OUR TEAM
LEADERS
Russell Jones
CEO, Co‑Founder, Serial Entrepreneur, HBS MBA
Russell co-founded Cargo Chief, his fourth startup, to address frustrations he experienced as a shipper. Previously, he co-founded and led two cloud-based physical security firms, Sentinel Vision and FireEar. Russell was also the VP of Marketing at B2B air freight marketplace, iCargo. Earlier, he was the CEO and co-founder of Clearvox Communications, the pioneer for the market for wireless phone headsets, which he sold to Plantronics. Russell has been awarded 10 patents, double majoring in MIS and Marketing from Boston University’s School of Management and has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Caroline Lyle
VP Marketing
For over 20 years, Caroline has been serving the transportation technology industry to develop and implement both traditional and digital marketing strategies. As a certified transportation broker (CTB) her experience within the industry provides a unique perspective on positioning game-changing technology for brokers to ensure profitable growth. An award winning marketing executive, she is a frequent contributor to Forbes.com as a member of the Forbes Communication Council.
Kirk Franzen
CTO, Co‑Founder, Entrepreneur
Kirk is a proven product and engineering leader with over 20 years of experience building, delivering solutions to real world problems and 10 years leading product and engineering teams. He led engineering at a number of rapidly growing software/SaaS startups. Including successful exits through acquisitions by IBM and QA Source. Most recently, leveraging his broad technology knowledge he directed the engineering of a marketplace for quality assurance talent used by thousands of buyers and sellers. Kirk received a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science at Texas A&M University.
Chris Arredondo
Dir. Customer Success, Co-Founder, Trucking Carrier Capacity Expert
Chris started his career at top 3PL’s, C.H. Robinson and XPO Logistics. Experiences he learned from C.H. quickly transferred over to XPO, ranking him in the top 5% company-wide as a senior level buyer and a Lead for a large group of buyers. Growth strategies, accuracy, and leadership helped him to significantly increase results as an Operations Manager at a mid-sized brokerage. Chris was a top earner during the industry record breaking growth of Cargo Chief brokerage division. Chris received his BBA in Marketing at Stephen F. Austin State University.
ADVISORS & DIRECTORS
Ben Levy
Board Member, Co‑Founder of BootstrapLabs
Ben is the co-founder of BootstrapLabs, a VC firm focused on Applied AI Technologies. Prior to BootstrapLabs, he launched, built, and exited two FinTech startups. Praedea Solutions, a data mining software company using machine learning and image recognition technology, was acquired by Mergent. InsideVenture, a social network for the startup founders and institutional investors was acquired by SecondMarket. Previously, Ben was an Investment Banker who helped his clients raise over $300M from and close over $5B in M&A transactions.
David Brown
Board Member, VC, Highly Active SaaS Seed Investor
David has been an active private equity and venture investor for the last twenty years investing in sectors that include software, business services, financial services, clean tech, social media, mobile software services, storage, wireless towers and cable. He started at Salomon Brothers and was a Managing Director at Oak Hill Ventures for 16 years. David has invested in dozens of early stage SaaS companies including Pinterest and has learned the common trouble areas to avoid.
Michael Bykhovsky
Co-Founder, Algorithm Specialist
Michael graduated from Columbia University earning a degree in Physics, then a masters at UCLA, finally returning to Columbia for PHD work. He then went to Wall Street working for a number of named banks including leading a risk control group at ABN-AMRO. Michael then started Applied Financial Technology without investors; AFT dominated the space of Mortgage analytics and it also analyzed bonds and derivatives. AFT was sold in to Fidelity Information Services. Michael has used his algorithm expertise to be an active investor in real estate and AI-based startups.
Robert Voltmann
Advisor, X-CEO of Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA)
Robert was appointed office of a Commissioner at the Interstate Commerce Commission and then became the Director of Policy for The National Industrial Transportation League. He helped craft both the Negotiated Rates Act of 1993, the Trucking Industry Regulatory Reform Act of 1994. Robert lead the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) For 23 years and elected Secretary General of the Int’l Assoc. of 3rd-Party Logistics Associations.
John Terry
Advisor, Co-Founder of Landstar & Ceva
John Terry, an investor for his own account in the trucking industry, was previously EVP of IU International Corporation and CEO of its Freight Transportation Group which was then the largest trucking company in the US. Prior to that he had been the CFO of the government corporation that reorganized the Northeast Rail System after the collapse of the Penn Central and a senior officer of two other Fortune Companies. He has been an advisor to the World Bank and European Bank on transport matters and has been involved in freight transport in 31 countries.
Joel McGinley
Advisor, Managing Director TranStrategy Partners
Joel has engaged at the highest level at the two top Load boards, DAT and Internet Truckstop, helping them grow significantly with organic growth plus adding new services, and set their direction. He then started and sold ELD firm, You Drove IT. Joel, working with venture capitalist started an early online matching service with a directory which he exited. Currently, Joel is leading the consultancy he started, Transtrategy Partners, that has helped hundreds of freight brokers that range from 10 to 400 employees.
Herb Shear
Advisor, CEO of GENCO (FedEX Supply Chain)
Herb now spends time making interesting supply chain company investments, usually at private equity level. Previously, for 40 years he lead his family’s 3PL business, GENCO that, Herb grew dramatically by focusing on reverse logistics as B2C/online volumes grew several fold. GENCO was sold a few years ago and is now FedEx Supply Chain. Herb deeply understands trucking carriers and freight brokerages as he has invested in both directly.
Mark Liston
Advisor, Broker Operations Specialist
Mark has extensive knowledge of the freight brokerage business that he has learned from 18 years of working with well-known brokerages including Harte Hanks, Sunteck Transport Group and XPO Logistics. At XPO Logistics, he was in charge of training continuous classes new Carrier Representatives on the best way to engage with trucking companies. Mark also lead the Cargo Chief Carrier Representative team, early on when Cargo Chief was a freight brokerage, establishing policies and procedures.
Cindy Du
P/T CFO, Financial Consultant
Cindy has over 20 years of corporate finance and accounting experience in a variety of commercial settings, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Cargo Chief, she worked as Corporate Controller at Intematix Corp. She is also serving as a member of the Board of Directors for RotaCare Bay Area, Inc. Cindy received her Masters in Accounting from the University of South Alabama and is also a licensed California CPA.