By Lori Hawkins / Austin American-Statesman / Logistics-technology company uShip is shuffling its management team and will soon have a new CEO.
The Austin-based company said Thursday that after two years as CEO, Mike Williams will step down by the end of the month. He will be replaced by Kris Lamb, who is currently uShip’s chief technology officer.
The company said Williams is leaving to pursue a new leadership opportunity but did not provide details.
In addition, uShip said that it has promoted its longest-tenured employee, Heather Hoover-Salomon, from executive vice president to chief operating officer.
Founded in 2004, uShip runs an online shipping marketplace that matches customers who need to move unusually big items with thousands of transport companies that have extra space for cargo. The company initially focused on consumers, which is still its biggest market, and later moved into the $300 billion truckload freight market.
In 2017, uShip raised $25 million from logistics giant DB Schenker to accelerate development of its logistics software platform for business segments including high-volume enterprise shippers and small and midsize businesses. The company has raised a total of $50 million from investors including Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins.
Lamb, a 20-year enterprise technology veteran, joined uShip in 2017 to lead the company’s engineering, product and development teams and oversee migration of the company’s technology platform to the cloud.
Prior to working at uShip, Lamb was vice president and general manager of cloud security at Austin-based cybersecurity software firm Forcepoint.
“Kris is uniquely qualified to lead uShip forward,” said Jim Martell, executive chairman of uShip’s board. “He’s held key leadership roles at both public and private companies, and over the last year and a half as uShip’s CTO, he’s continued to prove his leadership within the executive leadership team.”
Uship has 210 employees at its headquarters on East Riverside Drive in Austin. The company does not disclose financial information, but Lamb said, “We have grown revenue every year of uShip’s history and that has been the case in 2018 and the first half of 2019.”
Of his new role, Lamb said: “This is really a dream come true for me when you consider how technology is transforming logistics today. It’s truly exciting to lead a 15-year-old technology platform that’s innovating and digitizing how oversized items get shipped.”
