Flexport, Inc.
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Founders
Ryan Petersen, David Habben · Founded 2013 · San Francisco, California
Quick Answer
Flexport was founded by Ryan Petersen, David Habben in 2013 in San Francisco, California. The company is currently led by Ryan Petersen.
Flexport was founded in San Francisco in 2013 after Ryan Petersen saw, through ImportGenius and cross-border trade data, how much of global logistics still depended on disconnected brokers, spreadsheets, PDFs, emails, and opaque handoffs. The company's early idea was not to be a pure marketplace, but to become a licensed freight forwarder with software at the operating core. That decision mattered: Flexport had to learn the physical, regulated work of ocean freight, air freight, customs brokerage, and carrier coordination while building a customer-facing platform for visibility and workflow automation. The modern company is still shaped by that hybrid identity. It is a logistics operator that wants the repeatability and data leverage of software, and its current strategy is to use customs data, AI-assisted tariff work, and shipment visibility to make forwarding relationships stickier.
Ryan Petersen founded Flexport after building ImportGenius, which gave him direct exposure to customs records, trade data, and the manual processes behind international shipping.
Ryan Petersen founded Flexport in 2013 and returned as CEO in 2023. His current leadership focus is profitability, customer service, customs and tariff automation, and a more disciplined version of Flexport's original software-enabled forwarding model.
David Habben is tied to Flexport's founding period and early company formation.
David Habben is part of Flexport's founding story, alongside Ryan Petersen, as the company moved from trade-data insight toward licensed freight-forwarding operations.
Ryan Petersen
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Returned as CEO in 2023 after founding and earlier leading the company, then refocused Flexport on profitability, core forwarding, customs software, and operating discipline.
Dave Clark
Chief Executive Officer
Led a rapid expansion phase that included fulfillment and logistics assets before Flexport reversed course during the freight downturn.
Ryan Petersen
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Built Flexport from a San Francisco startup into a venture-backed digital freight forwarder with global shipper relationships.
Flexport's founder information is covered in the profile's founder section.
Flexport began in the location listed in its company profile and expanded from there.
Flexport was built around a specific customer or market problem in Digital freight forwarding and supply-chain technology.