Our Management Team

Our Management Team

Europe

Ben Fitts | CEO Europe
Ben Fitts | CEO Europe
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1999

REGIONAL FOCUS
Our focus hasn’t changed and remains firmly on the recruitment, training and development of exceptional people who understand the role they play in helping their branch to achieve the potential that sits within its market.

STRATEGIES TO DELIVER
We continue to strengthen our network, and as it intensifies, so too does the inter-network activity that feeds subsequent parts of the business, either within or between the divisions. A relentless focus on improvement – be it quality, efficiency, sales growth or IT will enable us to strengthen results, branch by branch.
Frans Zuidgeest | European Manager Transport & Trucks and Drivers
Frans Zuidgeest | European Manager Transport & Trucks and Drivers
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2011

Frans began as a graduate with Wim Bosman in 1997 and has worked across IT and Sales. In 2011 he moved to the Forwarding and Transport team, with responsibility for the SystemPlus network in The Netherlands. Later, as Country Manager, Forwarding he led the forwarding and crossdock team in The Netherlands, before taking on his current role at the end of 2015.
Liane Philipsen | European Director Warehousing
Liane Philipsen | European Director Warehousing
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2011

After obtaining a masters degree in Business Administration, Liane joined Wim Bosman as a management trainee in 1997. She has held roles in Logistics operations and sales, where she has led the European Sales Team for several years and since 2018 she is appointed as European Warehousing Director. Liane has a personal interest in implementing continuous improvement programs with positive outcomes for both the team and customers.
Bradley Russell | European Manager Air & Ocean
Bradley Russell | European Manager Air & Ocean
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2016
 
Brad joined Mainfreight NZ as a graduate in 2001 where he worked in various operations and sales roles across our Warehousing and Air & Ocean businesses. In 2005 he moved to the UK where he worked in the Logistics industry before returning to Mainfreight in 2016 to set up and lead the London Air & Ocean Branch. In 2019 Brad moved to the Netherlands to take on the European Sales Manager role, and in 2021 he became the European Manager for Air & Ocean. 
 
Nic Matthews | European Regional Sales Manager
Nic Matthews | European Regional Sales Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2012

Nic Joined Mainfreight as a graduate in 2012 at Mainfreight Transport Melbourne, Australia. Moving through a number of operational and sales roles he was most recently Sales Manager Transport Melbourne before moving up to Europe in 2019 to take on the Sales Management role of Airfreight in Amsterdam, Netherlands. More recently he was in the Branch Manager role for our Ocean Freight branch in Rotterdam, Netherlands. 

Appointed in January 2022, Nic has taken the Regional Sales Manager role for Europe. 
 

New Zealand

Carl George | Country Manager
Carl George | Country Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1995

Carl started in the Auckland Transport branch on the Inwards shift and quickly progressed through various loading, rating, customer service and sales positions, before taking on Branch Manager roles. Since returning to New Zealand, from a business development role in the UK, Carl has worked in national sales and was the General Manager of our New Zealand Domestic Transport business and is now the Country Manager of New Zealand
Nic Kay | Transport General Manager
Nic Kay | Transport General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1997

Nic’s Mainfreight journey began with Christchurch Logistics, followed by roles in Transport, sales and branch management before his passion for sales and leadership led him to accept the New Zealand Group Sales Manager role in 2011.  Following on from this, he has spent six years leading the Air & Ocean business for New Zealand, where he and the team have made significant improvements in revenue and profits, really bringing some hustle to this business. In 2022 Nic was appointed the General Manager of Domestic Transport New Zealand.
Brynley Riches | Warehousing General Manager
Brynley Riches | Warehousing General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1996

Brynley began his Mainfreight career at Haytons Road Warehouse in Christchurch where he learnt the operational side of the business and the importance of quality. With the acquisition of Owens in 2003, Brynley was appointed Branch Manager of Owens Warehousing in Christchurch. There he successfully implemented the “Mainfreight Way” of doing things. In 2011, post the Christchurch earthquakes, Brynley was appointed to oversee all the Christchurch Warehousing sites. His role encompassed shaping the best solutions for our customers, a focus on strong quality outcomes, and setting the foundations for our Christchurch warehousing development.

