In “Good Freight Hunting”, Les Akin joins Harris + Sydney to trace a career that spans everything from being on a brokerage floor, to over on the shipper side, consultancy, + startups. They dive into why three-letter city codes were drilled into memory over at Coyote, run through Les’s experience at Pepsi as transportation-as-a-service was just getting off the ground, + then what he calls his real-world MBA at Accenture, where he learned that consultants are really just professional storytellers. After all those experiences, he is convinced that what ails supply chains today isn’t a technology problem at all.
From there the conversation turns to the back half of 2026, like what it will look like to lock in multi-year rail contracts against a volatile market + why relationships still outperform every single tool on the market when capacity tightens. Les makes the case for “decision quality” as the metric that is worth chasing, argues that AI without master data management is just an expensive way to make an even bigger mess, + gives his opinion on the freight he would go hunting for (it will probably surprise you!). Harris offers a theory to close: organisations don’t innovate because they’re visionary. They innovate because someone made it worth their while.
Most companies aren’t short on good ideas – they are short on people who still think it’s worth mentioning them.