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Sarah Barnes-Humphrey is co-founder and CEO of Shipz Inc., a supply chain technology company. Barnes-Humphrey is also the host and founder of the weekly Let’s Talk Supply Chain podcast, where she interviews top supply chain professionals, innovators, and leaders. She stands at the forefront of international trade with expertise in the global logistics industry, working with the private sector to build, develop, and increase efficiencies in their supply chains. She has spent the past 20 years working in logistics and supply chain, most recently as director of sales and marketing for a privately owned 3PL. Barnes-Humphrey’s dedication to excellence in the field is the result of hands-on experience while obtaining her CITP designation, FIATA Diploma, and CIFFA certifications. She continues this dedication as a board member for FITT (Forum for International Trade Training), Certification and Accreditation Committee (CAC) committee member and, in 2016-2017, as the FITT planning committee chair for its well-recognized 25th Anniversary celebration and conference.

Brian Bourke is vice president of marketing, a position he has held since his return to SEKO Logistics in 2012. Speaking six languages, he is responsible for the internal and external communication of the unique features and benefits of SEKO’s Global logistics solutions. Bourke began his career with SEKO in 2005 after receiving his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Wisconsin. He was head of marketing communications for Geodis Wilson prior to returning to SEKO.

Toni Careccio is an associate at Edison Partners, a 33-year-old growth equity firm, where she is responsible for souring investment opportunities in the enterprise solutions and fintech sectors. Careccio has a particular interest and passion for the logtech space as her family has owned and operated an asset-based trucking company and several warehouses for nearly 70 years. Upon graduation from the University of Arizona in 2013, she joined the equity trading desk at BNY ConvergEx, where she was promoted to vice president. After several years of research and planning, she left Wall Street in 2017 to launch her own company, Axle. She and her co-founder, both whom have family roots in trucking, saw the desperate need for efficient technology in the industry. Axle offers an automated transportation management system that uses articifial intelligence to optimize operations for drayage carriers. Although Careccio has recently transitioned to the venture capital world, she remains an active advisor for Axle.

Bill Cassidy is senior editor of trucking for the JOC within Maritime & Trade, IHS Markit. He joined the publication in 2009, after 13 years at Traffic World magazine where he served as executive editor, managing editor, and associate editor. Based in Washington, DC, Cassidy has been reporting on trucking since 1984, when he joined Fleet Owner magazine in New York. He also has covered logistics management and supply chain technology, the rail and maritime industries, Congress, and federal agencies. Cassidy speaks regularly to industry groups, is a regular participant on Sirius XM Radio’s “Road Dog Trucking” program, and chairs the programming committee for the annual JOC Inland Distribution Conference.

Luc Castera is the founder and chief operating officer of Octopi, a maritime innovation company and modern terminal operating system TOS provider. With more than 12 years of experience in high-tech software development, Castera founded the Miami-based organization in 2014, following his passion for modern software and process optimization. This expertise and passion eventually turned into a mission statement and today he, and the Octopi team, help mixed-cargo port terminals modernize and innovate with their port terminal operations. Octopi TOS is the first modern SaaS terminal operating system, and the company’s current portfolio includes seven clients in six countries, and across 10 terminals globally. Prior to founding Octopi, Castera was the chief technology officer of Intellum, a software company based in Atlanta that develops e-learning platforms in use by top brands such as Google, Facebook, AT&T, G4S, and Coca Cola.

Augustin Ceyrac is co-founder of Easyship, a platform that helps e-commerce sellers of any size ship worldwide. Ceyrac has years of e-commerce operations experience spanning various continents. He built the logistics and shipping team at Rocket Internet in Egypt, then later became Lazada’s operations director in Hong Kong. Ceyrac was raised in France and Italy, and holds a Master of Science in management and finance from Bocconi University in Milan. He is a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Class of 2018.

Julian Counihan is founder of Schematic Ventures, a new venture capital fund with a focus on industrial technology in the supply chain, manufacturing, and transportation sectors. He started a career in technology as a software developer at Fortna, where he worked on warehouse control and automation systems. After a period in technology investment banking, he began investing in industrial hardware and supply chain sectors at a venture capital fund in New York. Counihan holds a master’s in business from MIT and a bachelor’s in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.

