Transforming Maritime Logistics: A Conversation Between Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen and Ocean Network Express CEO Jeremy Nixon

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Ryan Petersen

great. Okay. Hey, welcome everybody to a really exciting webinar we have that we're calling transforming maritime logistics. It's going to be a conversation between me, Ryan Peterson, I'm the founder and CEO of Flexport and the CEO of ocean network express, better known as one that's Jeremy Nixon. And so, yeah, as I mentioned, I'm Ryan and we have a pretty exciting conversation today. But before I begin a couple housekeeping items here, first off any technical issues you may have, you can message us through the help chat on the right sidebar and the Flexport team will help you out. And then you see two tabs at the top of your screen. The first one lets you sign up for an upcoming webinar on March eighteenth that's next week where we're going to talk about our customs and trade advisory team is going to talk about the latest tariff changes. And like honestly, they might not even know what they're going to talk about. Now, probably a lot's going to change between now and March. So that's he's been doing a great job trying to keep everybody up to speed on what's going on in the world of us customs and sort of globally, what's happening. We'll talk about probably a little bit of that today with Jeremy. And then the second tab, there is a quick feedback survey for this webinar. We love reading your feedback. We learn from it. We want to hear from you. So please fill that out. Okay? Now, a legal note, my legal team makes me do this, keep in mind that everything being provided here is general information purposes only may not be suited to your particular business requirement. Okay? And with that, let's see if we can invite Jeremy here onto the stage with us and welcome Jeremy. Let's see. Did we? Yep? All right. Cool. Hey, great to see you live from Singapore. I assume, right? I forgot to ask. I assume you're in Singapore right now or are you traveling?

Jeremy Nixon

Yeah, no, Ryan. I'm actually in Singapore and that's our global head office for O.N.E. But as you can see in the background, I've got a rather nice picture of Tacoma and mount Washington, and always great to all these different geographical areas that you know, Flexport and O.N.E and many of us in the industry are involved with.

Ryan Petersen

So, and maybe that's a great place to start. I do think you guys have become one of the most well known company amongst my friends who know nothing about shipping because of your beautiful magenta ships. But tell us a little bit about the history of O.N.E. I think it's a fascinating journey and a little bit yourself too, but let's start with the company.

Jeremy Nixon

For the company standpoint, I mean, O.N.E was formed in 2017 and went live in April, 2018. And essentially, it's the consolidation of three different companies, three coming into one. So we called it one. And the three companies were the three Japanese legacy companies, these three big Japanese kitetsu type companies, K line, mol, and mosk, mol, and they, they've been in the business for over 100 years. They're very big in shipping, Japanese shipping companies with a global reach. But they decided to carve out their container shipping operations and step back from being an operator individually and bring those assets into one single pool and to form one. And they just step back and they're a shareholder. Now. So basically, those are the three guys that are the shareholders and we have our global head office in Singapore. We run the company independently but of course, we are answerable to those three shareholders. I.

Ryan Petersen

Found that to be really cool. I mean, first off, it's just a fascinating like very hard business. Congratulations like it's I know it's been a while, so you don't think about it that much anymore, but very hard thing to do to get three different companies to kind of merge and come together as one like that. And then also really interesting that you chose Singapore, I think to represent, hey, we're gonna be a big global company here. Not just a Japanese company. I assume that there's some message in that I know Singapore is a more probably a more important shipping hub for the world as well. Yeah.

Jeremy Nixon

I mean, you know, historically Japanese companies have done a lot of business in Japan but particularly on the shipping logistics side, you know, so many of those Japanese companies on the manufacturing of the retail side, have moved offshore and I think many that, you know, the Japanese logistic shipping companies followed those clients overshore and helped help them out, set up, you know, 30 40 years ago. But I mean, our account base now is predominantly non Japanese, as I like to say, you know, we're now we're transitioned from being a Japanese company that happens to be international to being now a truly an international company that just so happens to be Japanese. And Singapore is a great location for us to do business to have a hub here. So we've got a big logistics hub here with a joint venture with the psa. But also, it's been our global head office and, you know, it's a, very good, very business friendly, very easy to travel. You know, the store Ryan you come through, you can hit the ground running. And so it's much more in tune with the overall context of our global business and.

Ryan Petersen

Can you tell us? I think people would love to hear your personal story? I know you've told me a little bit in the past when we chatted, but I just love to hear like you grew where you grew up and how you ended up working for a Japanese company. And then, and then, you know, getting tapped to go put this together. I mean, it's a really impressive.

