In Camera - Georgina Noakes talks to Diana Noronha

THE first thing you notice about Diana Noronha is her quiet but arresting look. It is a look that says it is listening. This must be just one reason why her shipping clients, over the years, have chosen to put their trust and confidence in her.

"The ability to choose who I work with has been the greatest thing about working on my own."

Diana was born in Uganda, went to school in Kenya and joined family members in going to university in Bombay. Like many others before her, she got into shipping quite by chance - in 1981 - after becoming bored working at a computer company. She was invited to join Oceanic Financial Services Ltd, where she was largely involved in mezzanine finance for shipowners. "I loved it," said Diana. "The people, nothing ever being the same, no formula deals, and the chance to get to know shipowners well."

In the late 80s, Diana's interest moved from mezzanine to equity. "This gave me experience as a conduit," explained Diana. "I learned to see things from both sides - the bank's and the shipowner's."

"I try to spend a lot of my time listening to where someone else is coming from before I talk."

When plans were pout in place to sell Oceanic, Diana started to think about where she wanted to go. After a one-year transition period with the new owners of the company, she says, "I wanted to work in a different environment, where I could help shipowners on a consultancy basis and bring people together from all the contacts I had built up over the preceding decade."

"I knew my contacts trusted me," says Diana, "so I resigned from Oceanic in 1992 and set up AL Shipping Ltd, in partnership with an ex-director of Oceanic and a Hong Kong shipowner." It was at that time that Diana began to do more work with Fairmont Shipping and got to know better Robert Ho, son of the founder of Fairmont-Magsaysay Shipping. AL Shipping was subsequently involved in the development, structuring and completion of various joint ventures between Hong Kong owners and Norwegian, American and Dutch interests. In 1995, Diana was invited to become a director of Fairmont Shipping (UK) Ltd. "Working with Robert Ho is a delight, and working with his company has not taken away my ability to do business elsewhere," she says.

"The key question is - are you going to show your professional mask or be yourself? It is being yourself that will make you successful in business."

"As a director of Fairmont UK, my job is to promote the company and its interests and to represent those interests in London. In addition to that, I am the London link for anything that happens outside the Hong Kong - Vancouver time zone," Diana smiles. "As far as I'm concerned, because we know and understand one another's working philosophy so well, it's easier for me if Fairmont is involved in the joint ventures that AL Shipping develops. Our association is mutually beneficial to both companies and, as long as the other parties involved are happy, I don't have a conflict."

By 1998, Diana had been running AL Shipping for two years when she bought out the two original shareholders. "I found it easier to make decisions," Diana said, "and my ability to choose who I deal with has been the greatest thing about working on my own."

Managing relationships and client expectations across a broad spectrum is, one suspects, Diana's forte. "Your reputation can be blown by just one indiscreet comment," muses Diana, "so I guard very carefully the trust and confidence that my clients place in me."

The main focus of AL Shipping's work is threefold - joint ventures, consultancy work and business planning, plus day-to-day management of offshore companies for shipping and trading interests. Interestingly, and no doubt because the challenges involved attract Diana's skills and personality, she has a track record of dealing with countries that are traditionally difficult to raise finance for - Croatia, Turkey and Pakistan, for example.

In the spring of 1999, Diana formalised a business relationship she had developed in Croatia over the last fourteen years to create a joint venture called Pasat d.o.o between AL Shipping, Magsaysay and Croatian interests. The joint venture helps with the training and promotion of Croatian seafarers, supplying crews to several other owners in addition to Fairmont.

"Our aim is to develop the crewing side and to put more vessels under the Croatian flag," Diana explains, "and to source projects in Croatia for investment and redevelopment - especially in the areas of training, port development, and the modernisation and redevelopment of ailing shipping companies and shipyards that suffered from the conflicts in the region during the early 1990s."

In Pakistan, AL Shipping and Fairmont are developing something along similar lines. "We have set up a joint venture with an organization in Pakistan which is associated with the welfare and training of marine personnel. The aim is to develop educational and training links with Fairmont's marine school in the Philippines, with a view to developing projects in shipping and related services in a country that has extremely limited shipping assets and resources."

When questioned about the skill of managing complex joint ventures, Diana responds enthusiastically and with a large smile. "It is a challenge," she says. "You should know when to let go. Sometimes when deals are difficult, I don't want them to fail because I enjoy overcoming obstacles. But now I try to recognise at an early stage when something is difficult and say when I don't think it is going to work. May be this has to do with the flush and enthusiasm of youth verses the experience of age."

"But I don't give up too easily," explains Diana, revealing a mixture of tenacity and patience. "Before I speak, I try to spend a lot of time listening to where someone else is coming from." Have her feminine qualities helped her in a predominantly male- oriented shipping environment? "Every one has an ego," she smiles. "But I am less interested in ego games. I recognise it in others and play to it because sometimes you have to. It would be fair to say that in my time I've had to play to someone's ego. There are many ways to skin a cat. You have a goal. If you have to sink your own ego and keep someone else's intact, so be it.

"Getting the job done is the real satisfaction for me. This is the thing that drives me beyond anything else.

"Often, the difference between failure and success is in the detail. Don't underestimate the value of small things. That's when you see something happening that nobody else does."

Last, but not least, what does Diana look for in the lawyers she deals with?

"One that gives you the ability to make a decision," she says, "not one who is so pernickety that they'll kill a deal. I don't like lawyers who score points for the sake of being clever. It is better to be clever in private. I like lawyers who are looking for a compromise in litigation, who are commercial and who assume you know something as the client.

"No-one likes paying lawyers. I try to agree the fee beforehand, even in litigation. I enjoy the company of lawyers. Traditionally, shipowners are closer to their brokers because they relate to one another and speak the same commercial language. There is a move by some lawyers to discuss deals and to be more commercially focused - but this is still something that is more the exception than the rule.

"Basically, I like someone who you can enjoy a drink with. I was with a shipowner some time ago who asked me, 'What's the matter with your lawyer? He never smiles.' Lawyers, like everybody in business, need to put across a human face and be aware that their persona across the table is being carefully read and interpreted by their client.

"Are you going to show your professional mask or be yourself? It is being yourself that will make you successful in business."