Overview
Varvarenko spent his early career inside the shipping industry, working in ship agency, shipbroking and as a chartering manager. He was head of the chartering department at CEC Lines from 2002 to 2006 and then director of the Odessa-based shipping company Kaalbye Projects from 2006 to 2009, handling project, oversized and steel cargo in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Persian Gulf markets. In 2009 he started Varamar, opening its first office in Cyprus and its second in Odessa, and built it into a carrier of breakbulk, heavy, oversized and dry-bulk cargo with offices in 13 countries. He is also the founder of the Ukrainian Shipbrokers Club. He studied at Odessa National Maritime University and completed professional education at the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers in the United Kingdom.
Alexander Varvarenko is the founder and chief executive of SHIPNEXT, a digital shipping marketplace and transportation platform owned and operated by Shipnext BV in Antwerp. The platform reads and processes shipping emails automatically, matches cargo to ships and covers breakbulk, dry-bulk, wet-bulk and containerised cargo, drawing on more than 85 databases through modules for trading, cargo and fleet monitoring, documents and ports. Shipnext dates its founding to May 2015 and launched publicly on 2 October 2017 for non-containerised, general, oversized and dry-bulk cargo. Dragon Capital Investments took a minority stake at launch on undisclosed terms, and the Hong Kong accelerator Betatron invested in 2019, when the company opened a representative office there. In 2023 Shipnext won a multi-year grant from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship for AI and predictive analytics, with a first instalment of 400,000 EUR, and reported around 3,500 daily users. Partnerships followed with FONASBA in 2023, the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers in 2024 and BIMCO's Technology Partnership Programme in 2025. Varvarenko also founded Varamar in 2009, a carrier of breakbulk, heavy, oversized and dry-bulk cargo with offices in 13 countries, including Antwerp. Since 2023 he has worked with MBM Consultancy on the Remora Concept, a net-zero design that reworks the lighter aboard ship system with self-propelled barges and a nuclear-powered mothership.
Career history
In the news
- Every year I have the pleasure of cooking for our Antwerp team and their partners. A way to close the summer. Unfortunately our table can go as far as 20, so as the team gets bigger we will have to move to some other format, no matter how much I love cooking :) #antwerp #belgium
- Every year I have the pleasure of cooking for our Antwerp team and their partners. A way to close the summer. Unfortunately our table can go as far as 20, so as the team gets bigger we will have to move to some other format, no matter how much I love cooking :)
- Yemeni Houthi’s now occupied Perim Island and are preparing to close the Bab-Al-Mandab straight. This will be the 4th military conflict (war) directly impacting on the group of companies we built in just 5 years. And probably not he last one. The good news is that market will rise again, and new opportunities will be created. The other bad news, on the other hand, is that the world economy is one significant step closer to a complete collapse. And so is the III-rd world war. But what I also know is that what does not kills us -
- I promise to make it interesting
- Well done! Bahri | البحري VARAMAR Grimaldi Group Suvari Shipping https://lnkd.in/eyjt-aqc
- We are aware of a number of allegations being circulated concerning Varamar, Shipnext and myself in connection with a commercial dispute with an individual broker. These allegations are false and have no factual basis. The underlying matter is a contractual/commercial disagreement and is being addressed through the appropriate channels. By no means giving grounds to attack my family, all of my companies, and my personal credibility which I spent 25 year to build. This is the first situation of this nature in Varamar’s 17-year
- FESCO Yanina was shot down and sank in the Black Sea. After a thorough investigation, I came to an approximate numbae of 315 commerial ships attacked by drones and rockets in the Azov Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea and the Arabian/Persian Gulf in the past 2 years alone. You know what's striking? United Nations, BIMCO, International Maritime Organization say nothing, do nothing, and frankly, can do nothing about it, while it continues to be contradiction to any international laws, conventions and common sense. https://lnkd.in/enGEn2wA
- ATA-2 was attacked in Odessa bay today during the Russian drone attack bringing the total number of consolidated commercial ships hit by drones in Black and Azov areas to well over 120 in the past 3 weeks alone. https://lnkd.in/eZjC97bT Follow more news on this on SHIPNEXT (www.shipnext.com) #blacksea #ukraine #russia #trade #attack
This page shows public professional information only, each fact cited. Is this you? send a correction, or ask for removal within 24 hours, no questions asked.