In 2023 Brynley was appointed Warehousing General Manager of New Zealand.
Paul Riethmaier | Air & Ocean General Manager
Paul Riethmaier | Air & Ocean General Manager
Profile
Paul started his Mainfreight journey as a graduate with Owens International Freight Auckland in 2000, working in Sea Export Operations, then moving to sales a few years later as Export Trade Manager for the branch.  An OE took Paul to the UK where he continued working in international freight, before returning to New Zealand and Mainfreight in 2006 as Airfreight Sales Manager.
 
He has progressed his career through a variety of Sales and Branch Management to his most recent role as the New Zealand National Airfreight Manager. These have been great stepping stone to his current role today as Air & Ocean National Manager.
 
Daniel Plested | Group Sales Manager
Daniel Plested | Group Sales Manager
Profile
Daniel began his official Mainfreight career in 2017 as Sales Support at Air & Ocean Auckland Seafreight where he began developing his understanding of international freight forwarding, supply chains, and our global offering.

Becoming an account manager in 2018, Daniel went on to win most new billed business for both 2019 and 2020 and won the Jonathan East Salesperson of the Year award in 2020. He transitioned into leading the Auckland Air & Ocean Sales Team in 2020, with an emphasis on energy drive and focus, the team narrowly missed winning Sales Team of the Year for 2020 but won it the following year.

Since 2021, Daniel has been our National Sales Manager for Air & Ocean. As part of this role, he has focused on the strategic direction and coordination of the Air & Ocean sales team. With a challenging Air & Ocean market over that time, the fostered culture of success and competition with clear sales objectives has produced consistent results.
 
In all of Daniel’s roles, he has looked to develop connections across divisions, roles, and regions with a vision for selling across our network. This relational approach helps develop the sales team’s skills as he supports the team in their selling.  We are excited by the passion and enthusiasm that Dan will bring to this role as he continues to develop and strengthen our sales team across New Zealand.
 

Australia

Rodd Morgan | Country Manager
Rodd Morgan | Country Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2003

REGIONAL FOCUS
We are excited and focused on building our sales growth and profit momentum into the future. For this to be possible, improving our quality, or more specifically, delivering our customers’ products safely and on time, is our primary commitment – every day.

STRATEGIES TO DELIVER
Encouraging the instinctive behaviour of our team to always find ways to solve problems and produce consistent quality is central to our strategy. We are working hard to provide the physical facilities and create the environment that encourages and rewards our people to perform better.
Simon Hart | Transport General Manager
Simon Hart | Transport General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2006

Simon joined Mainfreight in 2001 after graduating as an engineer. He was part of the IT and Business Development teams in New Zealand. After a two year break in the UK, Simon joined the Australian team, where he has been working for the last 10 years in Business Development and now as a General Manager.
Riyaz Jordan | Warehousing General Manager
Riyaz Jordan | Warehousing General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2000

Riyaz joined the Mainfreight team in 2000 as part of the operations team at Southdown Lane, Auckland. Over his 20+ year career at Mainfreight he has held a variety of operational and management roles and across New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Since returning to Australia in 2014, he has been a key contributor to the growth and development we have seen in our warehousing business.

Riyaz now leads our Australian Warehousing business. 
Grant Draper | Air & Ocean General Manager
Grant Draper | Air & Ocean General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1997

Grant joined Mainfreight as Financial Controller for Air & Ocean in 1997. In 2001, he relocated to Melbourne charged with maximising business efficiencies following the acquisition of additional international operations in Australia. He then took on the role of Financial Controller for Air & Ocean Australia which eventually led to his appointment as National Manager in 2015.
Dave Scott | Group Sales Manager
Dave Scott | Group Sales Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2000

Dave joined the Mainfreight Melbourne team in 2000, with a strong sales and operational background in domestic and international transport in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. He is focused on growth targets through the ongoing development and retention of a young and motivated sales team.

Americas

Jason Braid I CEO
Jason Braid I CEO
Profile
With Mainfreight since 1997

Jason joined Mainfreight as a graduate in 1997 at Daily Freight, NZ. From there he moved to CaroTrans USA Chicago and then to Mainfreight Air & Ocean Los Angeles as sales and branch manager. More recently he was appointed Air & Ocean National Sales Manager, then Vice President Air & Ocean for Mainfreight Americas before moving to Europe where he took on the Regional Manager role for the Air & Ocean business. 

Appointed in September 2021, Jason has taken the General Manager role for Mainfreight Americas.
Steve Turner I Vice President of Group Sales
Steve Turner I Vice President of Group Sales
Profile
Steve joined Mainfreight in 2007, as a transport sales cadet in Brisbane. He has held various positions in sales and operations, more recently as National Sales Manager of transport in Australia, before relocating to the US as Regional Sales Manager. 
Andrew Coulton I Warehousing President
Andrew Coulton I Warehousing President
Profile

Appointment to Warehousing President 2023.

