Dave Bozeman, CEO, C.H. Robinson

Soon after Dave Bozeman joined C.H. Robinson as CEO in 2023, he launched a company-wide challenge called What’s Impeding Your Speed? “I asked everyone, ‘What is keeping you from doing your job or going faster in your work?’” he says.

Bozeman expected to send about 345 handwritten notes thanking the global 3PL’s employees for their responses. “But I received 3,400 ideas from more than 2,400 employees,” he says. “That told me we have a speak-up culture, full of people who want to win. It was all very rich data.”

Gaining insights from rank-and-file employees is a signature strategy for Bozeman, who has also held executive positions at Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, Amazon, and Ford Motor. He recently talked with us about his leadership philosophy and recent efforts to foster continuous improvement at CH Robinson, which is one of the world’s largest logistics platform, offering logistics services, a multimodal transportation management system, and insight from supply chain experts.

IL: What was one event early in your career that helped to shape you as a leader?

When I came to Harley-Davidson in 1992 as an entry-level manufacturing engineer, I badly wanted to carry a two-way radio on the job. Only supervisors carried radios, but I wanted it so much, my superintendent finally handed me one. That obliged me not only to do engineering work, but also to spend time on the floor with the people who worked on the flywheel truing line.

I took a pounding from those people, because they saw me as management. But at the end of several weeks, a few of them said, “We like the way you listen to us and respect us.”

This taught me always to get close to the work and respect the people who do it. When the time came to introduce new processes on the floor, people were cooperative. I’ve carried that lesson throughout my career.

IL: What did you learn from serving as vice president of Amazon Transportation Services during the pandemic?

It was a crazy time for ecommerce. We worked long hours and handled surging volumes with reduced capacity, since everyone had to be six feet apart. I learned never to underestimate the power of innovation and people. We had to innovate quickly and remember that it’s okay to fail. I tell my teams now, you fail, get up, learn fast, and keep moving.

When I look back on that time, I wonder how we made it through. But we became stronger, and we made some important discoveries.

IL: You’re a lean practitioner. How have you been implementing lean principles at C.H. Robinson?

You can’t just walk in and say, “Today we’re going to do lean.” You need to make sure everyone speaks the same language. Maybe people don’t know anything about lean, but if I say I want to reduce waste in all the processes within a company—waste of information, waste of movement—people understand that.

That’s the approach I took at the beginning, walking through discussions of continuous improvement and helping people at Robinson adopt that mindset.

Also, I like to use a lean practice called gemba, which means “go see.” Just as in my Harley-Davidson days, I like to get close to the work. As a leader, that lets me base decisions on actual data and things I have witnessed.

IL: What’s an example of an improvement Robinson has made by implementing lean principles?

We have approximately 100,000 customers. Some of the largest have IT systems that connect directly to our IT systems, allowing for seamless transactions, for example, when they need a quote.

But many other customers, even quite large ones, communicate with us via unstructured data, which generally means email. Then a human needs to do the research and get back to that customer with a quote.

But if you examine that process through the lean framework, you ask how we can take waste out of that system using technology such as generative AI and large language models.

With some of that technology, we can deal with 500,000 unstructured data points daily. The system retrieves the right information, and in some cases it talks back to the customer in a conversational way. Our bar, which we’re hitting, is to get that quote back to them in less than one minute.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I hope the people who work around me will say that I’m authentic. I like to communicate consistently and effectively.

Driving the development of others is my responsibility, and it gives me satisfaction. Solving problems through the use of data is very important. So is driving a high bar to take people where they didn’t think they could go.

IL: What’s the hardest aspect of your job?

It’s not lost on me that when I make decisions and take actions, I’m responsible for more than 15,000 employees. We’re in a freight recession right now. People deserve to have leaders who make them feel confident, assuring them that we have a plan to get them through these trying times.

IL: What books do you like to recommend to others?

I gave the whole organization a book called The Lean Turnaround by Art Byrne. As an easy read that gives insights into what lean is, it provided the Rosetta Stone our organization needed, so we could all talk the same language.

On a personal level, one book I love is The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.

IL: When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?

Spending time with family is the big thing. My wife and I have been married for almost 31 years. We met in college, and now we have five children ranging in age from 15 to 30—four are out of college, two work in Florida, one is in law school in Oregon, and one works in Arizona.

Also, I’ve become a big-time foodie. I like to cook, and as I have traveled around the world I’ve come to appreciate the power of food to help people connect.

Disruption and Opportunity

Two closely related concerns make C.H. Robinson’s customers especially anxious these days. “Number one is the unknown and number two is variability,” says Dave Bozeman.

Since the pandemic, shippers have been riding a roller coaster, trying to get their supply chains and inventories back to the right levels while dealing with a freight recession. “Customers are thinking, ‘I certainly don’t want to experience the pain I had when I over-ordered during the pandemic,’” says Bozeman. “There were shipping and logistics issues, and a lot of customers were stuck with inventory.

“And it was tough to move goods around the world,” he adds. “So I think they’re being cautious about how and when they order.”

Global turmoil—including attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and disruptions at the U.S.-Mexico border—compound challenges for shippers. For example, as workers at the Big Three automakers ended their recent labor strike, the tight border made it hard for tier one suppliers in Mexico to speed auto parts back into the pipeline. C.H. Robinson helped with creative solutions, such as shifting some shipments to air freight.

“We thrive in disruption,” Bozeman says.

Moid Alwy, Chief Supply Chain Officer, American Tire Distributors

After nearly 20 years in supply chain roles at Target, Moid Alwy welcomed a new set of challenges in 2022, when he became executive vice president and chief supply chain officer at American Tire Distributors (ATD).

“The areas that added complexity at Target have to do with the breadth of the assortment,” Alwy says. “We were moving lipstick, bicycles, rugs, apparel. Here at ATD, our products are tires. And they’re round.”

A simpler range of products eases some aspects of logistics. But wholesale distribution poses other kinds of puzzles. “Our complexity here is around our customers’ different delivery needs and preferences,” he says.

