Sophocles Zoullas

Sophocles Zoullas came to shipping with an honors degree from Harvard College, where he was named a Harvard College Scholar, and he later earned an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. In the more than three decades since, the Greek-American industrialist, investor, and maritime executive has built, financed, and managed global shipping businesses in public and private markets. He is now the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Shipping. Zoullas began his career in 1989 at Norland Shipping & Trading Corporation, where he served as an executive officer and director until 2005. The role gave him direct responsibility for nearly every part of a shipping business: vessel acquisitions, financing, chartering, insurance, technical oversight, and operating-cost management. During the late 1990s, the industry began adopting the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, and Zoullas took up the framework early. He believed transparent systems and disciplined operations would become essential for the institutional investors, lenders, and global charterers whose confidence a growing shipping company depends on, and that view shaped the standards he later carried into the public markets. In 2005, Zoullas founded Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. and became its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He led the company through its initial public offering on Nasdaq within eight months of its formation, one of the earliest and most successful U.S. shipping IPOs of the modern era. Under his leadership, Eagle Bulk expanded to a 45-vessel fleet and became one of the world's most significant owners of Supramax dry bulk vessels. In 2009, Fortune Small Business included it among the 100 Fastest-Growing Small Public Companies in America.