Freightvine

This week’s guest is  Gonzalo Cordova, Director of Decision Science and Automation at The Home Depot.  Gonzalo has a long history of solving business and supply chain problems using sophisticated analytical methods.  After finishing his MS at GaTech in 2005, he worked for companies as varied as GE Energy, Lafarge, Coca-Cola, and The Home Depot.  His current role is leading the team that is applying AI, and other analytical methods they have in their tool belt, to solve various challenges within the company.  Gonzalo and his team’s approach is a problem first rather than leading with a set methodology.  In our conversation, Gonzalo offers his definition of AI and talks through examples of its success and other areas where it was not. 

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This week’s guest is Chad Kennedy, Group Product Manager of the Rate Benchmark platform at DAT Freight & Analytics. Chad has been in the trucking and transportation space for over two decades now as both a carrier and a shipper.  While originally trained in finance, he joined a small family-owned trucking company in the early 2000s.  He moved on to CHEP (the blue pallet people) where he rose to be Director of Transportation. Finally, he joined Chainalytics in 2018 and was part of the acquisition by DAT in 2020. In our conversation, we discuss the different major use cases of rate benchmarking  (past, present, and future) and why that matters in how the rates are created. We also talk about how the shipper-carrier interface has evolved over the years as well as the challenges of managing a data-driven software solution.    

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This week’s guest is Keith Brandis, Vice President of Partnerships and System Solutions at Volvo Trucks.  Keith is a 40-plus-year veteran of the trucking industry with a diverse background in truck manufacturing, engineering, sales, and marketing for the Volvo Group. He began his career with Volvo Trucks at its New River Valley manufacturing operations in Dublin, Virginia, where all of the brands’ Class 8 trucks for the North American market are assembled. Today, he works in the Project and Product Strategy Office as the vice president of system solutions and partnerships for North America and is actively involved in several projects driving technological and industry-transforming progress in transportation and sustainability. In our conversation, we discuss Vovlo’s three-pillar approach to decarbonization with an extended discussion of Battery Electric Vehicles. We also talk about the challenges involved in transitioning to a zero or near-zero emissions market.  

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This week’s guest is David Landau, currently Advisor at Moguntia Capital in Atlanta.  David has  25 years of experience in the Supply chain software space - mainly focused on the creation and delivery of product strategies and M&A. He spent almost 20 years at Manhattan Associates - culminating in being VP of Product Management, and has also served in leadership roles at E2Open, Cloud Logistics, BluJay, and Transporeon.  In our conversation, we talk about how the SC software industry has evolved and changed in terms of technology, customer expectations, the people involved, and how it is delivered.  We also talk about the product management process and what it is like running a product pipeline for software. 

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This week’s guest is Matt Waller from New Roads Capital Partners and the University of Arkansas.  He has held various positions, including Dean, and taught for 30 years at the University of Arkansas, where he currently holds the William Dillard II Leadership Chair at the Sam M. Walton College of Business.  He is also a Strategic Advisor at NewRoad Capital Partners.  In our conversation, we talk mainly about the always evolving Retail Value Chain - how it has changed over the last 30 years and where we might expect it to go.  Matt also gives some examples of new start-ups in this space that bear watching.

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This week’s guest is Mike Bassani, Partner and Product Leader at Microsoft. Despite starting in Finance, Mike is no stranger to supply chains having worked in supply chain roles for Best Buy, Nike, Amazon, Convoy, and currently, Microsoft where he was the General Manager of the Supply Chain Platform. His role has changed over the last year to lead the integration of Copilot and other LLMs into the  Power Platform. In our conversation, we talk about how a finance background can help a supply chain professional, the difference between traditional and generative Artificial Intelligence, whether generative AI will be centralized or decentralized (and why that matters), as well as what it is like running very large, diverse, and geographically dispersed team. Mike has a solid grasp of not only supply chains but also how this new emerging technology might be leveraged. There is no wonder why he was named one of the top 10 Most Influential People in Supply Chain by CIO Magazine in 2023.

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This week’s guest is Woody Richardson, former executive at Schneider. Woody was in the trucking industry for 40 years - all at Schneider.  Before retiring in 2021, he had held multiple leadership roles including Revenue Management/Pricing, Sales, Logistics Transportation Procurement, and many others. He recently published his book, Roads Rarely Traveled: Avoiding the Biggest Mistakes in Truckload Purchasing. Based on his decades of work with literally hundreds of shippers, the book outlines the 13 biggest mistakes that a transportation procurer can make. In our conversation, we'll discuss just three of these mistakes: #5 Thinking size has an advantage, #6 Thinking that a commitment of carrier capacity is a guarantee, and my favorite, #8 Being enamored with ‘paper savings’. We could have talked for an hour more on related topics - but these three give you an idea of Woody’s perspective on transportation procurement.  Unsurprisingly, we do not disagree too much on this topic!  I encourage any professional working in this space - whether as a carrier, a shipper, or a broker, to consider buying this book - it has incredible insights. 

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This week’s guest is Dr. Callie Federer, Senior Data Science Manager at DAT Freight & Analytics. Callie comes to the freight and transportation industry from a pretty non-traditional path - a Ph.D. in Computational Bioscience from the University of Colorado-Denver.  After earning her PhD, she went straight into industry holding various data science roles in the medical, education, and advertising domains. She joined DAT about 18 months ago and currently manages and leads the data science team responsible for the development of all next-generation tools and models that DAT uses for its shipper, carrier, and broker customers. In our conversation we debate what Artificial Intelligence or AI is, what it does and does not include, and how other methodologies such as ML or OR complement the newer methods like generative AI or LLMs. Callie also describes the recently released AI-powered DAT iQ rating platform and how it is fundamentally different than other rating engines. We finish up with a discussion on how to manage and lead a team of highly skilled data analytics professionals in the very nuanced and quirky industry of freight transportation. 

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This week’s guest is Dylan Alperin, VP of Professional Services at Keelvar.  Founded in Ireland in 2012, Keelvar is a software company specializing in procurement automation and optimization solutions.  The word Keelvar can be loosely translated from Irish as “sensible” or having “better intelligence.” Dylan joined Keelvar about 3 years ago after having spent the previous fifteen years in logistics procurement at a number of shippers as well as consultancies.  His experience across these companies as well as his current role at Keelvar has given him a great perspective on transportation procurement.  In our conversation, we discuss how sourcing optimization and automation each play a role, how the pace of procurement has changed over the years, and how AI, ML, and OR techniques and methodologies all play a role in helping humans make better decisions.  

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This week’s guest is Jeff Short, Vice President, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).  ATRI publishes a wide variety of reports on all aspects of freight and trucking from costs to bottlenecks and everything in between.  Jeff is the author of the December 2022 ATRI Report entitled “Charging Infrastructure Challenges for the US Electric Vehicle Fleet”.  The report identifies and quantifies three major challenges associated with the adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs).  These are (1) US Electricity Supply and Demand - can we generate the electricity needed, (2)  Electric Vehicle Production - can we mine sufficient materials to produce the required number of vehicles, and (3)  Truck Charging Requirements - how will charging work?  I recommend that you look up this report and other ATRI reports at truckingresearch.org.

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