Brian Cristol is head of enterprise partnerships at Turvo, a global leader in end-to-end digital supply chain transformation and collaborative logistics. Previously, Cristol co-founded Uber’s trucking division and now its fastest-growing business, Uber Freight. While at Uber, he was responsible for launching and scaling its go-to-market strategy for new businesses, including UberEATS, UberRUSH, and Uber Freight. Prior to Uber, Cristol led enterprise sales at startup Checkmate, later acquired by TrustYou. He has a background in finance, having previously run West Coast brokerage trading for J.P. Morgan’s Private Bank. Cristol holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bart De Muynck conducts research in the supply chain area focused on the delivery processes: transportation planning, transportation execution, freight payment, analytics, visibility, yard management, vehicle routing and scheduling, and fleet telematics. He also covers innovative technologies such as AI and ML in transportation, blockchain, autonomous vehicles and drones. De Muynck joined Gartner in June 2014. He previously worked as an enterprise architect at a major food and beverage company, where he was globally responsible for the delivery area. His focus was on enterprise business applications, with an emphasis on supply chain management. His area covered warehouse management, transportation management, fleet management, trade promotion management, and supply chain planning. Previously, he held positions in the chemical industry, the logistics industry, and the consulting industry. De Muynck has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry and 25 years of supply chain technology experience.

Charley Dehoney is a growth-focused executive, consultant, advisor & investor, with more than 15 years of experience at the intersection of transportation technology. He's helped create revenue systems that have supported hundreds of millions of dollars in growth for the businesses he's helped build. Charley is currently serving as CEO of Manning's Truck Brokerage, a 50 year-old, Private Equity backed Logistics Company.

Akshay Dodeja is the CEO and co-founder of Terminal 49 Inc. Terminal 49 works with operations teams at large importers to automate much of the manual work that goes into managing containers. The company’s software helps teams manage and track their shipments and containers automatically, reduce transportation costs and collaborate with their team more effectively. Prior to Terminal 49, Dodeja led product teams at Livenation Entertainment to launch Livenation.com and mobile apps. He has also co-founded startups in the music and photo printing space.

Florian Dussler is currently vice president of sales and general manager at Xeneta USA, responsible for managing sales and operations of Xeneta in the North American market. Prior to joining Xeneta, Dussler was responsible for starting and ramping up the US operation of Ticontract, a specialized collaboration platform for e-sourcing in transportation logistics. He has managed client relationships and large-scale transportation bid events for fortune 500 companies across major industry verticals, focusing on automotive, beverages, pulp and paper, and heavy equipment manufacturers. Dussler started his career in Germany, where he worked mainly in business consulting, specifically on Pan-European supply chain projects, focusing on logistics and procurement improvement initiatives, post-merger integrations, as well as major procure to pay transformations. He holds a M.S. in information management from Stuttgart, Germany Media University (HDM) as well as a bachelor in business administration degree from Karlsruhe University of Applied Science.

Jaakko Elovaara, CEO and co-founder of Youredi, drives the company’s strategy and execution. Elovaara has two decades of experience in the software business industry in North America, EMEA, and APAC. Prior to Youredi, he worked in global sales and management positions at IBM, Microsoft, Basware, Itella, and Fujitsu. Elovaara holds a M.S. in economics and business administration from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration.

Dan Gardner is vice president of logistics and corporate training for Lakeshore Learning Materials, a Carson, California-based importer of educational products. Gardner is also co-founder of Trade Facilitators Inc., a Los Angeles based supply chain consulting firm. Prior to his current work, he spent 23 years as a 3PL in roles such as president of Latin America for Exel Global Logistics and senior vice president, US, at DHL Global Forwarding. As an academician, Gardner has been an adjunct professor of supply chain and logistics at institutions that include Florida International University, California State University, Long Beach, and Georgia Tech, and is the author of five books on global trade. During his career, Gardner has traveled to 50 countries, and lived in Colombia and Mexico for a total of five years. He holds a master’s in business administration from the University of Miami and is a licensed US Customs Broker.

Hilary Garner is the sitting president of Garner Enterprises. Her 12 years of experience includes handling high-value proteins and time-sensitive perishable goods across multiple platforms in the multimodal shipping labyrinth. Garner Enterprises is a family-owned, third-party freight forwarding and transportation logistics business based in Toronto, Ontario. Garner has held this position since 2015, and is integral to the company’s successes. Her skills as an innovative leader and team player continue to earn the company a solid reputation in the perishable commodities industry. She has a master’s in peace and conflict negotiations from the University of Sydney, Australia, and worked on a two-year contract in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Garner connects sustainability with clean tech; she was awarded a USPTO patent in 2018 for innovative solutions in warehousing and transportation. Her start-up is part of the Waterloo’s COMMUNITECH and Silicon Valley’s Plug And Play accelerators.

Robert Garrison is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Mercado Labs, an international trading platform solving the myriad challenges of the massive global trade industry through innovative technology, unique solutions, and a comprehensive education curriculum. Garrison is a highly accomplished global supply chain executive with 25 years of experience providing strategic vision and leadership to Fortune 500 companies. He has an impressive history of building agile, technology-enabled supply chains and an established track record of forging high-growth partnerships, positioning organizations for success, and launching innovative technology solutions that significantly improve end-to-end supply chain efficiencies. He is recognized as a respected thought leader, featured industry speaker, and published author offering expertise on supply chain challenges, trends, and best practices. He has won many awards, and is notably a two-time recipient of the coveted Five Star Award, FedEx’s highest honor presented by the CEO to recognize innovation, collaboration, service excellence, profitable business contributions, and exemplifying the spirit of teamwork. Garrison has created and executed lean retail supply chains for major shippers such as AutoZone, Michaels, and Five Below, and has earned service awards from Walmart, Hewlett Packard, and Apple for excellence in global operations management, quality assurance, and continuous improvement.

