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In our popular podcast series, cargo.one Founder & Co-CEO Moritz Claussen hosts candid chats with visionaries from all across the logistics world, uncovering their formative experiences and most valuable insights and advice. Subscribe today!
cargo.one:one continues with valuable thoughts from a dynamic and progressive freight forwarding leader – Casper Hedemann, SVP Global Airfreight at GEODIS. Enjoying his 18th year in the air cargo industry, Casper has held a wide range of roles in Scandinavia and across Europe, and today oversees GEODIS’ vast range of air cargo services.
For Casper, logistics was perhaps in the blood – his father held several supply chain roles and later became the Head of Supply Chain at a large Danish brand. Alongside his studies in International Forwarding and Logistics, he got his first taste of international trade and industry working within the aluminium insulation industry.
Enjoy the full length episode, here:
Casper joined GEODIS in a traineeship program back in 2007 and through the years climbed its ranks with roles including Nordic Gateway Manager, Regional Airfreight Director, and Sales Director Europe. He admits that “freight is a people’s business” and his progress has rested upon capturing a “suite of different inputs” including “engaging with customers, with suppliers, with peers in the industry.”
While he also credits “luck and timing”, his early roles with GEODIS brought valuable exposure to “high responsibilities relative to the position.” From the start, Casper was immersed in understanding how to maximize customer value, and generate competitive edge for his shippers. Ultimately, he concludes that “hard work and showing dedication” is the quickest route to success.
Evolving customer needs
Over the years, Casper has experienced supply chains ebbing and flowing and air freight customer needs gradually evolve. In terms of “speed to market and agility”, air freight most often remains “the most resilient product out there”. He notes that forwarding has become a highly strategic service: “Today we're moving more and more into an environment where our job is a service provider.”
“So that service is really to give our customers a competitive advantage…moving us a bit away from just moving packages from A to B into more of a solution provider and the solution design.”
Casper Hedemann
In recent years, Casper has been central to GEODIS’s initiatives to decarbonize its air freight products. He notes that there has been an uptick in demand for sustainable capacity options, particularly within higher yield, luxury commodities and in EU markets such as France and Scandinavia in particular.
As part of a digitally-native generation of industry leaders, Casper has seen firsthand the impacts that digital transformation has already made in improving transparency, speed and reliability: “If you compare, also 18 years ago when I was a trainee, we've leapfrogged in the industry and now it's to the point where customers are starting to demand real-time information.”
He amusingly recalls the realities of paper-based forwarding: “I remember when I was doing consolidations, I had the IT manager from Denmark calling me up because I was using too much paper because I was printing all the air waybills in the console shifts on Friday nights.”
Casper is upbeat about the exciting digital freight potentials still ahead: “We've come a long way, but there's still immense work in front of us. But that's also what makes it exciting because we can make an impact and we can make a difference.”
“You can try to work to improve the industry and move us forward to make that difference, not only for your company but also for the future.”
Casper Hedemann
Transformational leadership
As a leader, Casper has won executive awards internally at GEODIS and completed its Executive Leadership Program provided by Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has seen a change in the type of business leadership that freight forwarding requires – moving away from purely “operational execution of the shipments” towards guiding long term transformation: “The world is changing and it's changing rapidly…you need to drive that transformation through the organization, because if you are standing still focusing on the execution part only, then we'll fall behind.”
Casper is passionate about the efforts needed to encourage more talent to enter the industry. He points to the global nature of the collaborations and the important contributions that forwarders make to our daily lives: “I don’t think that you have that many industries where you have this many touchpoints with…a wide variety of verticals…automotive, retail, pharma”
“One of our key resources is our people. We need to make sure that we are an interesting industry for the generations to come”
Casper Hedemann
Casper is clearly energized about future growth, both at GEODIS and in the wider industry. Still under 40, he is a strong example of how applying drive and entrepreneurship can deliver a challenging and brilliant career in air logistics: “You get so much insight into what is really moving and what is happening around the world, around industries, which for me is super exciting. So it's not only about the effort, but it's really about the globalization of it in the broadest sense."
Want to know what creative passion Casper has passed on to his children? Tune into Episode 9 now to find out! 🤩
cargo.one:one features many more exciting guests in the series. If you enjoyed this episode, stay tuned to our blog or subscribe using your favorite podcast platform including Spotify, Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Castbox and more.
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