Alwy recently gave us a look at what it takes to keep those 80,000 customers—auto repair and tire replacement shops throughout the United States—happily supplied with the products they need to run their businesses.

IL: When you first came to ATD, what items were at the top of your agenda?

The company wasn’t keeping as much data then, or doing all the analytics we do today, to measure performance and understand where we want to go. I launched a comprehensive review of the business, using some metrics I’d used in my previous life.

Also, I got out in the field—both in our buildings to talk with our teams and in our customers’ retail shops—to see how they interacted with ATD.

IL: Describe an event from your early career that helped to shape you as a leader.

I went to school for mathematics and computer science, and in my first job at Target I did modeling to help determine where to put new distribution centers. I enjoyed the supply chain and wanted to learn more, so my mentor suggested I become a front line leader in a DC. That new assignment put me in charge of the inbound day shift at a DC in rural Wisconsin, with 100 people reporting to me.

In my first three months, I probably made all the mistakes a leader can make. I’m lucky that I had strong leadership to coach me and tell me it was okay to make those mistakes. Stepping out of my comfort zone was the best thing I could have done, because that role was where I learned and grew the most.

IL: What lessons did you learn working at Target during the pandemic?

The pandemic supercharged our ability to be more nimble—for example, by diverting product from one place to another as needed. It also highlighted the value of the work we did in understanding, at a detailed level, where product was flowing and where there were going to be issues. We could communicate to our stores and customers exactly when to expect the products they were looking for.

IL: How do those lessons influence your work at ATD?

There are still disruptions and a lot of volatility in whether supply is coming from our vendors, as well as volatility in demand. It’s important to get an early indication of where disruptions will happen and then quickly adjust our plans.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of diverse experiences in my career, both in front line leadership and in being responsible for strategic priorities and projects. I’ve learned the importance of building a strong team—with the right people in the right roles—and forging a good connection, understanding what makes them tick and what motivates them.

Also, it’s important to have a compelling vision of where you’re going and why that matters. One of the first things I did at ATD was to put on paper what a good supply chain looks like and where ATD’s supply chain is going.

IL: How do you nurture talent on your team?

I’m a big fan of continuous growth, and of assignments that challenge the individual to think differently and/or ask for help. That could mean moving someone who’s really comfortable with what they do into a new job, in a field where they’re not already an expert. Or it might mean giving them an additional project, or a new role, to help them understand more broadly how the organization is connected.

Throughout that process, I have to provide the right coaching and mentoring and give them the grace to be able to make some mistakes. I also make sure people understand that asking for help is not a bad thing. When I meet with my team, I always ask, “What help do you need, where can I help, and what help are others providing?”

IL: What are you doing at ATD that’s new and interesting?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a focus across our supply chain—how we order, how we plan our inventory, how we manage transportation. With help from AI, our team can spend less time finding problems and more time developing solutions.

We’re also growing our last-mile delivery platform. We want to use the 1,400 vans and trucks operating in our top metro areas to make deliveries that ordinarily we would not make. That could mean delivering products we don’t carry ourselves for other parts suppliers who also serve our customers. We could also help retailers in the market with deliveries to consumers and businesses.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I spend a big chunk of it cooking, and I spend a lot of time working out at my gym. I played college tennis, and now I play semi-competitive tennis a few times a week.

What’s Cooking?

Kiran Alwy was eight years old when she told her father Moid that she was done serving merely as his helper in the kitchen. “She said, ‘I don’t want to just grab things out of the cupboard; I want to cook,’” says Alwy, who briefly attended culinary school and has remained an avid home chef.

As Kiran grew, so did her passion for the kitchen and her confidence in her skills. At 13, she won a spot on the Food Network show Chopped Junior and came in second in the competition. Then, in 2021, Kiran and her dad entered the world of competitive cooking as a team, appearing together on Bravo’s Top Chef Family Style.

With COVID still a big concern, father and daughter spent six weeks shut in an apartment when they weren’t in the TV studio. “As a result, we spent a lot of quality time together,” Alwy says. “She’s 17 now, and she’s one of my best friends.”

Although they didn’t win Top Chef, the pair had a terrific time on the show. “We met some amazing people with whom she’s still friends,” Alwy says. “We got to meet some amazing chefs. And we got to keep the aprons and knives, which is awesome.”

Akash Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder, GreyOrange

Akash Gupta and Samay Kohli were barely out of college when they co-founded robotics and AI firm GreyOrange. From that start in 2012, the company, now based in Atlanta, has become a major force in supply chain automation, with operations across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

“In 2012, supply chain was not as sexy as it is today,” says Gupta, who took over from Kohli as CEO of GreyOrange in 2023. “It was still a back-end function and a pure bottom-line driver rather than a top-line driver.” The world has changed since then, and demand for GreyOrange’s solutions has soared.

Gupta filled us in on the company’s history and recent activities and shared some insight into his leadership.

IL: When you and Samay Kohli founded your robotics business, why did you choose logistics as its focus?

In 2012, digitization was transforming manufacturing just as ecommerce was revolutionizing consumer behavior. We predicted that the supply chain, which connects the manufacturing and consumer ecosystems, would have to evolve quickly as well. That was a global problem.

Also, we realized that warehouses badly needed to be automated in two ways: to reduce manual labor and walking, and to become less dependent on human decisionmaking. We were intrigued to find an industry that needed a combination of robotic automation and software automation.

IL: Tell us about an event early in your career that taught you an important lesson.

Our first product was a sortation system. The launch was beautifully successful; it took just a few months to sell systems to two large companies in India. But then we had to spend 12 to 18 months refining those systems, because what you think you have on paper is very different from what happens in the warehouse. That experience taught us a lot of things that two engineers getting out of college needed to know.

And those lessons paid off extremely well. One of our first customers was the ecommerce company Flipkart. We worked very hard to make sure their peak season went well, and they turned into an amazing customer reference for us. The next season, we sold 37 sortation systems and went from $500,000 in revenue to between $10 million and $12 million.

IL: What keeps your customers awake at night?

