Dave Bozeman, CEO, CH Robinson.
Source: CH Robinson
Dave Bozeman takes the stage for his first investor day as CEO CH Robinsonhe will have to contend with a freight decline, the threat of rising tariffs and a turnaround of a century-old logistics giant.
“I want to lay out our vision, and we’ve actually started executing on it,” Bozeman told CNBC in an exclusive interview ahead of the company’s investor day on Thursday. “We’re going to grow market share and grow our overall operating margins. ”
On Thursday, the shipping line’s executives will lay out new financial targets, answer questions about its shift to a lean operating model and provide an update on the state of the business, including the potential impact of President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs.
Trump said he would impose a 60% tariff on goods from China and a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada. This could have a significant impact on Robinson Logistics, which transports goods around the world for nearly 100,000 customers.
CH Robinson’s primary business segments include Global Freight Forwarding, commonly known as freight brokerage between the United States and other regions; and North American Surface Transportation, which transports freight primarily by land.
Analysts estimate Robinson Logistics is among the top three carriers on the China-U.S. cargo route, and the company said it carries about 10% of the cargo volume on the U.S.-Mexico route.
“Some shippers will say, ‘We’re going to absorb that tariff.’ The economics of that volume may change in terms of pricing and so on, and either way, we’re still going to be shipping those shipments,” Bozeman said. “The cargo still needs to move. It might just move to a different starting point and we’ll still be there to move it.”
Citi transportation analyst Ari Rosa upgraded CH Robinson to a buy rating in November. He believes tariffs are driving freight growth in the short term and agrees with Bozeman that the company is well positioned to mitigate the impact of potential tariffs in the long term.
“There’s no question that their global freight business has a lot of exposure to China,” Rosa told CNBC. “But I do think their business is diversified enough that they can be addressed with tariffs.”
new era
Technology will also be a focus at Thursday’s investor day, including Robinson Logistics and Microsoft and It uses Azure AI.
“We’re big on artificial intelligence. It’s a game changer for us, especially at our scale,” Bozeman said. He noted that the partnership with Microsoft is a major value-add, but the big Some of the work is done in-house.
“Our engineers are actually responsible for large language models. We’re deploying 10,000 email quotes[every day]through large language models. I’m really happy with the productivity we’re getting using this technology,” Bozeman said.
“We are able to get a quote back to the customer in a conversational manner in less than 2 minutes,” he said. “It allows our employees to now focus on solving, executing and resolving issues with our customers rather than spending time on menial tasks.”
This week, Wells Fargo analyst Christian Wetherbee upgraded shares of CH Robinson in a report, writing in part: “On improving execution (tech-led) Driven by this, we see a unique opportunity for earnings compounding in ’27, which should lead to share price appreciation and margin expansion.”
Key to all of Bozeman’s goals for Robinson is moving to a new lean operating model that focuses on continuous improvement and reducing activities and inefficiencies that don’t add value to the business or customers.
Lean models are relatively new to logistics. However, it is used for Amazon, caterpillar and Ford —all companies where Bozeman serves as an executive.
The shift was well received. Shares of CH Robinson are up more than 25% this year, far outpacing the Dow Jones Transportation Average’s gain of about 7% during the same period.
“I’m building a new company, a new culture,” Bozeman said. “This will be an easy company to invest in because it is the market leader.”
