"If you don't figure out a way to treat your carriers ethically and help them make money, you're not going to have them." - Michael Riccio, former TIA Chairman and founder of More Than Miles Consulting

In this episode, Kelly Barner is joined by two leaders from the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA): Michael Riccio, former TIA Chairman and founder of More Than Miles Consulting, and David Abell, CEO of AM Transport Services and a TIA Board Member.

Together, they explore the newly launched Freight Leadership Lab, a program designed to elevate leadership, ethics, and professionalism across the freight brokerage industry. From personal career journeys to the realities of ethical decision-making under pressure, this conversation offers both practical insights and a compelling vision for the future of freight.

Listen in to hear Mike, David, and Kelly discuss:

• How the TIA's new Freight Leadership Lab is developing the next generation of freight brokerage leaders
• The importance of ethics in freight brokerage, including how leaders can navigate gray-area decisions under time pressure
• Practical insights into the role of culture, values, and "extreme ownership" in building stronger teams and better decision-making habits
• A broader perspective on the future of freight brokerage, including why investing in people and relationships is key to raising professional standards across the industry

This conversation goes beyond freight—it's about leadership under pressure, ethical decision-making, and building sustainable businesses. Whether you're in logistics, procurement, or any fast-moving industry, the lessons here are broadly applicable.

Links:

• Mike Riccio on LinkedIn
• David Abell on LinkedIn
• TIA's Freight Leadership Lab
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter

"With tariffs in the news again and the trade policy environment shifting, folks are back to wanting to relearn about the [foreign-trade zone] program."

Foreign-trade zones (FTZs) allow companies to bring goods into secure U.S. locations without immediately entering U.S. commerce for customs purposes. They allow businesses to defer duties, taxes, and fees until goods officially enter the market, or avoid them altogether if those goods are ultimately exported.

FTZs are often used by manufacturers to store inventory or assemble kits, but given the current level of trade uncertainty, they have also become a way to address the unpredictability of tariffs.

Melissa Irmen is the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Relations for the National Association of Foreign-trade Zones (NAFTZ), and she joins this episode to share practical advice about what FTZs are, how they work, and why they are drawing renewed attention in today's tariff-heavy trade environment.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Melissa and Kelly Barner discuss:

• Which companies tend to benefit most from FTZ participation, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, electronics companies, pharmaceutical firms, and industrial businesses
• How FTZs offer flexibility during periods of trade disruption, helping importers pause, store, stage, or re-strategize inventory while tariffs and policy conditions shift
• How the FTZ program has evolved, including a streamlined application process, ongoing regulatory modernization efforts, and current advocacy priorities related to Congress, Customs and Border Protection, and USMCA

This episode makes a compelling case for taking a first (or another) look at foreign-trade zones.

Links:

• Melissa Irmen on LinkedIn
• National Association of Foreign-trade Zones
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP

Coffee is one of those products people think of as routine, almost automatic. It is part of the morning, part of the commute, part of the office, part of the café economy. So when something changes in the coffee supply chain, people feel it.

In late 2025, coffee prices started rising thanks to a combination of forces: weather shocks in major producing countries, tariff policy changes that altered landed cost, shrinking exchange inventories, currency volatility, and the lag effect that happens when sourcing decisions do not hit the consumer shelf for months.

What makes coffee especially revealing is that this is not just a story about one bad harvest or policy move. It is a story about how a globally traded commodity reacts when short-term disruption and long-term structural risk overlap.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:

• How weather in Brazil, Vietnam, and Indonesia tightened supply and pushed coffee futures higher
• Why tariffs mattered even in a market where climate and crop conditions were already under strain
• How those upstream shocks moved through inventories, contracts, roasters, and retail pricing, but with a delay
• What this example reveals about uncertainty, substitution, margin pressure, and strategic repositioning

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

The ports of Balboa and Cristóbal bookend the Panama canal. They don't control the canal, and they have been privately operated by CK Hutchison's Panama Ports Company for decades.

Those old contracts are now in the middle of a legal fight, a sovereignty debate, and a live test of how far national power competitions can reach into commercial infrastructure.

Panama's Supreme Court recently ruled that the legal terms underlying CK Hutchison's port concession were unconstitutional. The concessions have been canceled and Panama has selected two different operators to take over responsibility for the ports while new owners are determined.

If that wasn't complicated enough, Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson intended to sell the ports to U.S.-headquartered BlackRock, a move that China was not too happy about.

