The Freight Pod

A major freight market intelligence leader is leaving DAT for a brokerage and he’s explaining exactly why. Ken Adamo joins me and Peter Coratola to talk about what most people misunderstand about DAT, how brokers should actually use spot market data, and why the best teams treat analytics as decision support rather than a single “rate truth.” If you’ve ever argued over Rateview screenshots, struggled to explain pricing to a shipper, or wondered why fancy tools don’t get adopted, this one will...

Freight is a physical business, but the decisions that make or break a carrier feel more digital every month. I sit down with Chris Ceausu, CEO of White Arrow, to unpack what it really takes to run a complex transportation network across intermodal reefer containers, cross-dock facilities, volume LTL consolidation, and a supporting freight brokerage. If you’ve ever wondered why two carriers can run “the same lane” and get totally different results, this conversation makes it painfully clear: ...

A carrier vanishes from the road, sells its MC, and reappears just long enough to “accept” a $3.8M server load. Sounds absurd—until you see how often the digital record diverges from real-world behavior. We sit down with Genlogs CEO Ryan Joyce to unpack their $60M Series B and the larger vision: an all-source intelligence platform that fuses roadside cameras, satellite imagery, IoT signals, open datasets, and financial clues into one reliable source of truth. We walk through why data quality...

Cash flow is oxygen, and too many teams are holding their breath waiting on portals, proofs, and “who handles this?” handoffs. We sit down with Tarek, a former TQL broker turned founder, to unpack the culture of persistence he learned on the brokerage floor and how that same grit now powers an AI platform that doesn’t just assist accounts receivable—it does the work. We start with the reality of freight sales: real-time chaos, creative problem solving, and an all-out push to win accounts. Th...

A 23-year-old with a pager, a bag phone, and a point to prove—Chris O’Brien takes us from apologizing for not owning trucks in the early days of his C.H. Robinson career, to shaping one of the most influential commercial engines in logistics, then into a new play: One Armada. We dig into the early days of brokerage at Robinson when check calls ruled and service meant relentless follow-up, and we unpack the moment that rewired Chris’s approach—working on-site at a shipper and learning to think...

How do you build a billion-dollar freight brokerage without a single dollar of outside capital? Sean McLeod, who joined Axle Logistics as employee #21 in 2016, gives us a rare glimpse into one of the fastest-growing and most respected brokerages in North America. Sean shares the extraordinary journey of scaling Axel from a small operation with 20 people to a powerhouse with nearly 700 employees. What makes this story particularly fascinating is how Axle has maintained its cradle-to-grave mod...

This week, Andrew welcomes Hannah Testani, CEO of Intelligent Audit. Hannah dreamed of becoming CEO of Lehman Brothers, so she studied finance at Carnegie Mellon and got a job at Goldman Sachs in 2008, just as the financial world was crashing. Though she had zero initial interest in supply chain, she pivoted to join her father's small, three-person company, Intelligent Audit. Starting from those early days of having to prove herself, Hannah shares her story of transforming Intelligent Audit i...

This week, Andrew sits down with Harish Abbott, CEO and cofounder of Augment, the AI teammate for logistics. Harish says, “Logistics is broken,” and in this episode, he goes deep into just how broken, talking about the inefficient ways information is shared between numerous parties on any given shipment. He talks about how overwhelmed operators are by emails and manual processes, leading to costly inefficiencies, a lack of time for creative work, high turnover, and burnout. The former CEO and...

Andrew welcomes Clay Curran, CEO and cofounder of FreshX, a young company tackling the tricky reefer LTL space. Clay shares his entrepreneurial journey, marked by a willingness to pivot that has shaped both his personal career trajectory and the FreshX business model. Today, FreshX is a marketplace that connects brokers with more than 80 reefer LTL carriers. In this episode, Clay also covers: His path to entrepreneurship and early lessons learned from his entrepreneurial parents.The evolution...

In this episode, Andrew welcomes Matt O’Mara, CEO and founder of Whimsy Intermodal and Whimsy Trucking. Matt’s journey into the transportation industry began in 1994 when he worked as an owner-operator for a trucking company. When that company was acquired and its drivers let go, Matt seized the opportunity to start Whimsy Intermodal in 1996 and hired many of those drivers. Today, Whimsy has about 50 company drivers, 145 owner-operators, and 150 trucks. Andrew and Matt also cover: Whims...

In this roundtable-style episode, Andrew brings together a panel of industry experts at the center of cross-border shipping and trade compliance: Matt Silver, CEO and cofounder of Cargado; Emil Stefanutti, CEO and cofounder of Gaia Dynamics; and Justin Sherlock, CEO & cofounder of Caspian. These leaders break down how complex, ever-changing global trade regulations are impacting shippers, brokers, and carriers and how AI is being used to bring order to the chaos. From tariff classificatio...

In this episode, Andrew sits down with Greg Paulson, CEO of Giltner Transportation, a transportation and logistics company based in Jerome, Idaho. Greg’s journey with Giltner began in 1999 when, as an accountant, he worked closely with then-owner Doug Blevins, who eventually offered him a job. Now, 26 years later, Greg and his wife, Shawna, own and lead the company. Giltner started in 1980 as a milk tanker transporter and has since expanded into a 300-truck reefer fleet, a $250M brokerage, a ...

In this episode, Andrew welcomes Dan Manshaem, CEO and founder of Ally Logistics, for his first podcast appearance ever. In 2012, Dan and his cofounder Jeff Chidester started Ally — they quit their jobs, put $2,500 in the bank, and signed a lease for $300 a month for some office space. He calls that time, “One part exhilarating, one part terrifying.” Today, Ally has grown to a team of 95 with a projected top-line revenue of $145M in 2025. In this episode, Dan shares: How his initial fin...