Exclusive: Monika Kozakiewicz, CEO of the NAUTA Shipyard

Nauta – 100 years of tradition, competence, modernity

Exclusive Interview by : Marek Grzybowski – Poland

The NAUTA Shiprepair Yard has been operating in Gdynia, Poland, for 100 years. The shipyard maintains the tradition of Polish shipbuilding in the Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe. The shipyard’s portfolio includes the construction of fishing vessels and specialist units, including scientific research vessels.

The main area of activity are the comprehensive repairs of merchant vessels and naval vessel. NAUTA repairs all kind of vessels, including large sailing ships, ferries and offshore vessels. An important part of the activity is the conversion of ships, adapting ships to the new ecological requirements.

The shipyard has performed numerous scrubber and ballast water treatment installations. The shipyard in Gdynia also installed rotors on the ship, which use wind power to generate propulsion and reduce fuel consumption.

Today, Nauta, with its easy access to the sea, creates excellent conditions for performing work on even the largest ships operating in the Baltic Sea. The diversified core activity is based on two segments: repairs and conversions of merchant ships and services for the Polish Navy.

Nauta Shipyard has signed a cooperation agreement with Hanwha Ocean of South Korea to cooperate and exchange technologies during the MADEX 2025 exhibition in Busan, South Korea in May 2025.

Activity of the NAUTA shipyard today

I would like to ask for a description of the activity of the NAUTA shipyard today. What is the activity of the shipyard in Gdynia on the international market?

I believe that an important task of a shipyard is to build beautiful ships. This is the visible effect of the work of a large team of shipyard workers and collaborators. However, we also analyze the shipyard’s activities from a business perspective.

The shipyard as a company must earn and bring profits by building beautiful ships. So we have two approaches, two different perceptions of the shipyard. These perceptions are not mutually exclusive, but they complement each other.

This is the perspective of assessing the shipyard’s work from the perspective of customers and the shipyard’s activities as a company with a business character. In business, especially in international business, the profitability of the project is important. Ship and naval vessel repairs are mainly short production cycles and a large number of contracts.

Building competences at the NAUTA

The shipyard’s capital is, above all, its people. A ship repair yard requires people who know practically everything related to ships. Ships come to the shipyard both new and old, with various types of equipment. Extensive technical knowledge and experience are needed to renovate a ship to a state that meets the certifier’s requirements. It seems that the shipyard’s biggest problem is building a stable team of engineers and technicians of many specialties. What does building competences at the NAUTA shipyard involve?

Professional competence is indeed a serious problem and we are constantly struggling with it. The NAUTA shipyard‘s activity is based on experienced shipyard workers and new employees.

We have been cooperating with a group of technical schools for many years. There were classes where a hull builder and a machine pipeline fitter were educated. We offer these young people a scholarship program.

We cooperate with companies not only from the Pomerania region, from all over Poland, as well as with equipment suppliers from Europe. By obtaining the contract, at the Nauta shipyard we are de facto creating a very large job market for a large branch of the economy here.

The role of women, as managers

The construction and repair of ships and vessels for the Navy are complex organizational, technical and logistic projects. We have a structural gap not only in employment but also in the age of technical workers. Without the participation of women at all levels of production and logistics, it would probably not be possible to implement any construction or modernization of a ship or vessel today. The role of women, as managers, is also a mission to change the system of thinking that the shipyard is the domain of men. Do women believe that being on the boards you are able to break these barriers of thinking that this is not a typically male profession, it is a profession for everyone?

There are many women in Nauta. Several women are managers of organizational units. Among others, the head of finance, the head of the quality control department and the head of the construction department.

There are also women who are educated engineers and are specialists in their industry. Women introduce balance in the shipyard, balance this masculine element. They introduce an atmosphere in the organization that makes the team work more effectively.

In the production and logistics of the ship repair yard, women are doing well, because today, work in a shipyard is simply the work of people using high competences and modern technologies. Painting a ship is not about waving a brush today. Replacing and repairing equipment on a ship is a professional activity, not hard physical work.

Greater participation of women in shipbuilding/shprepair production allows the full technical potential of the shipyard to be used. I believe that we, women in managerial and engineering positions, are proof that women can function in all positions in the shiprepair business

Grzybowski : President of the Baltic Maritime and Space Cluster