Dave Clark,
who led the sweeping logistics enlargement at on-line retailer
Amazon.
com Inc., will change into chief government of Flexport Inc., the digital-focused freight forwarder that has emerged as one of many largest in a secure of tech-forward delivery startups.
Mr. Clark, who resigned final week as CEO of Amazon’s shopper enterprise, will be a part of Flexport on Sept. 1, the corporate introduced on Wednesday. Ryan Petersen, Flexport’s founder and CEO, mentioned he and Mr. Clark will likely be co-CEOs for six months and Mr. Petersen will then change into government chairman, specializing in long-term imaginative and prescient and technique.
Mr. Clark “is a builder and an entrepreneur at heart” who will assist lead the fast-growing, San Francisco-based firm in a brand new section of enlargement, Mr. Petersen mentioned.
Flexport, which arranges ocean and airfreight shipments for retailers and producers utilizing expertise and an online interface, mentioned Mr. Clark would be a part of the board of administrators when he takes his government place.
Mr. Clark joined Amazon in 1999 and rose via the ranks to change into a part of founder
Jeff Bezos’s
prime management cadre, known as the “S-team,” most notably overseeing the dramatic construct out of the corporate’s multibillion-dollar logistics operation that right now spans warehouses, planes, supply vans and ocean forwarding operations.
He was promoted in early 2021 to the highest submit in Amazon’s world-wide shopper group, overseeing companies like Amazon Prime and Whole Foods, and helped handle a hiring spree in that enterprise as on-line retail demand boomed in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That enlargement has pulled again sharply this 12 months with shoppers dashing again into shops and e-commerce gross sales sagging. Amazon in April reported its first quarterly loss in seven years and mentioned it could pause its aggressive enlargement of its logistics community.
Mr. Clark in an announcement mentioned he plans to work at Flexport to assist “architect and build a technology-powered future enabling the transparent and seamless movement of goods from raw material to end consumers anywhere in the world.”
Founded in 2013, Flexport counted $3.3 billion in income final 12 months, up from $2 million in 2014, mentioned Mr. Petersen, who tasks $5 billion in income this 12 months.
The firm can also be worthwhile, he mentioned, and has a lot of its enterprise capital nonetheless within the financial institution because it invests about $100 million a 12 months in constructing expertise.
Flexport has been an investor darling, elevating $2.3 billion in enterprise capital as its efforts to carry digital expertise instruments to delivery have drawn Silicon Valley traders into the freight enterprise. The firm most just lately raised $935 million in February in a Series E funding spherical, led by venture-capital big Andreessen Horowitz and billionaire
Michael Dell’s
MSD Partners.
The founding spherical introduced its valuation to $8 billion.
Flexport has about 3,500 staff throughout 23 workplaces world wide.
—Colin Kellaher contributed to this text
Write to Liz Young at [email protected]
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Appeared within the June 9, 2022, print version as ‘Flexport’s New CEO Worked at Amazon.’
Source: www.wsj.com”