere in the world where agile fleets of wind-powered vessels can address local needs with sustainable solutions. What an exciting future!