Dan Glazer is a vice president at Flexport, where he leads the company’s trade finance business, Flexport Capital. Flexport Capital provides businesses shipping freight with Flexport financing for inventory purchases, customs duty payments, and freight costs to ease the working capital constraints commonly experienced with international trade. Working with hundreds of companies from startups to SMB, Glazer has developed a unique view into how both suppliers and buyers fund global trade and how e-commerce, global trade tensions, and technology are changing the landscape for importers and exporters. Previously, Glazer led partnerships and business development at Optimizely, a marketing technology platform that helps companies offer a more data-driven customer experience.

Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io, has made a career of simplifying complex supply chain and trade compliance IT challenges. Whether analyzing complex coding issues or rationalizing the compliance impacts of a vendor direct drop ship program, Glick brings a rare combination of executive perspective and deep technical knowledge to today’s supply chain challenges. From the early days web-based visibility platforms to today’s cloud revolution, Glick has been an active leader in each phase of the connected supply chain evolution. With a focus on retail and apparel supply chains, he has brought his expertise to bear as an IT leader within logistics service providers as well as through independent software companies.

Carolyn Glynn is director of imports for Sealink International Inc. Glynn began her logistics career in 1995 as an intelligence analyst for the US Army. After Sept. 11, she served as a transportation analyst with the military surface deployment and distribution command in Fort Eustis, Virginia. Glynn was deployed for IFOR and SFOR operations in Bosnia, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. She finished her military career instructing various courses at the US Army Transportation School. Following an honorable discharge, Glynn enrolled at Texas A&M University, where she earned an honors degree in maritime administration with a minor in economics. She interned at Texas Terminals LP and, following graduation, became the manager of shipping, receiving, and documentation. Glynn’s experience includes customs compliance and import-export operations with Igloo Products Corp. and a position as senior manager of global logistics and trade management for Sysco.

Winmore John Golob is chief marketing officer and founder of Winmore, the bid and tender collaboration software market leader that he started in 2014, also known as “the Slack for a 3PL’s commercial ops.” Freight forwarders and brokers use Winmore to streamline and accelerate the RFP and tender response process, increasing productivity by upwards of 60 percent while reducing costs by as much as 50 percent. Customers include DHL, Kuehne + Nagel, GlobalTranz, ArcBest, and LF Logistics. Winmore is backed by Salesforce.com, Boston Consulting Group, the founders of GT Nexus and the family office behind The Gap. Before starting Winmore, Golob held sales and marketing leadership roles at high-growth CRM and collaboration software companies including Xobni (sold to Yahoo! sold to Verizon), Good Technology (sold to Motorola, sold to Google), Digital Impact (sold to Axciom), Octane Software (sold to E.piphany), and Scopus Technology (sold to Siebel, sold to Oracle).

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Abtin Hamidi has been a leader in the 3PL space for more than a decade. He was instrumental in growing XPO Logistics and Echo Global Logistics from their early stages to more than $1 billion in sales. He co-founded Cargo Chief, a Silicon Valley-based tech-enabled third-party logistics provider that unlocks hidden capacity, which was later acquired. He later helped in the successful turnaround of Cargomatic, a technology-enabled local delivery platform. Most recently, Hamidi has launched Torch, an emerging 3PL focused on disrupting the economics of transportation. He holds a bachelor’s in communications and a master’s in rhetorical theory from Eastern Illinois University.

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Sam de la Herran is a 10-year freight transportation industry veteran who's helped PointDirect Transport grow into a 50-plus truck operation. In his role as an account executive, he oversees relationships with shippers and brokers, ensures freight is delivered on time and undamaged, and helps to build the PointDirect brand. He is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, with a degree in technology and operations management.

Dr. Alan Holland, chief executive officer of Keelvar, consulted with large BCOs during an academic career before decided to found a software company in 2012. Keelvar provides advanced sourcing software to manage complex procurement projects for customers including Siemens, Coca-Cola, BMW, Schneider Electric, UTC, and Daimler. Recently, Keelvar has been deploying Artificial Intelligence-enabled sourcing bots that automate the use of their advanced sourcing software. Previously, Holland was senior lecturer of AI, in the dept of computer science at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, having started there as a research scientist. Holland received a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Limerick and a Ph.D. in computer science from UCC.