Three things. First is how to develop a technology platform that will give their customers the right experience. Second is, once they’ve identified how to deliver that experience, how do they quickly scale up the solution to cover the whole enterprise? Third, how do they stay agile, so they can respond to any sort of event, from a pandemic to unexpected changes in consumer demand?

IL: Do customers bring any unusual challenges to GreyOrange?

One customer was shipping 80% of its volume to retail stores and 20% to ecommerce consumers from one facility. We designed a system to support that volume. Then COVID hit, and they asked us to flip the system to 80% ecommerce and 20% retail.

That was a drastic request, but fortunately we had been designing our solutions to accommodate a change in channel mix. We were able to reconfigure their system in a few days.

IL: What would we see if we followed you around at work?

I spend 50% of my time with current and prospective customers; I try to visit three or four customer sites every 15 days. Another 30% of my time I spend talking to folks in the company, including my direct reports and people at the execution level. And I probably spend 20% of my time putting out fires and making sure we keep the lights on.

IL: How would you describe your leadership style?

I’m fairly detail-oriented. I try to be as intellectually honest as possible, and I want everybody to do the same. I like to hear bad news as quickly as possible, so we can do something about it. Once we make a commitment to a customer, I go very far to make sure we keep that commitment.

IL: How do you nurture talent on your team?

Because it’s so important to understand our customers and their problems, I encourage team members to visit customer sites. I make sure that they feel comfortable trying new things and making mistakes, but also that they have a clear view of what is important, what is reversible, and what is irreversible.

These people have attained their roles because they’re capable, but through all the chaos of running a business, they need to be self-aware. It’s important to help them with that.

IL: What’s new and interesting at GreyOrange these days?

We’re making sure that each member of our leadership team spends time in one of our customers’ warehouses. And we’ve recently expanded the focus of our solutions from just the warehouse to the larger challenge of omnichannel execution, including in-store inventory.

IL: How have you been influenced by a mentor or role model?

I’ve had several mentors, but one who taught me a particularly interesting lesson was Thomas Chance, the CEO of C&C Technologies, where Samay and I did internships. We worked closely with him on a few projects, and he was kind enough to tell us about his experiences. He emphasized that you have to respect Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong then it will go wrong, so it’s important to be well prepared.

IL: Is there something you believed strongly at the start of your career that you’ve changed your mind about?

When you start out, what’s most important is to get the technology or the product right. But the crucial thing is to get the people right. The value of having people who align on the company’s vision, culture, and behavior is even greater than the value of a good product or technology.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I love taking drives to remote places. I also love attending all kinds of musical performances. And spending as much time as possible with family is always on my priority list.

Keep Moving Forward

Looking back at his entrepreneurial journey so far, the characteristic that strikes Akash Gupta as most important is a bias toward action.

“You start your day with 10 decisions to be made,” Gupta explains. “No matter what happens, a few of those decisions will be wrong.”

But you can’t let fear of those inevitable errors keep you from moving forward. “You’ll never have enough information to make the perfect decision,” he says. “You just need to trust that you are making more right decisions than wrong ones.”

Vanessa Coleman CEO, Oceanworks

More than 11 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, says a 2022 United Nations report. Vanessa Coleman’s company, Los Angeles-based Oceanworks, seeks to halt that pollution. The company helps brand owners source recycled materials and lets them buy credits that fund the removal of plastic waste from the environment.

Oceanworks is the third venture Coleman has helped to launch since her days as an engineering grad student at MIT. “I’m an entrepreneur at heart,” she says. “I like creating things in the world that weren’t there before.”

Coleman gave us a look at how she leads Oceanworks and some of the company’s exciting recent activities.

IL: How and why did you come to co-found Oceanworks?

I’d been reading a lot about the challenges our oceans are facing. Also, through my travels—partly with Saha Global, the nonprofit I helped to found in Africa—I’d experienced the increase in plastic waste in the environment worldwide. In places where there used to be land or a beach, there’s now a mass of plastic waste. I wondered how to create solutions that might help accelerate the reclamation of that waste at scale.

Then one of my investors connected me with Rob Ianelli [now the company’s president], who had the original concept that ultimately turned into Oceanworks. He made sunglasses out of recycled ocean plastic and wanted to scale that concept with larger brands that had big supply chains. He and I started working together, and we built the company from there.

IL: What prompts manufacturers to work with your company?

Based on their own corporate goals or customer desires, manufacturers often look for more sustainable material streams. They need competitive costs, quality, and reliability at scale.

We provide access to feedstock that they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. They can get traceability, allowing them to document claims about the origins of their recycled content. And they can count on us for reliability and capacity.

IL: What early experiences helped shape you as a leader?

I was first exposed to entrepreneurship through a graduate course at MIT called Energy Ventures. Engineering and business students formed teams to take forward a business idea. Once we developed some ideas, we started talking to potential customers. It shocked me that you could just call people on the phone and ask if they needed this idea you had. People are willing to take the time because they see value in bringing new things to their business.

If we talk to enough of them, we can understand how to put together technologies and business opportunities to make something real and new. That has defined much of my career.

IL: Is there something you have changed your mind about since the early days of your career?

I used to assume that people in big companies wanted to innovate. I still find that this is true of leaders. But it turns out that the bulk of most organizations, the rank and file, face incentives to do just the opposite. If you take a risk and it goes wrong, someone has to take the blame.

We have to be very aware of that at Oceanworks, because there’s a bias toward using fossil-based plastics in all products. When you introduce something new, you have to realize that the resistance you face often comes down to a desire not to be first, to let someone else make the mistakes.

IL: Do you try to make Oceanworks a safe place to take risks?

I do. We talk about the fact that you need to take 10 shots on a goal in order to score. Not everything you try will work, and that’s okay.

We need to be reliable on the operations side. But we also need to maintain an innovative mindset. If we deliver containers, store materials, and source the way everybody else has done it, we will never improve the status quo.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I’m a good listener, both within the company and when I talk with customers and markets. I ask questions that elicit new information, hear where people are coming from, assimilate that information, and then show a bias for action.

