James Law
11 years commanding ships. Now shipping product.
From the bridge of a cruise ship
to building the products that run them.
Product leader with a rare combination: deep operational experience from 11 years at sea, and 5+ years building complex SaaS platforms from the ground up.
Career timeline
From navigating 330m cruise ships through Baltic storms to navigating product strategy at scale.
Leading strategy and delivery for the Crewing platform. Overseeing product vision, roadmap, and execution across compliance, HR, payroll, and workforce planning.
Built the Chartering platform 0→1 — an end-to-end voyage management solution. Shaped it from concept to production across three major shipping companies.
Led the digital transformation of customer-facing services for a major UK water utility.
Introduced Agile across five development teams. Drove Scrum adoption, improving delivery predictability and stakeholder transparency.
Managed a portfolio of B2B/B2C maritime SaaS products. Led the ground-up rebuild of the flagship compliance platform and a major enterprise rollout.
Shore-based fleet operations for 17 cruise ships. First responder for the MSC Opera Venice incident — coordinated the full emergency response across multiple stakeholders.
Progressed from Cadet to Senior 2nd Officer across 11 years. Responsible for the safety of 5,500 passengers on 330m vessels through extreme weather, emergencies, and complex navigation.
Things I've built
AI-powered tools and side projects built to solve real problems — and to keep my hands dirty with code.
A product prioritisation tool supporting RICE, MoSCoW, and Value vs Effort frameworks. Built to scratch my own itch — demonstrates deep understanding of prioritisation methodology.
Automates laytime calculation from event data and clauses using natural language prompts. Solves a real maritime commercial pain point.
Generates TCE estimates from voyage inputs using LLMs, improving scenario analysis for commercial shipping decisions.
AI assistant for generating user stories based on product goals and constraints. A product tool, built by a product person.
The site you're looking at. Built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Motion, and strict TDD.
What I bring
A product leader who understands the code, the customer, and the commercial reality.
- 0→1 Product Development
- Product Roadmaps & Vision
- Evidence-Based Prioritisation
- Go-to-Market Planning
- UX Research & Design Thinking
- React & TypeScript
- AI & GPT APIs
- SQL & Data Analysis
- Figma & Prototyping
- GIS & Mapping Tech
- Cross-Functional Teams
- Stakeholder Management
- Agile & Scrum
- Crisis Management
- Calm Under Pressure
- Maritime & Shipping
- Compliance & Regulation
- Logistics & Supply Chain
- B2B & B2C SaaS
- Financial Services