Robin Jaacks is part of the executive team at container visibility and market intelligence provider Ocean Insights. He is responsible for the company's growth strategy and leads the global sales and project management team. Jaacks holds a dual degree in politics and economics from the University of Muenster, Germany, and is based in Hamburg.

Eric Johnson is the JOC’s senior editor of technology, where he leads coverage and analysis of technology's impact on global logistics and trade. Johnson regularly reports on how shippers, carriers across all modes, and logistics companies use software, as well as new concepts impacting core freight transportation processes like procurement, execution, visibility, and payment. Johnson is a regular presenter and moderator at industry events and webinars. Prior to joining the JOC in May 2018, Johnson spent 13 years with American Shipper in a variety of roles, most recently covering logistics technology and leading the production of a series of benchmark studies on the logistics industry. He has a bachelor's in journalism from the University of Wisconsin and a master's in international business from the University of Leeds, UK. He has lived and worked in Southern California, the UK, and India, and now resides in the Washington, DC, area.

Glenn Jones, global vice president of product strategy at Blume Global, has a proven track record of growing businesses by building and leading product management/marketing and R&D organizations to define, develop, position, and sell highly innovative and high value enterprise solutions delivered in the cloud. He was formerly chief commercial officer of Sweetbridge and chief technology officer of Steelwedge Software. He also held leadership positions at several other companies, including Elementum and E2Open.

Kathleen King is a logistics executive with over 15 years of progressive growth leading initiatives to improve operational and financial performance by leveraging expertise in logistics to plan and implement innovative strategies, assess transportation methods, partner and negotiate with key vendors, and identify opportunities to streamline performance. She is former vice president of transportation and supply chain operations compliance at Ralph Lauren, and her logistics experience includes roles at Linens N Things, The Home Depot, Best Products, and Thalhimers. King holds an MBA from University of Richmond and a B.A., political sience, from Case Western Reserve University.

Chris Kirchner, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, is a tried and true entrepreneur who won an entrepreneurship award at Butler University before forming his first business while attending the University of Kentucky. After his first venture, Kirchner spent several years leading marketing and sales teams in several industries for companies of varying sizes. He started Slync.io from his home in Lexington, Kentucky, and recruited the rest of Slync’s founding team from Salesforce. Kirschner now resides in Sausalito, California.

Michael Kroul is an entrepreneurial senior executive with more than 20 years of global experience in the manufacturing, supply chain, technology, and third party logistics industry. Currently, Kroul is president of KTI, a mid-sized transportation broker, where he directs and leads daily business operations and sales. As the company’s sole legal counsel, he is involved in all contract negotiations, risk mitigation, and compliance management. In his 12 years at KTI, Kroul and his team have earned numerous awards, including four consecutive years on Inc. Magazine’s List of “5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies,” and multi-year inclusion in the Minneapolis Saint Paul Business Journal’s Book of Lists as a “Top 20 Logistics Provider in MN.” Kroul is a panel speaker and moderator addressing logistics topics in business, technology, and law at industry events including TIA, TLA, NASSTRAC, CSCMP, and the 3PL & Supply Chain Summit. He is also an active member of various professional organizations including the Transportation Intermediaries Association, where he serves on the Legal Committee; Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals; National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council; Transportation Lawyers Association, where he serves as corporate counsel and co-chair of the logistics and e-commerce committees; Hennepin County Bar Association, as co-chair of the Corporate Counsel Committee; Association of Corporate Counsel, where he is a member of the IT, privacy, and e-commerce committee; and the Minnesota State Bar Association. Kroul holds a BA from Emory University in Atlanta and a JD from Cardozo School of Law in New York City and is licensed and admitted to practice law in the state of Minnesota New York and Tennessee.

Inna Kuznetsova is chief operating officer at 1010data, the leading provider of time-series data analytics tools. She also serves as an independent non-executive director on the board of Global Ports Investments, which operates container terminals in the Baltic and Far East basins. Until its recent acquisition by E2open, Kuznetsova was president and chief operating officer of INTTRA, the largest digital network and analytics provider for the ocean shipping industry. INTTRA processed more than a quarter of all containers in global trade and connected more than 60 carriers and 30,000 shippers. Prior to joining INTTRA, she was chief commercial officer of CEVA Logistics, and before that, global vice president of marketing and sales for systems software at IBM, where she spent 19 years in a variety of global roles. Kuznetsova completed her master’s and Ph.D. in mathematics at Moscow State University and her master’s of business administration at Columbia Business School. She is a frequent speaker on technology-driven innovation in ocean shipping.

