A Better Way to Ship Freight

Eric Beckwitt, Co-Founder and CEO

Eric Beckwitt is the Co-Founder and CEO of Freightera Logistics. He founded the company in 2014 with his wife and business partner, Zhenya Beck.

At Freightera, Eric is the chief visionary and technologist, coming from an extensive GIS and web development background. He is also the most vocal and powerful customer advocate. He prioritizes building the most customer-centric policy and platform in the industry and routinely takes on escalations from customers.

Eric Beckwitt’s visionary talent and leadership formed at an early age. At 19 he and his brother successfully won a court case with the US Forest Service over the future of Tahoe National Forest. Shortly after that, he founded the Sierra Biodiversity Institute and got involved in several impactful conservation projects in his home state of California and the Pacific Northwest.

In 2004, the Beckwitts moved their family to Vancouver, Canada from California, after their youngest son suddenly developed severe air-pollution-induced asthma. Because of his early history and personal hardship with asthma in the family, the company committed to a serious environmental mission in 2014.

At Freightera, Eric has been working with the government of Canada to create the first low-emission freight marketplace and has been invited to speak at several national and international conferences about sustainable transportation. Freightera has been making significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and waste from long-haul transport. Over 80% of Freightera bookings are SmartWay or rail, and up to 22% of lower emission bookings have been via CN and CP rail partner carriers.

In 2020, responding to the COVID-19 and supply chain crisis, Eric organized a Local Sourcing community at Freightera that later became a Nearshoring directory in collaboration with Supply Chain Canada designed to connect Canadian businesses to source products from each other.

In 2019, he won the Clean50 Award for outstanding contribution to clean capitalism in Canada. He was also awarded the 2022 Report on Business magazine Changemakers award, recognizing leaders making a positive impact in their industries.

Zhenya Beck, Co-Founder and Head of Marketing

At Freightera, Zhenya Beck is responsible for Brand, Marketing Strategy, and Communications. She directed the design process that won the “Best Transportation Website” WebAward, 2016 Technology Impact Award, received the BCTIA Women in Technology 2016 honorable mention, and was listed among the Top 50 Women Leaders of Vancouver for 2023 by Women We Admire. She has an MA in Journalism and the UBC/DAA Award of Achievement in Digital Analytics.

Before Freightera, Zhenya had a successful career as a prominent newspaper journalist, web designer, and digital marketer, and founded and ran a boutique web development company serving small businesses in the USA. Her passion for thriving small businesses, happy and successful employees, and a healthy planet inspires all of her work.

Zhenya’s environmental interest started at age 12 when she was contributing to a small local newspaper, writing about Lake Baikal, the iconic freshwater lake in her native Siberia that was later protected by a special federal decree and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Years later, she and her husband Eric Beckwitt, Freightera’s acclaimed CEO, recommitted to the environment after their newborn son developed severe air pollution-induced asthma in Northern California and they had to relocate to Vancouver, Canada for better air. In 2014, when Freightera was founded, the green mission was incorporated from day 1 to clean up freight shipping.

Freightera’s team worked with the joint USA EPA/ Environment Canada SmartWay program to feature and promote certified lower-emission trucking companies and rail carriers in the network. Because the certified carriers tend to be more fuel efficient and lower cost, Freightera shippers commonly save on shipping and reduce emissions at the same time.

Robert Murray, or Bob as he is affectionately known, is a Strategy Yoda, Leadership and Culture expert. He brings more than 25 years of Executive Business experience in Marketing, Sales, Operations, Business Development and General Management in over 20 countries. Bob has led 22 different start-up and turn-a-round initiatives from concept to success including billion-dollar business turn arounds with over 1,600 employees and five major business acquisition and integration projects. He has held senior executive positions with organizations like TELUS, Dixon Networks, GPG Technical Services, Endurance Wind Power, CEI Architecture, Faronics Corporation, Connex, Zapp Telemobil in Eastern Europe, Ledcor and the Fortune 50 company Vodafone, where he was the Chief Customer Operations Officer. As a keynote speaker passionate about Customer Centric Culture, Strategy, Transformation and Leadership, Bob presented to audiences in 25 countries. He is the Amazon Number 1 Best Selling Author of “It’s Already Inside” and “Unlocked,” critically acclaimed books on leadership, business, and strategy.

Dan Z. Goodwill is a leader and transportation expert with a successful record of accomplishment in profit development, organic business growth, business startups, acquisitions, turnarounds, and cost-saving programs. For over 20 years, Dan held senior executive positions with some of North America’s leading transportation companies. As President of Yellow Freight Canada, and Clarke Logistics, and the VP of Sales at TNT Overland Express he led these companies to record results. For the past fifteen years he has been providing consulting services in the areas of small parcel, LTL, truckload, rail and intermodal transportation to manufacturers, distributors and transportation companies in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Europe. He co-hosts the Surface Transportation Summit in Toronto.

Stephanie Sharp is a finance expert who has advised and led over $17 billion in deals in more than 400 industries worldwide. Stephanie balances innovative strategies with practical approaches. Her clients include some of the biggest, most well-known organizations in the world, such as Bank of America, Barrick Gold, BC Hydro, Best Buy, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank, and many others.