Katya Hall wins Charter Broker of the Year
The 2021 Excellence Awards was held on March 2022 at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach. Here IYC acknowledged its premier employees including Charter Broker of the Year. IYC was pleased to announce this years Charter Broker of the Year was Katya Hall.
As one of IYC’s leading female sales and charter consultants, Katya’s experience ranges from new construction and yacht management to charter and sales. With a background in engineering, economics, luxury hospitality and private aviation, she offers an unparalleled range of expertise to her clients. Since joining IYC in 2012, she has continually proved herself to be an essential part of the team – committed to delivering the best service to clients from across the globe. As Katya is fluent in Russian, she is able to seamlessly communicate with clients from Eastern Europe.
A charter destination expert, Katya guides her clients in choosing the perfect destination and yacht for their dream vacation. The ever-growing popularity of yachting combined with many rescheduled trips from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, did present some challenges for Katya in 2021. “Last year will go down in yachting history as the year we couldn’t find enough yachts to charter,” she says. “Discounts quickly became a thing of the past and bidding wars were unfolding daily for some of popular yachts in August in the Mediterranean.”
However, Katya worked tirelessly to ensure that her clients secured their favorite vessels and were able to enjoy themselves on board. “It was also a year of COVID-caused curve balls flying our way from every direction, and our problem-solving skills were definitely put to a test! From clients testing ‘positive’ on their way to the airport to fly to their charter destination, to the British Virgin Islands shutting down all holiday charters and us having yachts re-routed last minute to St Martin or Bahamas, to crew testing ‘positive’ five days before first-time charterers' holiday charter - I have seen it all! But holidays were saved and most importantly, kids weren’t disappointed, phew!”
One of Katya’s greatest strengths is her negotiating skills, she works tirelessly to achieve the best outcome for her clients. This was most evident in one of her largest deals of 2021. “My biggest accomplishment last year was one client signing 24 weeks of charter on a new 149 ft vessel (divided into 3 two-months long contracts, with a value of over a million dollars each). This deal truly put my experience to the test.”
No day is the same at IYC for Katya, and she thrives on exceeding client’s expectations. As Katya concludes: “Being a superyacht broker does require summoning certain superpowers at times!”