I also think every good entrepreneur needs to be persistent. I like to joke that you have to stick around long enough to get lucky. Persistence and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities help me anchor and encourage the team as we grow in what is fundamentally a difficult space.

IL: What is Oceanworks doing that’s new and interesting?

We’re developing traceability technology to validate the recycled content in a company’s material stream and the origin of that material. We use a blockchain-based system to log all the information about materials into an immutable record. On top of that, we’ve built some visualization tools, so a user can follow the material through the supply chain.

IL: What have you read lately that has made an impression?

A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by Matt Simon. It reinforced my sense that we’re already late to the game of getting plastics out of the environment.

IL: What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Find a way to work on things you’re really passionate about, because that creates a fun life. And push yourself to be one of the experts in things that you’re excited about working on.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I spend time with my three kids, who are five, two, and newborn. We love to go boating and skiing, and go to the beach and the mountains. I live on Cape Cod in the summer and Maui the rest of the year, so I get continuous exposure to the “why” behind what we do at Oceanworks.

Dinner Conversation

If Vanessa Coleman could have dinner with anyone, alive today or from history, she’d actually arrange three meals.

The first would be with former Vice President Al Gore. “He was fighting the battle against climate change early on,” she says. “He was making movies, trying to run for President, trying to enact policy. Now he’s an investor in the climate space. I’d like to hear his thoughts on what works, what is still needed, and how this might apply to the problems I’m working on.”

Dinner companion number two would be environmentalist and author Rachel Carson. And number three would be the social media influencer known as MrBeast. “He has built a huge following by doing big, interesting stunts,” Coleman says.

For instance, he has raised millions of dollars for removing plastic waste from the oceans. “I would be intrigued to hear how he built his following and influence in this new type of media,” she says.

“I decided to put in a little more money, take control of the company, and give everyone who invested a chance to be successful,” he says.

Marshall became CEO and, in 2022, changed the firm’s name to Upexi. In 2023, it’s poised to make a profit on $100 million in revenues. Marshall talked with us about his leadership trajectory and his rapidly growing enterprise.

IL: What opportunities made Upexi so interesting to you?

Amazon had created a launching pad for small brands. But if you start a brand today, you reach a point where you don’t know how to get bigger. You can’t afford a development team, an advertising team, and a marketing team. So you hire agencies, and they eat up all your cash.

We offer an alternative, acquiring ecommerce and Amazon brands and providing a plug-and-play model to make them profitable and more efficient.

IL: Tell us about an event from early in your career that helped to shape you as a leader.

Early on, I learned that you have to understand every aspect of your business. When I was in my 20s, my friends and I started a temporary agency for truck drivers. I learned the business by making deliveries.

Then I moved into sales, where my conversations with customers clued me in to new opportunities. They needed trucks as well as drivers. They needed linehaul services. Even at XPO, I used to drive the forklifts on some days, or unload.

At Upexi, I’ve worked on the floor; I’ve fixed our packaging machines. We have our own third-party logistics services and our own pick-and-pack. I walk through there regularly, asking about the problems and about what we could do better.

IL: Right now, what’s the most interesting challenge at Upexi?

Our biggest challenge is finding human capital that doesn’t want to specialize in just one thing. I look for people who want to be generalists and understand our whole business. You always have to plug in the specialists to help train others. But the generalists can also train the specialists.

IL: What do you most look forward to achieving at the company in the next 12 months?

I want to see our earlier stage brands grow up. We’ve created some economies of scale for them; now we’re working to drive them to the next level of product development. I want our three main brands—VitaMedica, Tytan Tiles, and Lucky Tail—to grow to the next level and become better known in their sectors.

IL: Which emerging technology will have the greatest impact on your business?

We’ve just launched an initiative to build our own artificial intelligence (AI) engine, which we’ll use to develop business intelligence to increase sales.

For example, when was a customer shopping? Was it raining? What was the temperature? What other products have they bought from us? And what offer did they act on? Was it two-for-one? Free shipping? We want the AI to analyze all that and give us the best opportunity to sell to that demographic.

The volume of data AI can sort through in one minute is more than we can sort through in one month. And it bases its decisions on data, not on a gut feeling. I’m excited to see how we can use this to spend our money in the best possible way while also creating the best possible experience.

We’re developing the AI engine in partnership with SME Solutions Group. I used ChatGPT to write the press release announcing the partnership. I had to edit the results. But I was amazed at what it produced in about eight seconds.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I don’t treat anyone like I’m the CEO. I treat everyone like I’m their resource and they’re my resource. I want people to follow me because they know I’ll do the same job they do, and I’m there for all the projects and problems. In collaboration, we do a better job. It’s the same when I hire an executive. I don’t want them to tell people what to do, but to tell people they’re going to help them, whatever they need.

IL: If we followed you on a typical day, what would we see?

I wake up at about 5 a.m. and log into all our sales channels. I look at the return on equity on all our spend every morning. I look at our Monday.com board to see the projects everyone is working on, and I might send e-mails about some of them. Then I work out to get motivated for the second part of my day.

I have calls five or six days a week with each of our teams, and I catch up with our CFO during the day. After lunch, I check our sales numbers to see if we’re on trend. Later, I follow up on future projects. I respond to 100 to 300 Slack messages a day. And since we’re a public company, I spend about 15 hours a week on calls with investors and analysts.

IL: What business books would you recommend?

Two books that have influenced me are Good to Great by Jim Collins and The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger. And I’ve read books about some of the great investors, such as Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I love to be outdoors, especially walking in the mountains with my dog and my wife. We spend time in Jackson, Wyoming in the summer and for part of the winter, when I go snowmobiling and snowshoeing. In Canada, where I was born, I have a cabin on a lake. It’s off the grid, with only solar power.

Learning by Doing

Some people learn leadership skills from role models and mentors who teach by example. Allan Marshall got his education by jumping in with both feet and getting his hands dirty.

“I’ve never worked for another person,” Marshall says. “I’ve only had my own businesses.”

Necessity and experience taught him to love hard work. “There was no task I wouldn’t do,” he says. “When we had our first office, I cleaned the bathrooms; I’d come in early and vacuum so the place would look good.”