Jeremy Nixon

Yeah, I guess it's kind of a, you know, a Brit working for a Japanese company living in Singapore. It's it's, it may be, it may be more common in the future, I don't know. But it was certainly pretty rare, I would say 20-30 years ago. But yeah, I very humbly started my life as a seafarer, I went to sea when I was 18 as a navigating trainee officer. I always loved the sea, lived up, grew near the sea. I wasn't really sure about this college thing. What was your first ship?

Ryan Petersen

What kind of ship was it?

Jeremy Nixon

Yeah, it was a general cargo vessel. So it was, we did have, we had about, you know, 200 containers on deck, but everything else was break bulk. So it was sort of going through, that phase of the industry changing. So, you know, giving my age away, but that was back in what? 1978 that's.

Ryan Petersen

so cool.

Jeremy Nixon

And, yeah, you know, so I did this did the seafaring thing and then, I was really, you know, interested to come ashore like many of us do it's you know, it's a young person's game. You need to think of what is my career forever. I'm gonna be like captain barnacle for the rest of my life, but, I got all my qualifications and, I was a, you know, a navigating officer on the ships. And then I went to university and I did maritime law and economics. And then from there I went into the container terminal business. And then from there, I then joined P o containers at the time, which was the preeminent UK, British container shipping company, which is one of one of the early players in the container game after sealand. So I joined them. And then through a period of a long career in the container shipping business, I worked for a number of different players. So piano Ned Lloyd, then burst, took out piano Ned Lloyd. And then I moved to nyk, and then nyk moved into O.N.E. So I've seen this industry over the last 30 40 years consolidate. I've been lucky enough to work with many great companies, very great people, many great customers and to have lived obviously in Europe but also lived in North America and lived in Asia. So, I think, you know, from our, you know, the international dynamics of what Flexport does and what onee does and our industry, this great industry we have where we're kind of the servants of global trade. You kind of need to know your geography and you kind of need to know different cultures and values and the ways that sourcing and production works, it's.

Ryan Petersen

one of the coolest things about this industry is like, I sometimes call it a what's the circulatory system of the world economy almost in a literal sense but it's and it's also just a backstage past how everything's happening and an opportunity to go learn about every culture and, you know, different economies and where things are made and where they're sold and what's happening in the world. I just think it's so fascinating. It's also just listening to you talk and, you know, we sometimes come in as a bit of an outsider myself. I mean, now, I feel like I'm an insider because I've been in the container shipping business for almost 15 years but it's still pretty short time period, but I come in with that outsider perspective. I still try to maintain that beginner's mind of challenging things and asking why things work. But sometimes I feel that this industry's been a little slow to adapt and change with technology. But then when I hear someone, you know, who's had your history in the business and think of all the changes that have happened. Maybe my, maybe I just need a longer perspective and recognize like, wow, you know, like, you were at break bulk cargo and container shipping on the same boat and didn't have probably nearly the scale of the ports, and the amount of change the industry's actually been through on it, if you take a longer time horizon, it's actually pretty impressive. Yeah.

Jeremy Nixon

I think, you know, the industry really has gone through a lot of change. I mean, a lot of people still think it's very kind of about the steel and the hardware, you know, and the salty encrusted eyebrows of the, you know, the seafarer, all that kind of stuff. And that's still, very important, of course, but, you know, just so many things have changed. I mean, the size of the ships and the technology now on the ships, is in another world?

Ryan Petersen

The turnaround times at the ports, the ability to load things and unload them.

Jeremy Nixon

Absolutely. And then the whole port, the port infrastructure has improved in certain parts of the world, not.

Ryan Petersen

In.

Jeremy Nixon

every part of the world.

Ryan Petersen

Ask some questions about that. When we get there. One thing I will call out, you know, I always felt you have very beautiful, your website. It's one line. Com if I'm not mistaken, has.

Jeremy Nixon

you.

Ryan Petersen

have, if you go, if you're out there, go to their service maps and it's always, they've done a great job of representing their different strings and where they call. I just was checking it out ahead of this interview. I noticed they've actually just pushed an even a nicer update. I think they do one of the best jobs out there in the industry. So, you're starting to adopt, you know, you're seeing more and more great companies starting to say, hey, it's not just the steel, it's not just the physical assets but where's the digital coming? I think you guys are, I don't know, when I click through those maps, I go man, what a cool business like look at all the different places that you guys go and services. And then you must have some serious nerds deciding where these things, where these ships should be deployed and how the, how do those networks get designed?