XPO names Harik CEO of LTL business; Jacobs to step aside

Jacobs, XPO’s founder, to become executive chairman after brokerage spinoff

XPO Logistics Inc. on Thursday named Mario Harik, currently CIO and interim head of the company’s less-than-truckload business, as permanent CEO of what will become a pure-play LTL carrier by the end of 2022.

Brad Jacobs, XPO’s founder, chairman and CEO, will step aside as CEO and become XPO’s (NYSE: XPO) executive chairman once the company spins off its truck brokerage, final-mile and managed transportation businesses. The spinoff is expected to occur during the fourth quarter. Jacobs will also become non-executive chairman of the spinoff, known as RXO.

Jacobs becomes the third founder of a major transport and logistics company to step down as CEO and become executive chairman. The other two are Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Frederick W. Smith, founder of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX).

Harik, 41, joined XPO as CIO at the company’s founding in 2011. He added the interim LTL CEO position last October upon the retirement of Tony Brooks. He was also named the company’s chief customer officer last year. Decisions on the CIO and chief customer officer positions will be made later this year.

XPO had been conducting a monthslong search for a permanent LTL head. In the end, however, it chose to stick with Harik.

The FREIGHTWAVES TOP 500 For-Hire Carriers list includes XPO Logistics (No. 8).

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Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.