Marshall has also learned a great deal from the teams that have defined the success of his companies. “It’s about having people who work hard because you work hard, because you care about them and they care about you.”

So Ang was already a seasoned business professional when, in his early 20s, he founded Second Closet, a Toronto-based valet storage company that grew to five locations across Canada. Second Closet later transformed into GoBolt, a technology and logistics company on a mission to build the world’s largest sustainable, vertically integrated supply chain network.

Ang is GoBolt’s co-founder, CEO. He recently talked with IL about the company’s history, its current priorities, and his own evolution as a corporate leader.

IL: In your construction days, how did vendors respond when they saw a young teen walk into a meeting to strike deals?

Fortunately, because our side of the table was paying the bills, they couldn’t react too negatively. And I probably got a bit more leeway when I asked for discounts, because they would think, “This is kind of cute.” I leaned into that.

IL: How did Second Closet evolve into GoBolt?

As a valet storage company, Second Closet would pick up and store people’s stuff, then bring it back whenever they wanted it. Our vision was that people would use us to maximize their space by storing seasonal possessions.

But most people were storing for the long term. My co-founder and I didn’t want our legacy to be that we helped people hoard their stuff more efficiently. So we shifted focus.

Fortunately, several major brands including Chanel and WeWork were using us for business needs. We decided to pursue more of that business.

Slowly we morphed into a third-party logistics provider for brands, providing storage, fulfillment, and last-mile logistics.

IL: What keeps your customers awake at night?

They’re hyper-focused on efficiency. Logistics and supply chain are a massive cost for many of our brands and for most of the retail world. We’re having more discussions about how to strategically set up the supply chain network to take advantage of the customer experience that our brands want, but at an economic level that is sustainable. How do we forward-place some of the product? How do we leverage more electric vehicles (EVs) to offset fuel surcharges?

IL: Tell us about your plans to build an electric vehicle fleet.

By the end of 2023, we want 90% or more of our deliveries to be done by EVs. EVs will help us and the merchants we serve meet our sustainability goals, while also saving customers money by eliminating the 30% fuel surcharge.

IL: What challenges do you face in converting to EVs?

There are many constraints to consider—grid capacity, vehicle reliability, recharging time, and driver training.
We also have to rethink how we route deliveries to account for things like range degradation. If a truck starts out loaded with 10,000 pounds, do you drive that load over a highway at 55 miles per hour or a city street at 25 miles per hour?

Then, as you deliver items and shed weight, how does that impact your next sprint? How do winter or summer temperatures affect battery performance? We’re building routing software in house that accounts for all that.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I’m always willing to roll up my sleeves when an issue arises. Whether it’s midnight or 6 a.m., and whatever is required, I’ll be there. That creates a culture at the top of our business where everyone is willing to help, based on the value of ‘one team, one dream.’

Also, I spend the time it takes to explain my decision-making process and make sure we get input from the people who are affected by a decision.

IL: How do you nurture talent on your team?

I’m very hands-off, shockingly so. We hire people who push the pace and challenge us to be better, and who know their areas better than I do. So I try to give them a ton of space. I stay vigilant and dive in when they need support, but I give them space to spread their wings and exercise their own decision-making.

IL: What do you check first thing in the morning?

Before I get out of bed, even on weekends, I check my e-mail. If there’s something urgent, I can skip my morning coffee because my blood already starts to rush. Then I check my calendar to see if anything has been added or rearranged.

I try to get into the office as soon as possible, which is easy because it’s a two-minute walk. Once there, I pop open my laptop and check on our operations performance for the previous day—quality, cost, and efficiency.

Then I look at any incoming opportunities and find out what solutions our team is thinking of providing, to see if I can offer a different perspective on an even better solution. All that happens before 8 a.m.

IL: What books would you recommend that others read?

One is The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. It’s a classic for anyone who’s on an entrepreneurial journey. Another is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. These laws apply to different parts of your professional and personal life.

IL: Beyond work, how do you like to spend your time?

I’m a big movie buff. I can rewatch a movie six to 12 times if I really like it. And I try to stay active. Recently I’ve picked up pickleball, which is an intense, fun game where you can trash-talk your partners while you play.

Learn by Doing

From his earliest days of knocking down walls, installing plumbing, and laying floors, Mark Ang discovered how crucial it is to learn the nuts and bolts of the business you’re running.

“Before I was able to manage a construction project, I had to be a laborer within a project,” he says. “That helped me to understand that you don’t just manage the outcome; you manage the process.”

A business process involves many people, with many different perspectives. As a leader, you need to understand those varied concerns so you can communicate effectively, Ang says.

“For example, we recently brought on a new chief operating officer,” he says. “We told him that it’s important to do support days and account management days, to be in the trucks and the warehouses, and actually operate as part of the team that you manage.”

Melvin calls port operations “a maritime ballet,” and she knows the dance well. She has been with SC Ports for nearly 25 years, working in government relations and external affairs before being named COO in 2018. Promoted to president and CEO in 2022, she became the first woman to lead a top U.S. operating container port.

Melvin slowed down long enough to describe how she has grown as a leader and fill us in on recent initiatives at the port.

IL: When you moved from government relations to the COO role, how did you get up to speed on all you needed to know?

The transition worked because the leaders within operations took the time to teach me the ins and outs. I did a lot of listening. And I determined that my leadership should be to provide air cover.

We had the best people in the business in all departments of operations. My job would be to get them the resources they needed to continue being the best in the industry as they served our ocean carrier customers and the importers and exporters.

IL: What’s one experience that shaped you as a leader?

When I joined the port in 1998, we were in the middle of a large conversation with our state and the local community about where to expand. The port’s vision was to build on Daniel Island, a green space that would require all new infrastructure. The community wanted us to consider redeveloping a former naval base in North Charleston. The road to an effective compromise was long and hard, but in April 2021 we opened the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal at the naval base site.

This is one of many experiences that have taught me not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The compromise that’s necessary in government relations applies in operations, too. I learned not to stumble over small things that went wrong and to focus instead on the larger things.

