Flexport head-hunts IT specialist James Chen from Amazon

Flexport has head-hunted James Chen from Amazon to serve as its new chief technology officer.

Mr Chen was director of technology for the e-tailer, and Flexport cited his depth of expertise and ambition as core factors in the recruitment.

Previously, he has twice held a CTO role, at Jenzabar and Rakuten, where he managed more than 1,500 people.

Chief executive Ryan Petersen said: “At Flexport, we pride ourselves on bringing in world-class talent that’s passionate about the work they do. In James’s case, he was a coder since high school – in fact, he wrote his first shareware program on an HP 48 calculator, back in 1992.”