Weston LaBar is the chief executive officer of the Harbor Trucking Association and founding partner of PEAR Strategies, a strategic consulting firm based in Long Beach, California. He has a decade of experience managing trade associations as well as large advocacy and external affairs projects. Currently, his firm manages several trade associations, and LaBar serves as the CEO or executive director for each. He is active in local, state, and federal policy making on goods movement and international trade. As chief executive of the HTA, LaBar has led countless initiatives with other stakeholders in the global supply chain to increase port productivity. The HTA has been an industry leader in developing and adopting technology solutions that create efficiencies with partners such as GeoStamp, Voyage Control, E*Dray, SecureSpace, and GE Transportation and has become the industry voice for the national drayage community.

Patrick Lo, president of Canaan Group, began his logistics industry career in the early 1990s, primarily focusing on supply chain and logistics between Canada and Asia. He has worked in various roles including sales, operations, and finance. Since 2002, when he stepped into the role of president and CEO, he has grown Canaan Group from a small family business into a logistics conglomerate. Under the company umbrella are freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution, custom brokerage, real estate, trucking, and venture capital divisions. In this capacity, Lo has worked with many different companies and commodity sectors including forestry, agricultural, oil and gas, mining, retail, food, and general merchandise. Lo is one of the executive directors and shareholder of the Tandem Global Logistics Network, which has 76 offices globally. Most recently, he has been focusing on technology especially in the logistics space. Lo graduated from the University of British Columbia with an honors science degree and obtained his MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business in 2002.

Jon Loomis graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in economics. Jon also holds an MBA from Portland State University and has an extensive finance background. From 2005-2016, Jon worked in several financial capacities for an academic medical center focusing on capital planning, revenue recognition, reporting, audit, and mergers and acquisitions. As CFO of Baseballism Jon oversees short- and long-term budgeting and financial strategies as well as the day-to-day accounting and reporting needs of the organization. Jon is also the head of human resources, overseeing more than 100 employees.

Nina Luu is co-founder and chief executive officer of Shippabo. She is a serial entrepreneur committed to transforming the freight shipping industry. Before founding Shippabo in 2015, Luu built and led IGH, an importer and distributor of lifestyle products that today ships more than 1,000 SKUs globally. While growing IGH, she experienced the frustrations of shipping first hand. Managing a supply chain efficiently and planning for the future felt nearly impossible. Chasing down final freight costs, accurate In-DC dates, and progress updates consumed way too much time. Realizing that there wasn’t a single, streamlined solution that met her needs, Luu set out to develop technology that would empower IGH and other shippers.

Cory Margand is the co-founder and CEO of SimpliShip, which is a startup focusing on creating an international air and ocean freight API-powered marketplace. Margand has 15 years working in end-to-end supply chain and logistics, on both the tech and the BCO side of the business. He holds an M.S. in operations design and leadership from WPI.

Chris McClincy has worked in the transportation and logistics field for more than 20 years in various roles. He got his start driving trucks, dispatching pickups and deliveries, and processing shipments, then moved into technology solutions development and implementation. Today, McClincy leads the global management and organizational strategy for Expeditors Global Information and Technology Services as CIO. He is known for his complete commitment to the company’s success, as well as that of its stakeholders and global team, his family and the community where he works and lives.

Kevin Meredith is a co-founder of The WESEE Collective; a united set of endeavors that are committed to find, foster, and enhance the meaning and outcomes of value around the world by simultaneously advancing Wellness, Education, Society, Ethics, and Environment. Meredith directly leads The WESEE Collective’s Fourth Sector Innovations (4thSI) business and its two subsidiaries; 4th Sector Ontario and Prospour. These efforts are connected by a shared drive to make the power of innovation and entrepreneurship more accessible to those that can benefit from them the most. This work is defined by helping people and the organizations they support better understand and deliver value using a comprehensive systems approach. 4th Sector Ontario is a premier innovation and entrepreneurship collective primarily focused on commerce and logistics technology development and is comprised of co-working, business incubator, business accelerator, small business/community outreach, and corporate innovation programs conveniently located under one roof.

Jack Oney is CEO of Oney Consulting, a boutique firm specializing in strategy, transformation, innovation, and commercial negotiations, primarily in the industries of global logistics, IT technology, and consumer packaged goods. Prior to consulting, Oney spent 27 years with Procter & Gamble in a variety of global roles, including transformation of their ocean freight and domestic trucking sourcing. He led a global team and a spend of more than $1.2 billion. Prior to leading P&G’s international logistics, Oney managed key strategic accounts with many of their IT and outsourcing partners, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Accenture, Ernst Young, and Infosys. Prior to his roles in purchases, Jack spent eight years as a patent attorney within P&G’s legal division and seven years as a mechanical engineer working in a variety of manufacturing sites and technical centers.

Graham Parker is a born entrepreneur who founded his first freight company at the age of 22, achieved $1 million in revenue in the first year and doubled that every year to $20 million. An MBA and Maserati 100 Entrepreneur, Parker is CEO and co-founder of the award-winning enterprise SAAS company Kontainers , which will power more than 1 million bookings this year for five of the Top 20 global shipping brands.