IL: Since you became president and CEO, what has been at the top of your agenda?

People. At the start of the pandemic, we retracted our workforce. But we really should have been hiring. Nobody foresaw the unprecedented surge in demand the ports would see when the economy restarted.

As volume ramped up, people came to work every day and moved boxes in the most challenging circumstances. Not only our port employees and crane operators, but our longshoremen, harbor pilots, tugs, stevedores, motor carriers, and railroad partners all stepped up to service the supply chain.

Saying “thank you” was never enough. I wanted to concentrate on telling the story of how they took care of each other and kept freight moving the best they could.

IL: How did the port manage through that crazy volume?

It took a lot of innovation. For instance, we opened our gates on Sundays, giving motor carriers the option to work half days on Saturday and Sunday rather than lose an extra full day on the weekend. Our railroad partners matched those hours for us.

We hired 150 people, and since COVID was still a concern, we got creative about training them—for example, using simulators rather than making two people sit close together in a piece of equipment. When chassis capacity grew tight, we implemented a proprietary chassis pool.

We used a shotgun approach, trying all sorts of things. If something didn’t work out, we would fail fast and fix it.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

I’m decisive. I challenge people, even before they’re ready. I’m here to help my team and be the ultimate decider, but I also like people to bring me solutions, not just issues.

I can take bad news without overreacting, creating an open environment for collaboration and problem-solving, rather than a culture where you don’t talk about problems until it’s too late to fix them.

I love to promote from within, because that’s the way we continue to achieve the diversity that’s necessary in this industry. Finally, I love to celebrate victories of any magnitude. If you create an environment where everybody feels they will be thanked for doing things that benefit the organization, then you create a happier workplace.

IL: Besides engaging in the “maritime ballet,” how do you spend a typical work day?

I’m up at 3:30 every morning. I exercise first thing because if I don’t, I’m grumpy. I get to the office no later than 7 a.m., when it’s quiet and I can organize my thoughts.

After that, no two days are the same. I meet with ocean carrier customers and ultimate shippers, and I work to recruit new people into our industry. I try to talk to at least one member of our board every day. I walk the halls at our headquarters and walk the terminals, spending time with the people who produce our revenue. I like to be seen and known. After all that, I’m asleep by 8 or 8:30 every night.

IL: What do you most hope to accomplish in the next year?

I’d like to continue our infrastructure projects, such as the successful implementation of our chassis pool. We’re building a near-dock intermodal rail facility that will be served by both CSX and Norfolk Southern.

We want to keep working on creative infrastructure solutions, such as a barge service to move our intermodal cargo, and continuing to improve our inland ports.

IL: How do you spend your time when you’re not working?

I like to be out in the sun—practicing yoga, exercising or fishing—and spending time with my dogs and my friends.

Dinner For Three

In Barbara Melvin’s dinner party daydream, she shares a table with two people from history whom she greatly admires: South African President Nelson Mandela and American entertainer and philanthropist Danny Thomas.

“They probably had more in common than people would think,” says Melvin, noting each man’s powerful determination.
“From Mandela, I’d want to hear how he maintained his spirit of monumental change through all the challenges he faced,” says Melvin. She notes that Mandela is the source of her favorite quote: “I never lose. I either win or learn.”

From Thomas, Melvin would like to hear how he took St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital from concept to successful reality. “I can’t imagine having the fortitude to follow through on what probably was just a fleeting thought at one point in his career, to then create such an impactful organization,” she says. “Plus, he was funny and entertaining.”

“A truckload of Porsches could leave the port, and you wouldn’t know where it was until it arrived and somebody dialed the rotary phone to say, ‘It’s here,’” Schickel recalls.

The prospect of using digital technology to more effectively run a business excited Schickel back then, and it continues to excite him now in his role as CEO of Dallas-based Omni Logistics. Schickel filled us in on his work at Omni and how he has developed as a leader.

IL: You started your career in accounting. How did you end up in logistics?

After earning a master’s degree in accounting, I was at Deloitte for a while and then worked my way into the technology department of an investment bank. There, I had the chance to work on IPOs for logistics technology companies.

When I took my job at the trucking company, I knew there was a lot of opportunity for improvement when it came to technology. I worked with the team to build out a logistics IT platform, and I fell in love with the industry. The people are great, and if you work hard, show up, and do what you say you are going to do, there is still a lot of opportunity.

IL: What in your early career helped to shape you as a leader?

I’ve been fortunate to be around many incredible mentors. But top of mind is my experience with Brad Jacobs, currently executive chairman at XPO Logistics. This was through my work at EVE Partners, an investment group I co-founded in 2002.

Brad is a terrific leader and a great person. While all my mentors have influenced my work, observing his experiences at United Waste Systems and United Rentals shows the importance of scale in building great results for customers, which had a foundational influence on what we do at Omni today.

IL: What keeps your customers awake at night, and how does Omni help them sleep better?

This has been a crazy time for all the obvious reasons—COVID, port congestion, and the war in Ukraine, for example. But what really keeps our customers awake is the need for predictability for the C-suite. The CFOs and management teams of many of our large customers have public stakeholders who rely on them for predictability. We spend a lot more time than we used to communicating with the C-suite and trying to create dynamic supply chains that allow them to toggle between certainty, service demands, and price.

IL: Does that mean, for example, using different ports as needed, or switching modes?

Yes. As a non-asset-based provider using technology, we stitch together thousands of vendors to create various solutions for our customers, aggregating their purchasing power to create outcomes they couldn’t achieve on their own.
For example, when there’s a logjam on the ocean, we ask what other modes we can use to create a solution. If you ask that question on the same day you need to move a load, that’s going to be expensive. Staying ahead of a fluid market and creating a dynamic capability has been a huge factor in the marketplace in the past couple of years.

IL: What’s new and interesting at Omni Logistics?

In our senior leadership meetings, we constantly think about innovation. Our main focus is on initiatives that reduce our unit costs and provide a great outcome for our customers. One of those is the use of robotic dispatch to give customers more autonomy over their freight decisions.

