Transfix's 'Right Formula' Attracts Transportation Insight Veteran

While quadrupling revenue and tripling its enterprise customers over the last few years, the transportation solutions provider Transfix has brought on elite executives, like recent hire WeWork's Christian Lee, to help manage the company's growth strategy.

Transfix continued to add to its roster on Tuesday, appointing industry veteran Sophie Dabbs as the chief commercial officer.  

Dabbs has over 20 years of experience leading teams at multimodal logistics provider Transportation Insights, manufacturer Mondi Packaging, transportation and logistics company Schneider National SNDR, and global logistics provider C.H. Robinson CHRW.

While Transfix and other digital players in FreightTech have continued to bring in Silicon Valley executives to help scale their tech-focused business methods, CEO Lily Shen explained the importance of bringing on an executive with industry experience to scale Transfix in a business environment just now entering its digital revolution. 

Related article: WeWork CFO joins Transfix executive team to accelerate growth

"How do you build [a marketplace] in this industry? It's with incredible leaders like Sophie," she said. "Sophie is so uniquely positioned in this space for Transfix and, quite frankly, for the industry. She has direct experience and understanding of the pain points from the shipper side and on the carrier side. She's been leading and managing transportation efforts and has shown over and over again her ability to truly lead teams boldly."

The opportunity to lead a team that is pushing innovation in transportation is exactly what attracted Dabbs to the position.

"The Transfix team is extremely talented, but there's a quality to the culture that's got gumption," she said. "They dare to challenge the industry. They respect the competition, but Tranfix dares to say there are actually synergies between the shipper and the customers that we can improve on."

Dabbs is eager to use her past experiences scaling transportation companies to scale a company she believes is on the right trajectory.

"I've really loved my career path, getting to help build companies and trying to forge a path forward for them," she said. "The current truckload market is so fragmented and the digital freight marketplace is very quietly growing behind the scenes. I want to be a part of that, and I want to be at Transfix because they have the right formula to do it."

She was particularly interested in the company's strategy to create a marketplace that could empower carriers specifically.

"I think one of the things that I love about Transfix is our focus on the carrier and what they need to run their businesses," said Dabbs. "We dare to say, ‘What if we didn't have any freight? What would our service offering look like to them?' That's the true north of our platform."

Shen echoed this vision, mentioning the company's current partnership with TriumphPay to continue to enhance the carriers' experience at Transfix.

Related article: Transfix partners with TriumphPay for seamless carrier payments

"We're identifying ways in which we are able to meet the needs of carriers, and I think TriumphPay is a great example of that," she said. 

"At Transfix, we're not innovating and disrupting for the sake of disrupting; we're really building a solution. We are so well-positioned to win in this space. As we scale and continue to grow the business and drive change, we want a leader like Sophie in place."

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