Sascha Peyer, originally from Switzerland, is fluent in German, French, and English and has more than 30 years of experience in global logistics, earning the trust of Fortune 500 companies in managing their sea, air, and freight imports and exports. Before co-founding SensorTransport, Peyer lead a successful career at Panalpina spanning over 26 years, where he experienced all the facets and operations of a global supply chain. He rose through the ranks, with final roles including vice president of trade lane development focusing on business growth in the Asia-Pacific and North America, and senior vice president of sales and marketing for the US. Following retirement from Panalpina, Peyer took a leadership role with Toll Global Forwarding (TGF), part of Japan Post Holdings, ranked within the Top 50 of Fortune Global 500 with annual revenue of about $130 billion. Peyer has a degree in international shipping and logistics from the Graduate School of Business Administration Zurich.

Miguel Pinilla, chief technology officer at Crux Systems, has spent more than 20 years developing systems and technology teams for mission-critical enterprise applications in the supply chain industry. Pinilla has executive experience at startups such as SmartTurn and multinational companies like Dematic. Originally from Spain, he came to the US as a Fulbright scholar. Pinilla has a master’s in engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in manufacturing information systems from Stanford University.

Patrick Pretorius is responsible for sustaining the growth of the Ticontract platform in North America as the director of Transporeon’s business development for the region. He has more than 16 years of cross-functional experience in transportation and logistics throughout Africa, Europe, Asia and America. Pretorius excels in assisting global logistics and transportation procurement teams with the implementation of value-driven and sustainable strategies, enabling a more strategic, optimized multimodal sourcing process. He joined Transporeon Group in Singapore in 2014, having previously served in operations, marketing, and management roles with Pantos Logistics and Hyundai Merchant Marine in the Asia-Pacific region, and Maersk Line and P&O Nedlloyd in United Kingdom and South Africa.

As the president of BPE Global, Beth Pride brings more than 30 years of operational expertise in global trade and international logistics to the job, helping BPE Global clients develop their global trade strategy and implement a strong global trade posture. Pride offers subject matter expertise in brokerage, import operations, export operations, and the development and maintenance of global supply chain security programs. She has extensive experience in establishing global trade organizations, developing global trade strategy, and defining and implementing global trade automation solutions, and her Customs-Trade Partnership (C-TPAT) clients have achieved C-TPAT Tier-3 status. Pride has experience in export licensing applications and management, product control classification, Standard Operations Procedure (SOP) development, and the development of policies and procedures, including export management and compliance program design. She is a global trade evangelist, author of numerous benchmark reports, white papers, articles, and BPE Global Hot Topics, and advocates for global trade compliance as an essential component of every corporate strategy. Pride is a committed educator in the field of global trade and has guest lectured at America’s Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI), Mission College, National Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) Educational Institute, Oregon State University, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, Rotary International, San Francisco State University, and Women in International Trade Northern California.

Professional with 15 years of experience in Strategy, Business Development and Financial Control. Identified and leveraged opportunities in globally connected economies, predominantly between Asia Pacific and Western Europe. Bridged this gap through professional knowledge, entrepreneurial approach and commercial experience, which led to start my own venture, for areas where generic solutions did not exist. Aim to apply my learnings and replicate the success in frontier markets where challenges are similar and solutions required are functionally diverse. Managed global, cross-cultural, multi-functional teams. Led the commercial finance function aimed at maximizing value, feasibility studies for market entry, developed a new line of business, business case analysis & treasury management. Successfully launched new businesses in new geographies with strong legacy of innovation, out-of-box thinking and problem-solving approach Mentored resources and provided inputs for career progression & mapping individual and organizational goals. Reporting to Board Members with prodigious communication skills. Excellent business development & relationship management skills Worked with large conglomerates including A P Moller Group, Holcim (Switzerland), Burberry (UK), 3i Investments (UK), Bollard Strategic Advisers, D. E. Shaw & Co. (US), Publicis Groupe (France), Mahindra (IN), M&S

Stefan Reidy is a leader, supply chain enthusiast, and a visionary aiming to build a “seamless digital trade network” by developing innovative, technology-enabled services for supply chains. He is the founder and CEO of the Swiss company Arviem AG, which helps manufacturers, exporters, and importers reveal inefficiencies in their supply chains by enabling transparent global trade via supply chain visibility solutions and real-time cargo monitoring services. Reidy has more than 20 years of experience with innovative technologies and business models in the supply chain that he gathered by working for corporations as well as in the startup environment. Before founding Arviem, Reidy was responsible for IBM’s Secure Trade Lane Solution, developing innovative solutions with the goal to improve security in international trade.

