October 12, 2023
Flexport CEO’s Note to Employees
Flexport CEO’s Note to Employees
Below is a note to Flexport employees from CEO Ryan Petersen.
Team,
Today I have a difficult decision to share: We will reduce the size of our global team by approximately 20% with the process starting tomorrow, Friday, October 13.
Departure support for Flexporters will vary by geography. For U.S. employees, it includes 9 weeks severance, 2 months extended healthcare through the end of the year, and immigration support. We will also maintain a small team of dedicated recruiters to help departing Flexport employees look for their next opportunity. This team will work closely with over 300 companies that have expressed an interest in hiring departing Flexporters to match opportunities with impacted employees. Employees who are impacted and located outside of the U.S. will get detailed information about their support and separation packages upon their notification, which will carry into next week.
To those who are leaving, thank you again for everything you have done, and I hope that your experience at this company will help you as you pursue the next steps in your career.
What This Restructuring Means for Our Customers
Customers need to be able to count on Flexport as a reliable partner for their supply chain. Over the last month my leadership team and I evaluated every role in the company and its relationship to solving important supply chain problems for our customers. As a result, we are confident that this reduction in force will not impact the customer experience we provide to our customers today.
With more than $1 billion in net cash, following this change, Flexport is now in a great position to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us to return to profitability as soon as the end of next year. I’ve spoken to more than 100 of our top customers in my first month back as CEO, and hope to talk to hundreds more in the months to come. It's clear that our customers want us to be a profitable company they can rely on to solve important problems in their supply chain.
With today’s change, we'll be able to get back to profitability without raising prices or placing our fortress balance sheet at risk. Instead, our path to profitability runs through delivering outstanding global logistics and technology solutions that solve customer problems. We will continue to relentlessly focus on the quality of our services as measured by on-time execution, quote to invoice accuracy, shipment milestone accuracy, direct customer feedback and net promoter scores.
Today’s change does not change our commitment to pursuing our long-term technology vision. We see endless opportunities for technology to improve on-time performance and reliability, upgrade compliance processes, and save businesses money in their global supply chain. We are the technology leader in this space and will continue to accelerate. With a flatter organizational structure, our talented tech teams will be able to make quicker decisions and deliver technology across as many customers and use cases as possible. Businesses come to Flexport for technology that improves reliability, visibility, and control over their supply chains, but they stay and grow with us because of the passion and expertise of our people. That won't change, as we are more committed than ever to our customers.
Today is a tough day, but we are a resilient, purpose-driven team that will overcome this setback and deliver on the promise of our mission of making global commerce so easy that there will be more of it.
I’m proud to lead this team to our full potential in the many years to come.
Ryan