New INTTRA regional president Philly Teixeira urges shipping to embrace digital world

Philly Teixeira, INTTRA’s new president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, has urged the shipping industry to continue to embrace digitisation as it seeks new efficiencies.

Based in Copenhagen for the newly created role, Ms Teixeira is responsible for the company’s financial, commercial and operational targets in the region, and will develop and maintaining high-level relationships with customers and partners. She also becomes a member of INTTRA’s executive committee.

“It’s absolutely terrific,” Ms Teixeira told The Loadstar. “It’s the perfect company to be at – and perfect timing.

“The shipping industry has made progress in using electronic information, and INTTRA has played a role. But only 50% of shipping is digitised, and there has been less progress in next generation analytics.”

She noted that the current climate was ripe for modernisation, with the industry facing modest global trade growth, a supply and demand imbalance, and deteriorating financial performance.

“In this environment the industry needs to cut costs and be more competitive – and there are new ways to do that. Companies can use data to drive analysis. The next big thing is information flow. It’s a perfect time to move the other 50% to digitisation.”

Ms Teixeira is a seasoned shipping executive, most recently as vice president of key client management at Maersk. Prior to that, she was vice president of global accounts, marketing and e-business at CMA CGM, and began her career in logistics at DHL Global Forwarding. She has also had a stint as vice president of sales for EMEA at FedEx.

“It’s very useful to have had a background at Maersk – but all the companies I’ve worked for have given me different perspectives, and a more proactive vision.”

INTTRA reported growth of 17%, year-on-year, in the first half of 2016, to 18.4m container transactions.

“The industry has reached a tipping point and is now embracing platforms for efficiency,” added Ms Teixeira, who also revealed she is “passionate about global trade”.