Here’s a very simple example based on domestic shipments. The customer indicates how much they’re willing to pay to ship a load, and the software puts the load out to bid to pre-qualified carriers within a certain geographic area. At the end of a set period, the software assigns the load at the specified price—or even at a lower price, depending on the bids.

If the system can’t find a solution at the desired price, it kicks the shipment out to a human. That employee then goes into problem-solving mode, which is much more fulfilling than working in execution mode all day. This is an effective solution with a great outcome for the customer.

IL: How do you give criticism or correction when it’s needed?

I don’t usually have to do that. Our culture is entrepreneurial, and our job is to provide tools that allow people to course-correct on their own. We’re also consensus-driven; we try to make decisions through our senior leadership team. The tough decisions tend to be made by the group. I can’t think of a time when I had to be the tie-breaker.

IL: What’s the hardest part of your job?

Omni is my family, but I also have another family. I’ve been married for 24 years, and I have three grown kids. Those two families are the most important things in my life, and maintaining a balance between them is hard.

IL: What have you read or listened to lately that you’d recommend?

Although it’s not new, Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, is a great leadership book, and he does an excellent job of emphasizing the importance of empathy in the workplace. Also, David Rubenstein, founder of The Carlyle Group, has incredible guests on his podcast.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I hit the treadmill regularly, and I spend a lot of time outside. I play guitar and enjoy music. I’m an empty nester, which is a total bummer because I loved the chaos of having a full agenda on the weekends.

But I do a lot of boating and hiking and I try to spend as much time as possible with family and friends.

We Found a Machine…

In 2020, during the first wave of COVID, Omni Logistics, like many other service providers, flew planeloads of personal protective equipment into the United States for its customers. “But there was a time when it was difficult to source masks and gloves,” recalls JJ Schickel.

Then Omni’s leadership team in Hong Kong made an unusual suggestion. They found a machine to make masks, and they found all the materials that are necessary inside a mask. They asked for approval to start making masks and then shipping them.

Omni bought the machine. “It wasn’t cheap,” Schickel says. “We bought all the materials. Our team started cranking out masks so we could get them to our customers and employees. They did an amazing job, and our customers and employees were thrilled.

“I’m proud that our unique culture empowers our team members to come up with innovative solutions that help improve peoples’ lives,” he adds.

For more than 20 years, Langston had worked in a series of warehouse-focused management positions at Dot Foods, the largest food industry redistributor in North America, based in Mount Sterling, Illinois. Most recently, he served as the company’s vice president of warehousing.

Then, Dot promoted him to president of its affiliate trucking company, Dot Transportation, Inc. (DTI). In a conversation with Inbound Logistics, Langston discussed his move to the transportation side of the business, his development as a leader, and what he’s up to lately.

IL: What was it like to transition from warehouse operations to trucking?

It was like going back to being a rookie again. After many years of knowing who to ask and where to go for things, I felt at first as though I were in the dark. But our company has really good people who helped me along while I learned the ropes.

IL: Describe an experience from early in your career that helped to shape you as a leader.

A long time ago, I worked as an assistant department manager in a retail grocery store. We were doing a big inventory, and one individual who worked for me came in three or four hours after we were scheduled to start. This person had a pattern of being tardy.

Unfortunately, I lost my cool and did not communicate well. His reaction was just to smile at me. This experience taught me the value of maintaining composure when you deal with a tough people situation, no matter the circumstances.

IL: When you became president of DTI early in 2021, you said the company’s top priorities would be safety and staffing. How has DTI progressed on those two fronts?

We’ve had a phenomenal few years with regard to our motor vehicle accident rating. On the personal injury side, it took some work to get everyone back up to speed after the pandemic, when we weren’t going on customers’ docks or doing our other usual physical work. 2021 was a challenge but 2022 was a good year. As for staffing, we’re well above our driver hiring plan.

IL: To what do you attribute your success in those areas?

The key to safety is attention to detail and having people do the right thing. It’s also a matter of training and focusing on where we have opportunities to improve. Our staffing success comes thanks to a dedicated group that focuses on hiring and taking care of our existing drivers to reduce turnover.

Also, in 2021 we started our own commercial driver’s license school. That has paid dividends from a staffing standpoint and has also helped us attract a diverse pool of candidates.

IL: How have pandemic-induced supply chain distortions affected your customers’ requirements, and what adjustments have you made at DTI to meet their needs?

Just like consumers, the businesses we serve want to be able to buy what they want, when they want it. Although our suppliers sometimes struggle to produce at a high level, we have to minimize the effects of that challenge, so there’s no negative impact on our customers.

One big thing we worked on in 2021, and improved in 2022, was on-time delivery. Limitations in the market sometimes keep us from shipping every single product in a customer’s order. But keeping our delivery appointments is a high priority.

IL: What’s at the top of the agenda for DTI right now?

We’re concentrating on retention and driver satisfaction. Some drivers want to be on the road for many days and accumulate lots of miles, while others want to get home every night. We want to make the right scheduling match for each driver. For example, we’re looking at how we can place additional terminals around the country, so we’ll have more runs that get drivers out and back home in a single trip.

We also have a new distribution center coming on line next year south of Nashville, and we’re already hiring drivers for that market. We’re upgrading our drivers’ handhelds and in-cab units, and keeping an eye on the next generation of safety technology for our trucks.

In addition, we’re working to upgrade the information technology platforms that we use to manage our business.

IL: How would your team describe your leadership style?

Most folks would say it’s collaborative and transparent. I ask what other people think we ought to do, rather than say, “Here’s what we’re going to do; I hope you like it.” I also like to walk the department and the break area to interact and talk to our drivers to learn what’s happening on the road.

All of us at Dot Transportation have an open-door policy, and I try to be available to people no matter what job they do. That helps me understand what’s going on throughout the business and learn when there are developmental opportunities for leaders. It also gives me insight into what issues the business needs to work on.

IL: What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?

Slow down. Start earlier in life to establish a routine for staying healthy physically, mentally, and financially.

