Dave Clark, the former longtime Amazon executive, has resigned as CEO of Flexport, the San Francisco-based logistics company he joined a year ago.
In a surprise announcement posted on X on Wednesday, Clark said he had shared the news with Flexport teams internally.
“Founders have the right to change their mind,” he said in reference to Flexport’s Ryan Peterson. “Today, Ryan and I discussed his desire to return to focusing on growth in the core freight business. In light of that, I feel that he is best suited to lead the company in that direction.”
In a statement emailed to GeekWire, Flexport confirmed Clark’s departure and that Peterson will be returning as CEO.
“Ryan and the rest of the board thank Dave Clark for his leadership over the past year,” the company said. “Flexport has nothing further to share on this matter at this time.”
Clark announced last June that he was leaving Amazon after 23 years at the tech giant, where he was most recently Worldwide Consumer CEO. He previously led Amazon worldwide operations.
He started at Flexport Sept. 1 and also joined the Flexport board. He served as co-CEO with Peterson for six months before Peterson transitioned to executive chairman.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Clark has hired political consultants and is considering a run for Texas governor, according to people familiar with the matter.
In his own post on X, Peterson said, “I’m back!” as he shared a note that he wrote to employees about Clark’s departure and his return as CEO.
“We’ve made a lot of progress under Dave’s leadership,” Peterson said, adding that it had been an honor working with Clark and “learning from his experiences in global logistics and technology.”
Founded in 2013, Flexport provides cloud-based freight forwarding and brokerage services for ocean, air, truck, and rail, among other offerings such as insurance and customs compliance.
The startup is one of the leading privately held global supply chain companies, and was valued at $8 billion after raising a $935 million Series E round in February 2022. The company’s revenue hit $3.3 billion in 2021 and grew to $5 billion in 2022. It is profitable, and investors include Andreessen Horowitz, SoftBank, Shopify, and others.
“Over the last two decades, Dave helped scale Amazon into the technology and supply chain juggernaut it is today,” Petersen said when announcing Clark’s move last year. “He is a builder and an entrepreneur at heart, with the leadership experience that will shepherd Flexport into the most exciting phase of our journey.”
In his X post, Clark said he was proud of the vision he agreed on with Peterson, and said that an operating model and structure had been established to realize that vision.
“We’ve built great tech at rapid speeds,” Clark wrote.
In another post on X on Tuesday, Clark expressed his enthusiasm for attending an upcoming Flexport product launch event in Seattle billed as a “one-of-a-kind, AI-fueled solution that connects every aspect of your supply chain.”
“Going to be a fun night with some cool tech and some cool surprises,” he wrote as he encouraged entrepreneurs to come by and say hello at the Sept. 12 event.
Flexport laid off 20% of its global workforce, or roughly 640 employees, in January as Peterson and Clark said in a memo that the startup was “not immune to the macroeconomic downturn that has impacted businesses around the world.”
Previously the head of Amazon worldwide operations, Clark became Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer CEO in early 2021, succeeding Jeff Wilke in the role. His tenure was characterized by unprecedented challenges for the company, including the fallout from the pandemic, and a push by Amazon warehouse workers to unionize.
“As much as I have loved the ride, it is time for me to say goodbye to start a new journey,” Clark wrote to Amazon staff in a June 3, 2022, memo. At the time, he had already sold his home in the Seattle area and moved to Dallas.
Two additional execs with experience at Amazon followed Clark to Flexport: Nader Kabbani, Amazon’s former vice president of network design and planning, joined Flexport as senior vice president for customs, regulatory compliance, trade and financial services in March; and Teresa Carlson, who spent more than a decade at Amazon Web Services, joined Flexport as its new president and chief commercial officer in January.
