In his resignation statement, Clark referred to how founder Petersen had indicated his desire to return to growing Flexport’s core freight business:
“Twelve months ago, Ryan recruited me to join him at Flexport. As the Founder, he expressed a desire to have a leader to take the company to the next level. In March, when I officially took over as CEO, we began to transform the company while facing challenging macroeconomic conditions.
I am very proud of the vision we agreed on and we have established an operating model and structure to realize that vision. We’ve built great tech at rapid speeds, especially the flagship SMB product for small business that we are launching for entrepreneurs tomorrow, and I’m grateful to the teams we built who are working hard for customers.
Founders have the right to change their mind. I came to Flexport to do big things and that’s where I believe we were headed. Today, Ryan and I discussed his desire to return to focusing on growth in the core freight business. In light of that, I feel that he is best suited to lead the company in that direction. As such, I will be resigning from my position at Flexport.
As a shareholder in the company and as someone who believes in the mission and in all of you who are here, the entire Clark family will be cheering you on and wishing you nothing but the best.”
According to Crunchbase, Flexport has raised a total of $2.4B in funding over 18 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 4, 2023 from a Corporate Round round.
However, at the start of this year, Flexport dismissed 20% of its staff via a bombshell memo in which both Petersen and Clark stated the company was starting the New Year “with more optimism than ever”.
The CEOs then went on to say that Flexport was “not immune to the macroeconomic downturn that has impacted businesses around the world”.
“Our customers have been impacted by these challenging conditions, resulting in a reduction to our volume forecasts through 2023. Lower volumes, combined with improved efficiencies as a result of new organizational and operational structures, means we are overstaffed in a variety of roles across the company,” wrote Petersen and Clark.
The duo added that 20% of Flexport’s staff would be notified of their redundancy in an email sent just a few hours after the memo.
As for this week’s events, an anonymous source close to the matter has told BBN Bloomberg that Clark had a tough time transitioning from the much-larger Amazon. The source added that Clark bristled at criticism of his style at Flexport, and announced his resignation soon after.
It has been reported that Clark is now considering a move into politics and could run for Governor of Texas.
Meanwhile, in his own statement covering his return, also posted on X, Petersen said:
“As you read earlier today, Dave Clark resigned as CEO of Flexport today. It’s been an honor working with Dave and learning from his experiences in global logistics and technology. We wish him well in his next endeavors-especially if he runs for Governor of Texas.
In other news – I’m back!
We’ve made a lot of progress under Dave’s leadership. Today Flexport is the industry leader in technology for global trade and logistics. Every day our teams solve important problems for thousands of companies of all sizes, from Fortune 500s to emerging brands just getting started. We have a passionate, committed team working around the clock to create a reliable, low-cost, end-to-end global logistics platform.
With over $1 billion in net cash, our fortress balance sheet remains intact. We have a multi-billion dollar book of business with important logistics operations capabilities in more than 100 countries. We provide all of the logistics and financial infrastructure to make it easy, fast, and affordable to get goods from wherever they’re made into the hands of consumers, whether sold through an ecommerce marketplace, a major retail channel, or through your own website. Customers love what we do, and are cheering for us to succeed.
We have made incredible progress on tech, with the launch of our self-serve SMB product next week, a new suite of Enterprise offerings in Q1, and powerful new tools for freight forwarding operations already in use by our teams. We will continue to extend our lead in tech in the months and years to come.
However, it’s clear that important changes are needed to sustain our growth and return to profitability. Flexport sits at a crossroad where the choice is either to spend our way out of the current downturn in global logistics or pursue a path that gets us back to profitability quickly. The board and I agree that operational excellence and profitability in the near-term is the right path.
I love Flexport. Building this company is my life’s purpose. I’m extremely confident in my ability to bring us to our full potential and deliver results our customers, employees, and shareholders can be proud of. Under the last decade of my leadership, Flexport was one of the fastest growing companies in the world, becoming one of the largest companies in the global freight forwarding industry in just our first decade.
The main way we grow is by talking to customers. Flexport leaders must proactively engage with our clients to understand their needs and then lead our teams to solve their problems and earn their trust. It seems like we that muscle atrophy recently. It starts at the top and you’ll see me leading from the front on this as I speak with hundreds of our biggest customers in the months to come.
We have an important mission and have always been a mission-focused company. Trade is central to humanity. And we have a lot to do to make global trade easy. I couldn’t be more excited to continue to lead you on this as we assemble the best team on the planet.
You’ll hear a lot more from me on our culture and strategy in the coming weeks. In the meantime, as I’ve told our customers for years, I can’t promise we won’t make mistakes or that we know more than everybody else, but I guarantee you we will learn faster and care more.”
Photo: Aero Icarus / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0