Adam Robinson is marketing manager for third-party logistics provider Cerasis. He has been researching, writing, and marketing in the supply chain space for seven years. During that time, he has started an award-winning, high-traffic blog, podcast, whitepaper, and e-book platform, two video series, several webinars, and held speaking engagements, all with the goal to educate and add value to the lives of shippers so that they may work toward problem-free shipping as possible. He holds a degree in government with a concentration in business from the University of Texas.

Audrey Ross is a self-described #TradeGeek, experienced in global shipping, supply chain operations, customs compliance, free trade agreements, and international tax. She has been recognized as a Certified International Trade Professional (CITP® | FIBP®) by the Forum for International Trade Training (FITT). Currently a logistics and customs specialist at Orchard Custom Beauty, Ross is an in-house expert tasked with managing the logistics and cross-border compliance of our global supply chain. She is a board member of the Fashion Group International (Toronto Chapter) and the International Board for the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT), and she has been a Girl Guides of Canada Leader for more than 10 years. Ross is a regular panelist on the “The SC” YouTube channel’s new show – “The Trade Squad,” where she discusses the hot topics in global supply chain.

Alex Ryu is CEO and founder of Opus9, a marketplace platform founded in 2017 that connects shippers and carriers in a single and efficient network. He previously was a product manager at Hanjin Shipping as well as being part of the founding team at Cyberlogitec, one of the world’s largest global logistics solutions providers. During his tenure at Cyberlogitec, Ryu served as product leader from 2004-2010, helping to build and deliver a successful transportation management system for the ocean shipping industry, and as a strategy and operations executive between 2010-2014. He led the US sales and operations team from 2014-2016.

Santosh Sankar is a Founding Partner, at Dynamo, a Chattanooga, TN-based early-stage fund that invests in extraordinary founding teams building startups in supply chain and mobility. Prior to Dynamo, Sankar worked in investment banking and built two bootstrapped business prior to turning 21; he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in 2017. Sankar is a graduate of Penn State University.

Zvi Schreiber is the CEO of Freightos, the internet marketplace for international freight. A LogTech (logistics technology) pioneer, Freightos powers smoother global trade with the world's largest Big Data collection of over half a billion freight rates and a patent-pending instant global freight routing algorithm, enabling forwarders, shippers, and carriers to bring freight sales and operations online. This also integrates with Freightos WebCargo, an air rate distribution system that provides live access to rates from over 200 carriers. Schreiber studied at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College, earning a PhD in computer science. He previously founded and led tech companies acquired by IBM and GE and has written and spoken widely.

Rathna Sharad started her career in 1997 in the transportation and logistics industry gaining experience at a number of important players in the industry including UPS where she led technology and business teams responsible for cross-border route optimization, international supply chain integrations and global trade/tariff solutions with customs organizations around the world. She then lead teams at Microsoft, starting as one of original team members of Bing Ads platform as director of product management, where she was responsible for marketplaces and monetization, working with the largest retailers and brands. Sharad co-founded Runway2Street when she found that cross-border logistics challenges were preventing online retailers and brands from reaching a global audience. Launched in 2014 to three markets, it was then expanded to offer merchants from more than 100 countries the opportunity to go global, serving more than 300 brands. Sharad launched FlavorCloud as an enterprise SaaS platform in 2017 when she realized that the cutting-edge, “anywhere to anywhere,” cross-border solutions developed in-house for their marketplace could solve the needs for any e-commerce merchant.

Matthieu Somekh is the CEO of ZeBox, an international incubator and accelerator of innovative startups focused on the fields of logistics, transport, mobilities, and industry X.0. At the heart of each project are cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Before this, Somekh was director of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Ecole Polytechnique for 10 years, with the mission to select and develop creative projects at the heart of an ecosystem of excellence. He created the XUP accelerator and the incubator, which today contributes to the development of ambitious and renowned projects. He also developed the school’s investment fund. In 2017, Somekh participated to the creation of France is AI, an initiative of which he is now the president. Its aim is to identify the connection between global actors concerning the artificial intelligence, both locally as well as internationally.

Earnest Sweat serves as a director of investments at Prologis Ventures. Sweat has a decade of experience in the real estate and technology industries. He currently focuses on the sourcing, technical due diligence, and structuring of venture capital investments and partnerships. Prior to joining Prologis, Sweat gained portfolio management and business development expertise in stints as a seed stage investor and startup advisor. He is an alum of Columbia University and the Kellogg School of Management.

As vice president, Abir Thakurta is responsible for all things related to Haverty’s global supply chain – strategy, planning, execution, orchestration, and innovation. Thakurta is a supply chain enthusiast particularly known for championing effective digital transformational strategies to help drive profitable company operations while managing business risk. Previously, he consulted with various retailers on global supply chain strategies and implemented performance improvement programs worldwide leveraging technology, solutions ,and services. Thakurta has a master’s degree in supply chain management from New Jersey Institute of Technology and completed an executive management program from the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.

