Who’s on the move: October 2, 2023

Flexport

Dave Clarke has resigned as CEO of Flexport and the founder, chairman and previous CEO, Ryan Petersen, has taken his place. In a Twitter post, Clarke said he was resigning because Petersen wants to refocus the company on growing its core freight business.

Geodis

Xavier Avrard has been appointed chief strategy officer at Geodis. He will be a member of the group’s management board. Avrard joined the company in 2014 as group controller. He was appointed managing director for project logistics, initially for Africa and then for the WEMEA region. In 2019 he was named senior vice-president of the Odyssey program, focusing on launching and managing the group’s digital transformation. In January 2023, he took over the strategic development of the Europe region. Since July 1, 2023 he has been leading the new group strategy department. Before joining Geodis, Avrard held positions as financial controller and CFO with a number of major international groups. He holds a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Bordeaux, and he was awarded a postgraduate diploma in management control and audit by the IAE (Institut d’Administration des Entreprises) in Bordeaux.

FourKites

FourKites has expanded its leadership team with chief technology officer Bo Tao and senior vice-president of corporate growth Manik Mair.  Tao is an experienced engineering leader and an industry veteran, having worked in the logistics and software industry for over 20 years. His expertise spans full-stack development, machine learning and data engineering, with experience at NEXT Trucking, Google, Symantec, Dell Technologies and Cheetah Mobile. Tao holds 10 patents, as well as a PhD from Princeton University.

Mair was most recently the global vice-president, head of GTM Strategy, at Ceridian. Before that, he was part of EY’s strategy consulting practice, where he focused on corporate, portfolio and business unit strategy, digital transformation and go-to-market strategy.