For many shipping executives, ships are assets. For Emily Koo, they can feel more like family.

In this episode of Wavelength+, TradeWinds China correspondent Huaqing Ma sits down with the fourth-generation managing director of TCC Group, whose roots trace back to Shanghai in 1917.

Koo reflects on growing up aboard company vessels, learning from seafarers who later became her mentors, and why spotting a TCC funnel at sea still feels “like seeing a relative”.

The conversation ranges from her journey at Columbia Business School and life outside shipping to family stewardship, ancestral roots in mainland China, and the challenges of leading a century-old company through what she describes as an increasingly “chaotic” era.

Koo also shares the management advice she still carries from her trading days, explains why trust takes generations to build, and discusses the Chinese saying that wealth rarely survives beyond three generations.

How does a fourth-generation shipping family balance heritage and change? And what does it take to sustain a business into its second century?

The full story is also available on tradewindsnews.com.

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