Matthew Tillman is the CEO and co-founder of Haven Inc, which enables large shippers to automate logistics, collaborate with partners, and gain value insights into their supply chain. Prior to launching Haven in 2014, Tillman held technology and product leadership roles at several finance and advertising companies specializing in artificial intelligence. Haven supports customers in every trade lane out of their offices in Singapore, Switzerland, and San Francisco.

Peter Tirschwell is vice president of Maritime & Trade, IHS Markit, publisher of The Journal of Commerce, JOC.com, Dredging & Port Construction, Safety at Sea, PIERS maritime trade data, and JOC events such as TPM. In his expanded role within IHS Markit, he is responsible for all editorial content appearing in Maritime & Trade media and events. A career transportation journalist, Tirschwell has been a reporter, West Coast bureau chief, editor-in-chief, and publisher of The Journal of Commerce in his 20-plus-year career with the company, which began in 1992. He is the founder and chairman of the annual TPM Conference in Long Beach, California, one of the world's largest shipping events, and led the development of the JOC Port Productivity project, the first global database of port performance. He writes a regular column in The Journal of Commerce.

John Urban is a strategic advisor to Slync.io. Urban co founded GT Nexus, the leading cloud platform for global supply chain management, and served as company president until 2016. Acquired by Infor in 2015 for $675 million, GT Nexus lead the market with significant market share from Global Fortune 500 customers, logistics service providers and ocean carriers. Urban now advises several tech start-ups in the logistics space, including ClearMetal, Slync, Sensor Transport and Matchback Systems. Prior to GT Nexus, Urban held several executive positions at APL. He joined APL from NPSC Inc., a domestic intermodal carrier, where he was president and CEO. Prior to that, Urban was vice president of sales at Brae Corp. He began his career as an account executive at IBM. Urban has a M.S. in management from The Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University and a B.S. in Economics from Saint Bonaventure University.

With 30 years in the industry, Mitch Weseley is widely regarded as the “father of the transportation management systems (TMS) industry,” having created six successful LogTech companies. Notably, Weseley foresaw the market demand for the first and second TMS generations, and both times created new companies and products to address these opportunities. In 1992, he founded Weseley Software Development Corp., which quickly experienced rapid customer and revenue growth. The company was sold to McHugh Software International (later RedPrairie), a leading provider of warehouse management software, in 1996. Weseley then started dx/dt technologies, another supply chain execution company, which was sold to Descartes. In 1999, he returned to the TMS market, creating Global Logistics Technologies (G-Log) as a second-generation TMS to manage the large complexities associated with shipping to all geographies and utilizing all modes. With a core team comprised of the best software developers and professionals in the industry, he created the most successful second-generation transportation software company in the industry’s history. Sold to Oracle in 2005, it is now called OTM (Oracle Transportation Management). Following the sale of G-Log, Weseley started and ran OPS, a clean technology company focusing on the trucking dispatch software industry. Once again, he and his core team are reinventing the TMS industry with 3Gtms, formed in 2010. In February 2013, the company merged with Transite Technology and has created the next generation of transportation/trucking dispatch software. He is a graduate of Princeton University.

Lidia Yan is co-founder and CEO of NEXT Trucking, where she oversees the company’s vision and growth strategies. With a background in logistics and e-commerce in the US and China, Yan recognized a market need for a simpler, technology-enabled marketplace to match freight with capacity. In 2015, she founded NEXT as the first trucker-centric app and marketplace. Since then, she has led the company to five-times revenue growth, more than 150 employees, 16,000-plus carriers, and $125 million in funding. NEXT was recognized as one of Forbes’ 2019 Next BIllion-Dollar Startups, and Yan has been a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and awarded a Stevie Award for Startup of the Year.

Mike Zayonc is responsible for founding Plug and Play’s Supply Chain & Logistics vertical. The program is based in Silicon Valley and is in partnership with industry-leading corporate partners like Maersk, TJX, JD.com, DHL, Fedex, Japan Post, Yamato, Panasonic, Union Pacific Railroad, CMA CGM, Kansas City Southern Railroad, Ryder, Crowley Maritime, Prologis, BNSF Railway, ArcelorMittal, ExxonMobil, United States Postal Service, ArcelorMittal, Geodis, and the Canadian National Railway. This program is responsible for accelerating and investing in startups in the areas of analytics, AI, machine learning, augmented reality, smart warehousing, blockchain for supply chain, customer support solutions, inventory management, IoT sensors, drones, last mile delivery, disruption of the freight brokerage model, end-to-end supply chain optimization, autonomous driving, predictive analytics for demand planning, and transportation management systems. Plug and Play is a seed investor in companies like Dropbox, Lending Club, Paypal, Rappi, and over 1,000 startups across all verticals.