Logistics Plus Global Director of Sales (Group Marine & Motorsport Logistics) Jennifer Elstone shares her background, experience, and hobbies. The story below is Jennifer’s words. Photos of Jennifer, her hobbies, and her past projects can be seen at the bottom of the story.
I began my logistics career at 16, working for a container haulage company in my hometown, Southampton (where the Titanic set sail from). Within three months, I was responsible for running a fleet of 100 trucks for Southampton/Thamesport & Felixstowe Port for carrier line haul (NYK/MOL).
Finding the logistics world interesting and working closely with the container carriers via the haulage position I was in, I moved to MOL, where I was responsible for sales administration for Mitsui’s import and export trades in South/West Africa, the Far East, and Cross Trade.
Eventually, in addition to management of trade pricing, I was involved in the rollout of the global CRM pricing system for the MOL Group, which involved CRM setup, pricing, routing, schedule input into the CRM system, global management of contact input with the 3rd party supplier based in India.
From there, I wanted to branch out further, so I moved to a container logistics company called Pentalver. I was responsible for procurement as part of the AP Moeller group, which included commercial assistance to Pentalver, Maersk, Safmarine & Damco. As Damco were a forwarder in their own right, this got me interested in freight forwarding. The Pentalver Group had a container conversions department, where I became involved in conversion projects such as office and living buildings with the capability to be moved overseas easily.
This is where Peters & May came in. They had two departments under their umbrella. 1 – shipping boats 2 – global logistics, which is where I initially began. This was a multimodal sales role for general forwarding services to support the established marine departments.
Seeing that the group could ship other cargo unrelated to the marine industry, I wanted to expand the capability into different brands and industries. I opened P&M Automotive, which eventually shipped the James Bond Collection and projects for Top Gear.
During my 8-year position at P&M, I was promoted into different roles four times, so I was eventually handling freight forwarding, general freight, and actual craft, boats, cars, and helicopters on behalf of the group. I also managed multimodal contracts for the United Nations and humanitarian aid.
P&M group then obtained a patent for a piece of equipment called flat rail. This essentially was a spreader bar with twist locks you attach to the corner castings of a flat rack. The ends collapsed, which allowed cargo 40-50ft long to travel as OOG on container vessels. I was tasked as BDM for this and to launch it in the USA, where I relocated to Miami, Florida, five years ago. Seeing that this technology could be used for more than just boats, I also relocated from Miami to Houston to target project cargo.
In this role, I was responsible for global equipment repositioning, equipment leasing, obtaining approval to use the equipment in terminals globally, obtaining permission for carriers to accept us of equipment on their services, and negotiating ocean freight pricing. This was very successful, and also where I met Gregoire Duchet. CMA was one of the first carriers to use and accept this equipment!
Following this, my story gets a bit sad as I became ill. This caused my job at P&M Group to cease, and I went into a year of recovery. Three surgeries later, I am pleased to say that I am healthy and ready to tackle the freight-forwarding world again!! I’m very grateful to be able to do so with Logistics Plus.
Knowing that life can be too short in my spare time, I am a thrill seeker. I seek out activities associated with being an adrenalin junkie. I’ve climbed mountains for charities and so many other things. One of my life philosophies from all my past experiences and health issues last year is never to quit, and the only way is up!
I’m very excited to join the LP family and hope we can all “take it higher” together in many ways and directions.
I will split my time between Germany and USA to support particular markets seasonally. Some of my primary focus areas will be marine, motorsport, and aviation markets; however, I can assist with shipping any global commodity if required. My operations and sales background in trucking, ocean freight, container logistics, freight forwarding, and equipment leasing means I am open to any new challenges.
Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your story! Logistics Plus is lucky to have you.
Jennifer Elstone
Email: jennifer.elstone@logisticsplus.com
Linkedin: Connect with Jennifer here