IL: If you could have dinner with one person, alive today or from the past, who would that be?

My paternal grandfather, Patrick Lynch. He knew how to do just about anything with his hands, which is not a talent of mine. By the time I was old enough to realize how deficient I was in that area, he was too old to help me learn to fix a car or repair a roof. He is one of my heroes.

IL: How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I play golf and hunt. My wife and I like to travel and try different kinds of food. We also have active kids: a trumpet player, Boy Scouts, and a soccer player. I like seeing what they do and remembering how much I enjoyed those activities.

How Goes the Flow?

Every morning, Bryan Langston’s first business task is to scan his e-mails for emergency issues he needs to address right away. Then, as soon as he walks into his office, he checks on what he calls the flow of his operation.

“Based on my previous life in warehousing, combined with my current work in transportation, I have a well-rounded observation of how things are flowing: how well we’re moving loads, whether we’re running on time, what’s going on in the warehouse that will or won’t set DTI up for success,” Langston says.

He also checks conditions on the road, including disruptive weather that might require the company to redeploy resources. “The beautiful thing about our network is that we can move drivers from one DC to another to lend support if we’re going to lose a couple of days of delivery, for example, because of a hurricane,” he says.

“Customers call with their hair on fire,” says Glenn, founder and CEO of Candor Expedite in Plano, Texas. “A shipment got routed incorrectly, someone missed something. When I tell them we can make it happen, it’s rewarding to hear their sigh of relief.”

Glenn founded Candor—a logistics company for time-sensitive shipments—in 2017. We talked with her recently to learn her history and how she’s leading Candor into its next stage of growth.

IL: Why have you made transportation your career?

I fell into it as an administrator, but then I found I loved the opportunity to talk with people. Back in 2000, we still did a lot of our work over the phone. I enjoyed crafting relationships that way. I had friends—trucking company owners—all over the country who would call me when they had shipments. Now, I don’t think I could work in any other industry. I’m too used to the fast pace.

IL: Tell us about an event that helped to shape you as a leader.

I worked for many years as a transportation sales rep. There’s a mindset in that role that you should hustle to get as much freight as you can and increase your commission check. When I was asked to become vice president, I almost turned it down because I’d trained myself to constantly ask, “What’s next?”

Leadership requires slowing down to think about the next step in the company’s journey, and slowing down wasn’t my style. But I took the position, and soon fell in love with managing people, figuring out how to help them grow. I went from having to be selfish to having to be selfless. Now that I own my own company, I get to do that every day.

IL: What changes have you seen in Candor’s business since the start of the pandemic?

In 2020, things went into radio silence for about five weeks. Then we started transporting some new commodities, such as hand sanitizer and respirators going into New York City. After a while, as e-commerce grew in importance, we started a new division that helps business-to-business companies with final-mile service. We also started crafting creative solutions for customers with specialized needs.

For instance, one shipper struggled to find refrigerated capacity. They typically moved one pallet at a time, but they were so desperate, they were willing to pay for an entire truck. We suggested an alternative solution we called “wrap and run”: we wrapped the product in insulation and delivered it without refrigeration to distribution centers within a 300-mile radius. We also considered putting the product in coolers.

IL: What’s new and interesting at Candor these days?

In 2021 we developed a time-sensitive truckload division that services a number of verticals. Responding to customer demand, we recently started to offer first- and final-mile solutions that are non-exclusive, which means we can put more than one customer’s product on the truck or van.

Currently, we’re launching The Circle, an online platform where carriers offer quotes to shippers who need expedited capacity. Our goal is to get a price and a truck back to a customer in 10 to 15 minutes, with all the details confirmed.

IL: What characteristics make you an effective leader?

One is empathy. I try to put myself in other people’s shoes, to understand what they’re going through as I coach them. I also like to challenge people. If someone tells me they can’t do something, I try to instill them with the mentality that they can. They just have to break the process down into a series of steps.

IL: How do you give criticism or correction when it’s required?

It’s not by accident that my company is named Candor. I believe in being blunt and forthright when I express my expectations—with a dash of empathy.

IL: What makes you excited to go to work each day?

It’s watching this company grow from where it was in 2017. In the beginning, I was deep into the operations, moving freight alongside my team, getting dirty. Working remotely during the pandemic taught me that I have to trust my people. That allowed me to do other things I love: make new relationships, strategize about where the company can go, put people in uncomfortable new roles so they can grow. I’m also excited about the opportunity for constant learning.

IL: What’s the hardest aspect of your job?

Knowing only what I know. I’d like to have the answer for everything. Making sure I’m coaching my team in the right way is a challenge. To keep reiterating our core values, our mission, our vision for where we want to bring this company, is hard. So is generating new ideas and executing them.

IL: If you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be?

I’d like to hear Brené Brown’s ideas on vulnerability and putting yourself out there. I’d also like to talk to Warren Buffet, to learn how he became a serial entrepreneur. I’m so passionate about my business, it boggles my mind to know that someone has such a huge portfolio of companies that all run successfully. I’d also want to hear about his philanthropy.

IL: Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?

I’m one of the founders of a podcast for women in business called the Ladies Leadership Coalition (LLC). We are six women who own businesses focused on logistics. This project has given me the chance to meet some amazing people and hear their stories.

I also have three kids—twin boys who are 13 and a 17-year old daughter. I try to spend quality time with each of them, one-on-one, whether we drive go-karts or take vacations.

One unusual fact about me is that I like to crochet. It’s good stress relief. My mom, my daughter, and I sit down together, get our needles out, and talk.

Wisdom to Share

Looking for leadership advice? Nicole Glenn has a few suggestions.

The first is a book called The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, by Michael E. Gerber. “It helped me through that pivotal moment when I went from the operations side to running and growing a business,” Glenn says. “It explains how you need to trust others, build a solid plan, share your vision, and keep people going on their paths.”

Next is Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast, where guests describe how they’ve overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. And then there’s Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. “It’s about being very intentional, owning both the good things and the bad things that happen, and always working to be the best leader you can be in an organization,” Glenn says.