Every action on MBN is attributable to a specific role on a specific organization. This lesson walks the two roles a management company will assign at registration, what each is responsible for and what each will do, once Management Company accounts arrive with v2, around January 2027. Portfolio visibility, delegation, and authority attribution all come online together then.
Management companies have historically operated under informal cross-vessel authority. "The captain knows we approve this kind of work." "The chief said the office signed off." When the contract finishes, or worse, when it doesn't, there's no record of who authorized what across which vessel, under what delegation, at what point. MBN replaces that pattern with attributable authority: every action is tied to a specific role on a specific organization, with a timestamp and an audit trail, even across a multi-vessel portfolio.
That structure matters most for management companies because the surface area is largest. Across a portfolio of vessels, each action is attributed to a specific role, not "the office," not "the management company in general." When the audit trail is read later, it names which Vessel Manager on the management-company organization participated in which decision on which vessel, under which delegation in place at that time.
A management company will assign these roles during registration once Management Company accounts open with v2, around January 2027. Admin is required (exactly one). Vessel Manager is required (one or more). Both roles come online together when accounts open: keep reading.
Exactly one Admin per management-company organization. Will hold the legal representation responsibility and manage the organization's settings, the list of managed vessel organizations, and the delegation structure, once Management Company accounts arrive with v2, around January 2027.
When Management Company accounts open, the Admin will complete the organization's profile, declare the vessel organizations under management (subject to vessel-side acceptance), assign the Vessel Manager team, and submit the organization for MBN officer review.
One or more Vessel Managers per management-company organization. The people who will act on delegated authority across the vessels your management company manages, once Management Company accounts arrive with v2 around January 2027. (Distinct from the Vessel Manager role inside a vessel org, which is live today.)
When Management Company accounts open, the Vessel Manager will be registered in role and receive organization notifications for the managed vessels.
Three rules govern how authority works inside every MBN organization, management companies included. First: no shared credentials. Each role is held by a named person, not "the office" or "the team." Second: no implied permissions. A role does what it's explicitly authorized to do, nothing inherited, nothing assumed, even across a portfolio. Third: no overrides without record. If an action gets escalated past its normal authority, the escalation itself is logged with who, when, and why.
For a management company, the third rule does heavy lifting. Cross-vessel patterns make informal escalation tempting, "we handled this one ourselves," "the office stepped in." MBN doesn't prevent escalation; it records it. The audit trail names which Vessel Manager on the management-company organization acted, which vessel they acted on, under which delegation, and what the escalation was about. That's what turns "the management company handled it" into something defensible later.
Lesson 2, Portfolio dashboard and cross-vessel visibility, arrives with Management Company accounts, around January 2027. Accounts are not registerable yet: when they open, you'll register your organization, declare the vessels under management, and assign the Vessel Managers you just read about as portfolio visibility comes online.