Andrew has been a part of the Mainfreight family since 2010. He worked in a variety of sales roles in New Zealand and Europe. The experience led him to the Americas to assist in the development of the Warehousing business. He has worked in a variety of areas from New Jersey, Texas and now Illinois as he heads Warehousing Americas as the president. 

Mitch Gregor | Transport President
Mitch Gregor | Transport President
Profile

With Mainfreight since 2001

Mitch has worked across the business in operations, sales and branch management roles in both our Logistics and Domestic Transport businesses in New Zealand, Australia and now for The Americas as Transport General Manager. Career highlights include being part of two branches to win Branch of Year trophies.

Matt Gustafson I Air & Ocean President
Matt Gustafson I Air & Ocean President
Profile
Appointment to Air & Ocean President 2023.

Matt has decades of experience in the world of air and ocean. He started at Mainfreight as a Key Account Manager in Chicago. Quickly after he assumed the role of the branch manager alloting the opportunity to increase our footprint in the Chicago / Illiniois region. His vast experience has led him to the role of President of Air and Ocean Americas since March 2023. 
Matt Bloom - CaroTrans President
Matt Bloom - CaroTrans President
Profile
Matt joined the group in November of 2020 as Director of Ocean Freight for Mainfreight  Air and Ocean. Taking an active role in the commercial side of the business, he changed roles to Vice President of Sales for the Air and Ocean team prior to moving into his latest role as President of CaroTrans at the end of 2023. 

Asia

Cary Chung | General Manager
Cary Chung | General Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2011

REGIONAL FOCUS
We are building a stronger Air & Ocean division here in Asia through effective commercial activities and by having our team focusing within the Mainfreight network. 

STRATEGIES TO DELIVER
We are committed to change and the change is clearly controlling our own destiny. Our leadership team across 32 branches with over 500+ strong Asian team members are all empowered and dedicated to doubling our size in the next five years. 
Billy Zhang | Regional Sales Director
Billy Zhang | Regional Sales Director
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2001

Billy’s journey begin with our Shanghai branch when we had only 10 team members. From there, his career with Mainfreight Shanghai has been around sales, from Sales Executive to Sales Manager Shanghai, Ningbo, Regional Amercias Trade Development Manager to today as our Regional Sales Director for Asia. His wealth of experience and passion for sales, will no doubt bring a renewed energy to the development of our Asia business. 
Michelle Yip | General Manager Warehousing
Michelle Yip | General Manager Warehousing
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2016
 
Michelle joined Mainfreight Hong Kong as the Logistics Manager in 2016. She led the operation implementation of the first Mainfreight Asia Warehouse. From 2017, Michelle was appointed as the Asia Supply Chain Manager where she has been focused on building Warehousing and Business Solution across Asia. At the end of 2017, Michelle took the opportunity to move to Shanghai to support the development in China. In 2020, Michelle moved to Singapore to drive a greater focus on Warehousing development in South East Asia.

Global

Martin Devereux | Group Manager Team Development
Martin Devereux | Group Manager Team Development
Profile

With Mainfreight since 2000

After graduating with degrees in Management and Law in 2000, Martin joined Mainfreight’s graduate program. He has worked in various roles across both Transport and Air & Ocean locations in New Zealand and Australia. Martin has been part of our Training & Development team from 2004, and took on the global coordination of these teams in 2011.

Graeme Illing | CFO
Graeme Illing | CFO
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2000

Graeme joined the Company in 2000 as Mainfreight’s accountant for the New Zealand operations.  Over the years his role and capabilities have broadened as the Group has expanded internationally.  Graeme was promoted to the role of Chief Financial Officer with responsibility across diverse international markets in July 2024.
John Eshuis | Group IT Manager
John Eshuis | Group IT Manager
Profile
With Mainfreight since 2002

John has held a variety of Finance and IT roles during this time, both in the United States and New Zealand. His most recent responsibilities include the development of our Transport software platform in use in New Zealand, Australia and the USA.

John was born in the Netherlands, but has spent most of his life in New Zealand. His Dutch heritage will be invaluable as Mainfreight further develops its European footprint.
Quote of the Day

A champion is someone who gets up, even when he doesn't want to

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