Athina Martinou, founder of the shipping giant Thenamaris Ships Management, passed away on Friday night, October 11, at the age of 97, according to a report at To Vima.

She was considered the most powerful woman in Greek shipping and a true lover of the sea.

Martinou became involved in managing her family’s ships in 1971 and eventually she founded Thenamaris Ships Management, along with her sons Thanasis, Dinos, and Andreas.  Moreover, she developed a foundation called the Athina I. Martinou Foundation (AIM).

In 1991, Martinou handed the reins to her children, at which point her son Thanasis left the company to establish Eastern Mediterranean Maritime.

In 1997, Andreas followed suit, founding the shipping company Minerva Marine, leaving the youngest brother, Dinos, at the helm of Thenamaris.

In an earlier interview with AEINAFTES, Athina (Nounou) Martinou spoke about her family’s first steps in the shipping industry:

“I’m from Kefalonia, but growing up in Glyfada, watching ships pass by, played a big role in my love for the sea. I used to tell my friends, ‘We will have ships of our own one day,’ and we did it. We were obsessed, and the entire family ended up owning ships.”

“In this effort, I wasn’t alone. My husband was by my side from the beginning, but mostly it was my son, Thanasis, who, from the age of fourteen, was making statistics and calculating the crew and supplies a ship would need. My husband, Ioannis Martinou, loved the sea. Thanasis was an active part of this effort from the very first conversation. I wasn’t the driving force, but I was the one who could make difficult things seem easy. When you want something, you can make it happen. I never sought to be a manager. I loved Thenamaris, not the management role. What I wanted was to expand our fleet, and that’s exactly what happened,” Athina Martinou said.

“Our second ship, the ‘Eleni,’ was acquired when we had no money. Thanasis was finishing high school, and I found the funds. We went to London for Thanasis to sign the papers, and he told me, ‘We will raise the Greek flag.’ The harbor master in London asked me, ‘Do you know how to use a typewriter?’ I said ‘yes,’ and I typed up the documents. Thanasis took them, and we received the ship. Our first ship was bought in 1964 for £80,000. It was 20 years old. The ‘Thanasis’ was a Lebanese ship that was in terrible condition. We fixed it, reflagged it as Cypriot, and in 1967, we sold it to the Pateras family for $300,000,” she recounted.