The ports are now in the middle of a high stakes proxy war, with China and CK Hutchison on one side, and BlackRock and the Trump Administration on the other.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers the short and long term implications of uncertain Panama Canal port ownership:

• Panama's disputed Supreme Court ruling

• Why the original $23 billion BlackRock-MSC transaction now looks much more complicated than a straightforward ownership transfer.

• How BlackRock, Maersk, MSC, and other bidders are repositioning around the two terminals.

• What to watch for when a local concession dispute becomes a multi-jurisdiction legal and geopolitical risk event

Links:

• Who owns the Panama Canal?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

At its peak, iRobot generated nearly $1.6 Billion in annual revenue, and by 2022 Amazon believed the company was worth $1.7 Billion. By just a few years later, the company that pioneered consumer robotics would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The company that ultimately took ownership of iRobot wasn't Amazon or another Silicon Valley tech firm or even a U.S. competitor. It was the company's own overseas contract manufacturer.

How does a company go from being a pioneering leader in robotics to being owned by the very supplier that once built its products?

The answer is a story about regulation, supply chains, debt, competition, and unintended consequences.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:

• The rise of iRobot and the creation of the Roomba line of vacuums
• Amazon's $1.7 Billion acquisition attempt — and why global regulators blocked it
• How financial pressure, debt, and supply chain decisions reshaped the company, right into the ground
• And how iRobot ultimately ended up owned by its largest manufacturing partner

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

"There are a lot of different ways to hold all of the conspirators who are involved in the effort to intentionally smuggle counterfeit goods into the U.S. and into U.S. systems accountable."

Most modern supply chains are complex, sprawling beasts. Their global scale is highly strategic, but it also creates opportunities for criminal organizations to threaten companies, the Federal government, warfighters, and first responders.

The Government Supply Chain Investigations Unit (GSCIU) was created as the result of a 2022 Congressional request for Homeland Security Investigations to address concerns about the risk of counterfeit components finding their way into U.S. military supply chains. Since then, they have operated as a task force, analyzing interagency information to identify and combat threats to relevant supply chains.

Brian Andersen is a supervisory special agent at Homeland Security Investigations Global Trade Division, part of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, and the Government Supply Chain Investigations Unit, which he had the opportunity to help build from the ground up.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Brian and Kelly Barner discuss:

• The priorities of the Government Supply Chain Investigations Unit
• How they partner with other agencies and private businesses to root out risk within the supply chain and hold criminals accountable
• What procurement and supply chain professionals should be on the lookout for as warning signs that they have acquired or encountered counterfeit products

Links:

• Brian Andersen on LinkedIn
• National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

How could a company worth about $3 Million wipe out more than $17 Billion in transportation market value in a single day?

On February 12th, a press release from Algorhythm Holdings, a company that started its life as a karaoke machine manufacturer, announced that its AI-enabled freight platform SemiCab could reduce empty truck miles by more than 70 percent.

By midday, major logistics firms were down as much as 20 percent. C.H. Robinson, Landstar, J.B. Hunt, railroads, and airlines all felt the shockwave.

If SemiCab's technology works as described, it could reduce waste, lower emissions, and save shippers billions. At the same time, it could compress margins, erode pricing power, and expose just how much excess capacity the freight market really has.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:

• The sequence of events: how a small-cap AI announcement triggered a historic sell-off
• The claims behind SemiCab, and how Algorhythm evolved from karaoke to freight tech
• Why reducing empty or "deadhead" miles (which sounds like unqualified good news) could actually hurt incumbent logistics firms

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

"Shipping in 2026 is going to get darker." - Michelle Wiese Bockmann, Senior Maritime Intelligence Analyst, Windward

Right now, somewhere between 900 and 2,000 aging oil tankers are operating in the shadows.

They are carrying sanctioned crude from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. This so-called "shadow fleet" often sails under false flags, spoofs its locations, turns off monitoring systems, transfers their cargo at sea, and sometimes operates without insurance.

These dangerous vessels are increasingly being boarded, seized, escorted into port, and tied up in court, but enforcement at sea is messy, expensive, and legally complex.

One company… GMS… thinks they have an answer. They believe they can scrap about 100 of these seized, sanctioned ships annually - if (and it is a big IF) they are given permission by the U.S. Treasury to acquire them.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner explores three interconnected questions:

• What is actually being done to get shadow fleet tankers off the water?
• What happens to the ships — and the oil, and the crew — after they are seized?
• And what are the second- and third-order effects for global shipping markets, risk, and supply chains?

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement