Ep. #71: Hannah Testani, CEO, Intelligent Audit

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andrew Silver (00:00):
Hey FreightPod listeners.
Before we get started today,let's do a quick shout out to
our sponsor, rapido SolutionsGroup.
Rapido connects logistics andsupply chain organizations in
North America with the best nearshore talent to scale
efficiently and deliver superiorcustomer service.
Rapido works with businessesfrom all sides of the logistics
industry.
This includes brokers, carriersand logistics software

(00:21):
companies.
This includes brokers, carriersand logistics software
companies.
Rapido builds out teams withroles across customer and
carrier sales and support, backoffice administration and
technology services.
The team at Rapido knowslogistics and people.
It's what sets them apart.
Rapido is driven by an insideknowledge of how to recruit,
hire and train within theindustry and a passion to build

(00:43):
better solutions for success.
The team is led by CEO DannyFrisco and COO Roberto Lacazza,
two guys I've worked with frommy earliest days in the industry
at Coyote.
I have a long history with themand I trust them.
I've even been a customer oftheirs at Molo and let me tell
you they made our businessbetter.
In the current market, whereeveryone's trying to do more

(01:03):
with less and save money,solutions like Rapido are a
great place to start To learnmore.
Check them out at gorapidocom.
That's gorapidocom.
Welcome back to another episodeof FreightPod.

(01:30):
I'm your host, andrew Silver,joined today by a very special
guest, always a special guest.
Today's extra special, perusual.
This is Hannah Testani, ceo ofIntelligent Audit, and we are
going to learn about your story,her story and her business.

Hannah Testani (01:52):
So, Hannah, how are you?
I like that extra special.
I don't know why you had tobacktrack that one, but I'm
great.
It's exciting to be here,exciting to talk to you and
exciting to talk to all yourlisteners.

The extra special .
I need to stop doing this.
But every single episode Iopened the same way and I say
we've got a special guest, andthen I say it's extra special.
And I guess by doing it thesame every time it makes them
all not extra special.
I should, I should change upthe pace.
I don't know the whole startingthing.
I just like to get aconversation going.
I don't really feel like I knowhow to run a podcast because I

(02:22):
don't feel like it's as much apodcast as much as like hey,
just two people talking, and sothe beginning and end I always
struggle with.

I thought you did great today.

Thank you.
Have you done podcasts before?

I've been an attendee.
I have never hosted a podcast.

Okay.

But I could small talk all day, so we'll see
, maybe it's my next gig.

Okay, yeah, I mean, I think my recommendation
would be to keep running abusiness before entering a
podcast, but if you ever findyourself kicked to the curb with
nothing else to do, uh, maybecontemplate the podcast okay,
fair, I'll start.

I'll try and keep the day job yep, smart.

So, speaking of the day job, um, how did you
find yourself in this day job?
How did you get into thisindustry?
What brought you here?

Really interesting story.
So I'll say I had zero interestin supply chain, zero interest
in tech.
I wanted to be CEO of LehmanBrothers.
So I went to Carnegie Mellon, Istudied finance and went to
work at Goldman Sachs and it was2008.
And at that point everythingaround me was, you know,

(03:30):
crashing down.
So EMA went under, bear Stearnswent under, goldman seemed
protected, but everyone aroundme, all my friends from college,
all their banks whether it wasCitibank, morgan Stanley, I mean
it just didn't seem like agreat time to go into finance.
My father founded IntelligentAudit, rented.

(03:50):
At that point it was threeemployees all who were double my
age and not really theworkplace that I was expecting
to go out of after leavingcollege.
But it was an interesting time,interesting opportunity leaving
college.
But it was an interesting time,interesting opportunity.
I had interned through collegeand kind of worked full-time
since I was like 17 in the space.

(04:11):
So I knew it and my mentalitywas let me try it for a year and
see if I like it and if notI'll go back to finance.
And a month in I hated it.
I called my boss at GOM and Iwas like I'm ready to come back,
I'll do any role Put me in theback office.
I just can't.
I can't be here.
I can't work with people whoare in their 50s and is in an

(04:32):
industry that is so boring.

This is when you're like 22?

21.
I graduated college.

I just graduated college, at 20.

So I was like fresh out of college, senior
year, all you're doing ispartying and having fun and
living your best life, and then,one month later, I'm going to
an office with three people and,you know, listening to them
talk about chess.
So really not what I waswanting or expecting, but I

(05:00):
stuck around and it wasinteresting because you know my
husband at that point we werejust, you know, dating.
But he went to Citibank and hewas in an investment capacity
and he started to get calls fromthe founder of XPO.
So Brad Jacobs was looking tostart up XPO and he had called

(05:23):
me and he was like like there'sthis guy that created a waste
management company, um, and he'strying to get capital from city
.
Um, you know, I don't thinkwe're gonna do it, but seems
like the interest the industryis is building momentum.
And then he called me a monthlater and he was like this
company, like his bookstore,amazon, is getting into
e-commerce.

(05:43):
Um, what do you think aboutAmazon competing with UPS and
FedEx?
And I was like I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
But the point is that themomentum started to build up and
I was really lucky that I wasin a job where it was engineers
and then me.
I can do a tiny bit ofengineering, but it allowed me

(06:06):
to really explore everything.
So I didn't have shackles whereI had to do the same job in a
repetitive way.
I was kind of able to do a lot.

And this was sorry, just to confirm.
When you say this time, whenyou were doing a little bit of
engineering but didn't haveshackles, you were working at
that time at Goldman noIntelligent Audit At Intelligent
Audit.
So this is when you were okay,keep going.

Total baby and I got exposed to a lot and I just
loved it.
No, two days were the same andthere was a lot of opportunities
.
Our business was evolvingtremendously and, frankly, there
was just so much opportunitythat I loved it.

When your father started this company, what was
the idea for what he was tryingto accomplish?

Warner Music Group and Warner Home Video at
that point, when people used tobuy cassettes and DVDs were huge
organizations.
He supported them in theirwarehouses to create order
management systems and that washis legacy job.
That business was bought and hewas basically a consultant and

(07:13):
they came to him and they said Ihave all of these shipments
that I'm shipping out to variouslocations.
They won't pay me until I canprove to them that the tracking
numbers were delivered and Ihave the proof of delivery.
And the beauty of that is theoriginal product that we created

(07:33):
was able to take mass amountsof shipments and automatically
track them, capture the POD andthen deliver them back to the
customer in automated fashion sothey can get paid.
Then they quickly came back andsaid well, actually that's
great, but if they're deliveredpast the commitment time, go and
get me a refund.
And you know the rest is kindof history.

(07:56):
But it was really originally allabout taking mass amounts of
parcel shipments and trackingthem before you know the dot-com
bubble.
So that allowed us to createfrom the beginning a solution
that was indexed well, that canmanage a scale, and you know if

(08:17):
our first customer was like acustomer that shipped a couple
hundred shipments a day, wewould never be where we are
today, where we have customerswho ship over 100 million
shipments a year.
So that scale was so important.
And, frankly, the best thingabout engineers is they're lazy,
so they want to do somethingonce and then never do it again.
Versus, like I'm a hard worker,I'll do the same thing all the

(08:40):
time.
Show me an Excel function andI'll click it.

Engineers won't do that.
So, um, the fact that it camethrough.
By lazy you mean like they wantto find the most efficient way
to do something and do it thatway and then not have to go
again, versus you and I who arelike we'll just bang our head
against the wall endlessly andkeep doing the same thing that's
like steve jobs, that he's likefind really smart lazy people.

And like they'll automate everyone's workflows
because, like they don't want todo it, like they they're like
oh, what are you doing every day?
Hold on, like I'll automatethis and and make it so that you
can go outside and do what youwant to do.

Yep, that makes sense.
Um, okay, so you come into thisbusiness 21 years old, not that
interested the CEO's daughter.
What was the next few yearslike, as you kind of came into
the business and started to kindof find your way?

Yeah, so at the company, we were always the
technology backend for a lot ofdifferent partners, which is
interesting because our industryis so incestuous there's a lot
of companies and competitorsthat also do business together.
I don't know if you've noticedthat, but that was just our
experience.
So we were always at thebackend tech arm and then a lot

(09:56):
of our competitors were usingour product.
So what that meant is we didn'tsell directly to customers.
We went through parties andthird-party channels.
So really who I was workingwith was all of those
third-party channels and theyhad no interest in working with
me.
So there was a lot of frictionthere for the first several

(10:19):
years.
They were like who is this newchild coming in?
They were like who's this newchild coming in, um?
And like why, why would I bringher into a sales meeting?
Or why would like, why do Ineed her?
Um, so it, the first few years,was me just trying to prove
myself to all of these partnersthat you know, like it's not a
win-loss, like I want to helpyou win more and you winning is

(10:41):
me winning, so like we're all inthis together, um.
But that was definitelycontentious and probably would
set me back originally because Iwanted to be able to do more in
terms of shake our customers'hands.
I wanted to understand theirpain points.
I wanted to go to sales pitchesand a lot of times everyone was
just like you would be adistraction in the room.

(11:03):
Like we're talking, like we'regoing to a dinner right, we're
probably going to a strip clubafter.
Like there's really no room foryou here.
Like we'll just let you knowafterwards how it goes and
you'll support them in the backend.
But like let let the adultstalk and then you'll come in
later.

Okay, Well, how did you navigate that?
I mean, that's, that's aninteresting kind of challenge.
I definitely understand it inour industry, especially 20
years, 15 years ago.
But I'm curious how do you deal?

with that.
So he always dreamt that Iwould come in and run the
business, even though I have anolder brother.
He was just like you can comeand do this, but he would always
dream about that.

(11:53):
But he never really felt likeit would happen because he was
like it was never that I'm awoman, it was because he thought
I was young and that theindustry was not accommodating
to young women.
So he was like kind of on theirside.
He was like use Hannah when youcan and she's here to assist
you, but like I'm here, so likeyou know me being my father, so

(12:16):
he, for the long time I was inthe background and then I got to
a point where, you know, fastforward about five years, I was
able to learn enough from all ofour partners where, and we were
growing.
So we were just still aboutlike maybe 15 people at this
point.
But we were starting to do someof our own direct sales, have

(12:37):
our own customers and we had afew really big sales channels.
One of them actually used ourname, so it was Intelligent
Audit.
They used our name, so it wasIntelligent Audit.
They went to Trace it wasIntelligent Audit, but they were
not actually affiliated with us.
They just had the rights tosell our product.
So I told my dad I think weshould buy them out because we

(12:59):
want to be able to.
For us to grow into the future,we need to have control of our
own destiny in terms of sales,in terms of marketing.
We need to be able to touch ourcustomers, shake their hands,
grow with them.
And as long as there is abarrier between us and the end
customer, we're never going tobe able to be where we need to
be.
And you know, the good thingabout my dad I mean he's great

(13:21):
is he was always comfortableletting go of the vine as long
as he knew that I would kind ofstep into those shoes.
And he told me, like if I cango prove myself and I can go
close a book of business and,you know, upsell our customers,
then it's mine.
But to do that we actually hadto go take debt out on the

(13:41):
business to buy out those saleschannels, to go take debt out on
the business to buy out thosesales channels, and it was very
contentious.
That being said, we were ableto make a great deal, for
everyone bought out a few of ourbiggest sales channels.
At that point, over 95% of ourrevenue was sales channels.
So after that transaction youknow it was a majority owned by

(14:05):
us.
There were still about 25% duepartners.
But we learned a hard lessonbecause seven months into that
acquisition, our biggestcustomer left and in terms of-.

As related to this or having nothing to do
with the deal.

No, they actually just decided that they
could do this in house through aTMS partnership, um, which
luckily ended up being adisaster for them, um, but still
that, even if they failed, itstill was a hit to us.
Um, but that made us, as acompany, grow up really, really

(14:45):
fast.
And you know, take a step back.
Until then, we never had avision.
There was no focus, there wasno clarity.
Everyone just worked on whatwas urgent, but not what was
important.
So take a step back and we said, okay, we now need to rebuild,
and you know, rebuild entirely,and you know I had.
We've always been talkingrebuild and you know rebuild
entirely, and you know I had.

(15:05):
We've always been talking to,you know, some investors, and
the good thing about investorsis some of them are really smart
and they'll just give you freeadvice and they're doing that.
They're trying to prove that youknow they'd be a good partner
for you, um, so some of themgave us, you know, good, good
ideas in terms of buy out thosesales channels, grow up, figure
out what you want to do and like, also like, diversify, like,

(15:25):
make sure that you can handleall modes globally and always be
technology first.
So we stepped back, we sat downand we created, for the first
time, that vision.
You know, where do we want tobe, ignoring all of our sales
channels.
We're now adults, we hold ourown, the own, the own keys to
our success.
And that was the biggest, thebiggest opportunity for us,

(15:48):
because we we learned so much.
Um, we really have beenthoughtful about what success
looks like, how we make sure theentire company knows what
success looks like, and you know, it's been focused on
sustainable, repeatable,profitable growth and we have
such a good way right now ofjust enforcing that across the

(16:11):
company and getting everyone tofeel bought in, getting everyone
to feel like they have controland they're an important cog in
the massive wheel forIntelligent Audit, and it's been
really transformational.

And when was this roughly?

So we did the deal in 2017.
We lost our biggest customer in2017, the day before
Thanksgiving, and we did the bigtransformation in about 2019.

So was there ever a moment where, when you lost
that big customer, it felt likethis business might fail?

oh my, we really screwed up, yes, um, like rock
bottom, um, which is all aboutperspective.
But, yes, I mean, there weretimes where we were like what
are we gonna do?
Like how, how?
Because we took our debt, andyou know that was it was a big
move.
And you know, like my ass is onthe line for that, because I
was the one who was, you know,confident, you know, said we

(17:13):
have to do it.
I still felt like it was theright thing.
But, yes, like there were dayswhere everyone was like what's
the plan and how are we going toovercome this?
And you know it's, there wasluck to it, but more than luck,
it was just focus.
It was so much focus on notfeeling like a victim and

(17:34):
instead saying let's figure thisshit out.

So smart I mean it's so easy to let your
circumstances kind of overwhelmyou or let outside things that
are not in your controloverwhelm you, and if you focus
on the things that are out ofyour control play victim
mentality, it's paralyzing.
I mean there's no point.
I mean there's just nothing youcan do about things that are
outside of your control.

(17:59):
So you might as well focus onwhat's within your control.

It's such an important life lesson and it
really, like that moment, hasmade me realize that almost
every time you feel like life isagainst you, it is an
opportunity to excel and justinnovate, and that's where
innovation comes.
I am so confident that if wedid not lose that customer, we

(18:28):
would be nowhere near where weare today.
We'd be a different businessbecause we would never be forced
to mature.
So, yeah, I mean, it's the bestthing that's ever happened to
us.

Are you looking to grow your brokerage?
Are you struggling to land newcustomers in these challenging
market conditions?
Look within so many companiesthat tender you freight
throughout the domestic UnitedStates also have business coming
out of Mexico.
A year ago I understand why youmight not have seen that
freight as an opportunity, buttoday Cargado exists and that

(19:01):
means any load coming into orout of Mexico is now an
opportunity for you to support.
In just over a year I've beenable to see Cargado go from
ideation to launch to rapidgrowth.
It's amazing to see how manylogistics companies have been
able to use Cargado to expandinto Mexico to grow their
business.
Cargado is the first platformthat connects logistics

(19:23):
companies and trucking companieswho are moving freight into and
out of Mexico.
If you move Mexico freight orare planning to reach out to
Cargado today at cargadocom,that's C-A-R-G-A-D-Ocom.
Yeah, I mean that's the valueof pressure and feeling like
your back's against the wallBecause when things are just
ho-hum, things are going well,you still got your big customer,

(19:45):
got your big customer.
It's like there's no pressureto innovate, there's no pressure
to make changes, there's nopressure to get bigger or
diversify or anything like that,because you're like, oh, the
bills are paid.
We're making a little bit ofmoney, everything's fine.

Did you ever have?

that feeling.
Oh yeah, I mean and part of itis me probably being too
emotional and, in some cases,way too reactive but like I feel
, like I constantly felt likeour business was going to fail.
I mean COVID when COVID hitinitially I was like we don't
know what the hell we're doing.
Like this is beyond what weknow how to deal with.

(20:23):
I mean we were when COVID hit2020, so I was 30 years old.
How to deal with.
I mean we were.
I went COVID in 2020, so I was30 years old and you know we
were fortunate that our businesswas so heavy in food and
grocery retail that, like thatpart of the business boomed.
But we had made a consciousdecision in that year that we

(20:45):
would not adjust our rates onany of our primary business with
our customers, and the thoughtwas, if we can hold the line and
keep these rates, we'll standout for our customers in a way
that no one else has, becauseI'm like nobody will ever forget
this period.
Covid isn't something that'shappened before and hopefully
it's not something that willhappen again.

(21:06):
So we're looking at a once-in-a, once in a lifetime situation
and in that once in a lifetimesituation, how are our customers
going to look at us, and ifthey look at us and see us
standing out against thecompetition like that should set
us up for life and that's allgreat until it's August of 2020.
And the rates have tripled andwe're sitting here losing money,

(21:28):
hand over fist and I'm likepulling what I had hair.
Then I had hair until threedays ago.

I shaved my head on a wind to be clear I was
wondering, I was gonna ask, butI decided you know, maybe yeah,
no I'm an open book.

I, you know I've shaved my head three times in my
life, um, and and the first twowere in like some of the
darkest moments where I was likereally struggling and, and you
know, kind of lost my shit.
One of them was COVID.
Actually, the beginning ofCOVID I shaved my head, and so
that spoke to where my head wasat this time was more meant to
be like I'm trying to, I'mtrying to create, I'm trying to.

(22:04):
I want to change how I'm tryingto create.
I'm trying to.
I want to change how I'mthinking about my life right now
, and like I've been frustratedby a lot of things and not and
I've paralyzed myself in myfrustration because, you know,
I've got this non-compete thatdoesn't really allow me to do
much in the industry, and aftertwo years it's really starting

(22:24):
to wear me down, and so I'mtrying to get this kind of
mentality shift.
And so the other thing is thatI was balding too, which was not
helping, and where this showedup the most, because my wife
basically told me you're notgetting plugs, you're not going
to Turkey, you're not.
Whatever it is, whether you doit here or there, you're not
doing it, you don't need it,like I don't care.

(22:46):
And I think it's weird that, ifyou would want to do that, and
so I'm like, okay, plugs is out,plugs are out.
But I play a lot of pickleballand I play at this facility
where they there's camerasalways on, and so when there are
great shots or great plays,people will hit a replay and it
sends you the replays after, andso I.
But the cameras are all from uptop, and so my buddy would send

(23:07):
me these replays after we'dplay and all I could see was the
top of my head.
I'm six foot three, so mostpeople wouldn't even notice
because I had hair all around.
But I'd get these replays andI'd see this bald spot and I'd
be like God, you've got to fixthat.
So here we are.

Do you think you're going to let it grow back
in, or this is a new look foryou?
I?

think I'm going to keep it.
I don't know what you thinkshould grow back.
You haven't said you're goingto be on a flight to Turkey?
I don't know, I'm not.
That's the only thing my wifehas definitively said no to, and
she said she likes it, so we'llsee.

But it's hard no-transcript.

Wow, shout out to Remington free marketing for
you that your product is great.
But back to what we weretalking about.
Yeah, there are definitelymoments where we felt like the
business was going to fail, andI appreciate those moments in
hindsight because it does lighta fire.
My most involved sales momentslike the times you know my role

(24:34):
as CEO was I had a really greatpartner who was exceptional at
managing the day-to-day andmanaging the people in the
day-to-day and so I had a lotmore freedom to kind of move and
shake and apply myself whereverI felt, and sales was where I
spent a lot of time, but itwasn't always needed for me to

(24:55):
be actively involved, but it wasin the moments when I felt most
desperate and felt most like myback was against the wall.
That's when I poured myselfinto sales.
I mean, I'd be sending emailsto people at nine o'clock at
night on Saturdays on Sundayslike whatever I could, and it
lights a fire in a way.
There's something about feelinglike you're responsible for

(25:16):
whether it's 10 people, 20people, 50 people or 500 people.
That really does force you tomature and figure out how to
like get shit done, becausethere's no one else who can do
it.
At least that that that was mymentality was like I can't ask
someone else to fix this problemfor me.
Um, I can certainly askeveryone to help me fix the

(25:39):
problem, which is what we woulddo.
I mean, rally the troops, asyou kind of talked about,
getting everybody to understandhow important, even if they are
a cog, it's an important cog anda very important wheel.
So I don't know, I don't knowif you have thoughts on that.

It's so true, you know, for a long time my
friends would say, like my lifeis so easy, I am my own boss.
And I would shoot back and belike I have 215 families that
I'm accountable for, not justone.
So, yes, like I could beflexible with my days, but so

(26:13):
can anyone on our team.
Like, just get your work done.
But at the end of the day, Idon't just care about what.
You know me and my immediatefamily has to be.
You know, accountable for it'severyone and, like you, you care
about this.
You're a team and it's not justthat you care about them.
You want to make sure thatthey're all excelling and
succeeding and you have anenvironment where you can hire

(26:36):
smart people and those smartpeople have the tools to be
successful and can grow.
Because, at the end of the day,like CEO's job, to your point,
like we should not be runningthis show.
That means that we're actuallynot doing a good job of hiring
people around us and being clearwith our vision so they can
execute.
So for us to succeed, we needexcellent people everywhere who

(27:00):
are motivated to show up, tohave control, that can do what
needs to be done and, you know,keep them accountable.
So, yeah, I think thateverything you said is spot on
and it's stressful, but it'salso at least for me right now.
I'm at the point now where Ihave such an amazing team all

(27:22):
around me that you know we meetquarterly.
I don't know what you did, butwe we um deployed EOS
entrepreneurial operatingsystems in uh 2021.
Um, interestingly, because I uhI called a competitor of ours
um a CEO, cause I had heard thathe had resigned and I was just

(27:44):
like you know what's up, whatare you doing?
Like, why are you out?
And he, just like you knowwhat's up, what are you doing,
why are you out?
And he, there was you know someissues of why he had to leave,
but he was like I became an EOSconsultant and I was like what's
EOS?
And he explained what it wasand you know very basic
operating model.
But he became our consultant,which was really interesting to

(28:06):
have him like in very intimateconversations.
Um, deploying eos was the best,most revolutionary process that
we underwent as a company.
That really took us from a goodone to a great one.
Like, our ability not justexecute like clockwork and keep
everyone accountable is madetrue because of EOS.

What is EOS you got to give us?
Can't just tease us with it.

Yeah, absolutely so.
Eos is.
It's a way of running abusiness, although, you know,
really like everything that I'mabout to say are things that you
have probably heard of and youprobably do so at a macro level.
Eos is about setting a vision.
So I equate this to having aboat.

(28:54):
So a boat, for example, isgoing from point A to point B.
The vision is to say here iswhere the boat is going to.
That way, everyone at thecompany understands that they're
on the boat and everyone knowsexactly where the boat is going.
So that is the clear vision.
Then it's having the rightpeople.
So making sure you have theright people on the boat and the

(29:16):
people are in the right seats.
So you hear a lot of rightperson, right seat.
So again, think about the boat.
You need to have the captain.
Where the captain is, you haveto have an excellent people in
the various divisions you know,divisions of where you put in
the boat so that the boat getsto where it needs to be.
And you might have really smartpeople, but when they're in the

(29:37):
wrong spot, they're justfriction from being able to, you
know, get to where your visionis.
Then there's data, which isreally important.
So taking the emotion out ofmaking decisions instead of
saying you know, from a puredata perspective.
So if you were stuck on anisland and someone gave you a
sheet of paper, what measurableswould you have to see on that

(30:01):
piece of paper to make sure thatthe business is operating as it
should be?
To make sure that the businessis operating as it should be,
and you need to be reallythoughtful of saying what those
measurables are.
If you can't figure those out,then you'll never know if your
business is successful.
And when you do and you knowwhat the right goal is for each

(30:22):
data point, then you can keepeveryone accountable and make
sure everyone is doing what theyneed to to get to where the
boat's going.

Just before you keep going, just so I confirm I
understand so essentially whatyou're saying.
This checklist is basically, ifI'm completely removed from the
business and I'm not thereevery day, I'm not talking to
customers, I'm not talking toemployees.
But I have this piece of paperwith data points on it and I
have expectations around each ofthose data points and as long

(30:52):
as each one of theseexpectations is met at the level
it is, it should be asuccessful business.
I don't need to know anythingelse.

Correct Yep.
So those are the first fewprinciples.
It's vision, people data.
It's vision, people data.
The next one is being able toproperly articulate when there
is an issue with the rightperson and solving it.
So this is really taking theemotion out of seeing a problem.

(31:21):
But again, go back to the boatexample.
I'm a simple person so I likethat example.
You can be on different partsof the boat and different your
different responsibilities, butyou have to be comfortable, even
if you know your part of theboat isn't as where you know
where it should be in terms ofoperations, you have to be
comfortable talking to someoneelse, being like you know, let's

(31:43):
say, they're in charge of, youknow, food you're not executing
properly.
Here's why here's the veryspecific issue that we need to
address and then making surethat you're actually identifying
the problem, discussing it andsolving it.
And you know, in so manyorganizations people are either
like too shy to talk about itbecause they feel like they

(32:05):
can't complain, or they can'tthrow rocks out of a glass
building.
But it's so important to havethe comfort and the ability to
be able to properly have thoseconversations because you need
to hear feedback, see issues andsolve them and, again, the
right channel to get that doneis critical.

(32:25):
The next two so the first one isbeing able to create goals.
So, um, like, we just had ourleadership team meeting, um,
this past week, everyone came intown and what we do there you
know.
You have your vision, so youhave where you're going, which
is, say, in the next five years,three years.
But then what so many people do?

(32:45):
Like human nature, we dream bigbut we don't make progress
towards hitting those goals.
So the purpose here is it'scalled traction.
So you create 90-day goals andthey're smart.
So they're smart goals.
So they're very specific,they're measurable, they're
actionable.
Their results aren't in theirtime bound.

(33:08):
So, for example, if I was tosay, hey, andrew, I want to go
lose 20 pounds, okay, but like,that's, that's a great dream.
But instead I would say I wantto lose five pounds in 12 weeks.
Here is what I'm going to do toachieve that.
So now you can keep meaccountable.
You can check in in two weeksand say, well, where are you at?
And it'll be obvious if, at 10weeks, I'm still doing about

(33:32):
losing five pounds and I haven'tmade traction.
So really important to createthose goals, to achieve the
bigger vision.
And then the last part is justhaving repeatable processes.
So, especially as you become abigger organization, you know
you have various departments ina company and what you'll find

(33:53):
is what you don't want to see is12 people in the same function
solving the same problemdifferently.
What you would instead want tosee is the team, and maybe the
leader of that team, saying whatis the best process.
So what does everyone do?
Really well, how do we createthat as a standardized process

(34:14):
that everyone can do the goldenstandard continuously?
And when you can do all of thisat scale, it is so easy to just
like continue to be on that boat.
You know, my job, I say to theCEO, is to see what's on the
outside of the boat, so what'sgoing to give us friction, and
to remove that.
And then everyone else in theboat, their job is just do what

(34:37):
needs to happen to get us there.
But every single person on theboat has an important role and
is achieving our vision.
So we can't do that if thereare five people not doing their
jobs Like that.
That's that slows us down fromwinning, and I'm all about
winning, but I want everyone towin with me.
You know it's on my team.

I like it a lot.
I think that's.
I mean, I appreciate the verythorough explanation and I think
it I.
You know, I was kind of throughmy head thinking like where are
the holes in this?
And I didn't find any.
So I think it feels like a veryaccountable structure to ensure
you're moving in the directionyou want to be moving in.

And it applies to any business.
It applies to, likerelationships, like almost
everything.
It applies to relationships,almost everything.
There's nothing complicatedabout those principles and if
you can do that, even whenyou're raising kids, it's almost
the same thing.
You just need to be thoughtfuland disciplined and have a
vision and keep everyoneaccountable, and then it's easy.

(35:44):
It's easy to win, and then,like it's just easy, it's easy
to win.

So when was this that you kind of spoke to your
competitor, friend?

I think it was in either late 2020 or early
2021, probably 2020.
And you know it takes a longtime.
I don't want it.
It was like a half a year toroll it out, because this is

(36:16):
like a different way of ofliving your life.
You know, this is liketransforming and being
thoughtful and being usingdifferent.
You know, principles that youdidn't use before.
But it is just.
It is so much easier now to forus to be able to hire people,
people, because everyone wantsto be part of something, but
it's hard to be part ofsomething that isn't defined.

Well said.
So I mean 2020, that's rightwhen you had stepped into the
CEO role.

No, yeah, no, this was one of those big, big
moves.
So you know, I was reallyfortunate when I became CEO.
At that point I had been doingsales, I had been managing our
operations, so I was really Iwas the acting CEO, but I was

(36:59):
also the operating COO, Becausemy, my dad at that point was
like I think I was probably inmy early 30s point, was like I
think I was probably in my earlythirties.
Um, I just had my third kid.
He was like you can't, youcan't be a CEO.
He was like and actually I usedto talk to the Western Journal
a lot at this point One of thejournalists sent me a collage of

(37:20):
all of our competitors and umme, because I was like oh yeah,
the board's talking about makingme CEO.
And he came back and he said allof your competitors are
middle-aged white men.
And he showed them to me and hesaid do you really think that
you would be an adopted CEO inthis space?

(37:43):
Like I hear board reallythought about this because I can
just see you not being acceptedand you're gonna stand out.
And I was like I hear you, um,yeah, obviously don't look like
the rest of them.
But like, so what like, let'schange things.
And and here's my proven record.
So I didn't have to.

(38:04):
I had to prove myselfinternally, internally, but I
was actually lucky thatexternally we were getting the
momentum of like why not?

Attention freight brokers and 3PLs.
Greenscreensai is transforminghow freight professionals price
and quote freight.
With AI-powered pricing andreal-time market intelligence,
greenscreens delivers accurate,reliable predictions to help
stay competitive in a constantlyshifting market.
Whether managing spot rates orlong-term contracts,
greenscreens empowers brokers toquote with confidence and boost

(38:37):
profitability, removing theguesswork from freight pricing
strategies.
Trusted by over 220 brokerages,greenscreens is leading the way
in the future of freightpricing.
And now there's Illuminate,green Screen's latest product.
Designed to shine a light ondeeper freight market insights.
Illuminate providesunparalleled visibility into
spot and contract freight trends, giving users a clearer view of

(38:59):
pricing fluctuations and marketconditions to inform smarter,
more profitable decisions.
Visit greenscreensai, slashthefreightpod and discover how
Green Screens and and illuminatecan help win more business more
profitably.
So I've known you for now 37minutes, but I have a feeling I
can say with confidence that,seeing that, whatever the

(39:22):
journalist sent you, whether itwas a graph or a picture or the
data points really that lit afire under your ass more than
anything else.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of people saying no and then
me getting the chance to provethem wrong yep, you and I are
very similar in that regardbecause it's like you're, I
think we're probably around thesame age, yes, like we are
younger.
But so what?
Like we have innovative ideas,we'll work hard, we'll prove
ourselves, and the best thing Idid was I lost a lot, and every

(39:55):
one of those losses was greatlearning opportunities for me.
So, um, yeah, like, put me, putme back on a coach, like that's
what I would say.
Like put me in coach yeah, giveme, give me a chance.
And it's been a great, a greatroller, great ups, great downs,
but weren't from every one ofthem.

How did you get your father over the hump to
finally say, okay, yeah, I thinkit's you.

He was definitely the hardest.
And the truth is, first he justcame in and he said if you can
do this and he gave me a setmeasurables then it's yours.
So then I did that and I didbetter than he wanted and I was
like all right, like that's it,you're out, I'm in.
And he really was so against it.

(40:47):
And the day I became CEO wasnot a happy day for him.
He was proud of me, but he wasstill like he felt like I was
taking his role and kicking himout.
But ultimately he saw that itwas the right thing for the
business and, to be truthful, hehad a health scare around that

(41:10):
time and I said to him um,there's no way that you can
expect me to take over, likewhat needs to be done with the
family, um, and run a businessat the same time.
Um, I've proven myself, um, theboard has the vote.
Like everyone is saying yes.
Even my older brother at thatpoint, who was like filmmaker

(41:33):
ceo, was like why isn't she ceo?

um, so he relinquished control it was your
brother involved in thebusiness, or no?

yes, um, he, so he's an interesting guy.
He, um, he's a poker player, sohe's won world poker
tournaments and really smart.
Um, but a different person, adifferent personality than me um
, he is a really really smartproblem solver and, like you,
give him a complex problem andhe just like solves it like this

(42:05):
.
Um, so he's always been in theengineering side.
He's in charge of our entireengineering team.
Now he came in, figured out howto code and really stood up our
business intelligence platformin a way that was really
forward-thinking.
At that point, I mean, we weretalking about analytics in 2011,
.
You know, before it was secondnature.

(42:28):
And so he's been at the companyand he at first was like no way
, hun is taking my spot.
I'm like he's like I'm theolder son, like that is my
blood-born right.
And then he was like there's noway I want to be ceo and like,
hey, dad, you're not really aceo.
Just like, give it to her,because then we can hire a COO

(42:50):
and then she can actually, youknow, do more sales, do more
client success, and I have toalso run the business.
So you know, as you said, you,you are, you stick out like a
sore thumb in that environmentas the kind of young female CEO

(43:24):
and I'm curious if we could talka little bit about that in
terms of and I'm curious if wecould talk a little bit about
that in terms of what was thatexperience like, being like was
and what you say?
It's you and you're talking toa middle aged white person.
Your expectation from them isset high because you're like,

(43:44):
you deserve to be there.
I'm like, I'm ready for thisconversation.
When it's me, across from you,the bar is actually lower
because you're like oh, like, ok, like, okay, like, let's see
what, let's see what she has tosay.
So that just means, like, theinitial expectations for me
versus like my competitors waslower, which means when we were

(44:06):
able to have a conversation, itwas able to go higher.
So, like it, I always think itworked in my favor and it was
like a day of birth Goliath.
You know the story because, like, everyone was just like wow,
like didn't expect that, what asurprise.
And I, I'm excited.
And you know we, we always hadgreat momentum because people

(44:27):
trusted us, we have a greatcustomer list and we have great
value.
Like, our customers are ourbest salespeople.
So it's not like I waspreaching something and didn't
have the ability to back it up.
There were so many people thatwere like, yeah, like trust what
she's saying, I'm advocatingfor it, so I never felt like it

(44:48):
was a a bad thing.
Um, you know, I had my fairshare of prospects asking for
threesomes, but like they werealways like, like wait what I
guess?
shows like people will be likeoh, like, wonder what she's here
for, and like that I alwaysfelt like, you know, we could

(45:09):
quickly nip in the bud and belike that's not going to happen
here, and once you can get pastthat, they became some of our
best customers.

So I mean this is important because it's just not
right.
Obviously, If I go to a tradeshow, no one's sexualizing me,
no one's asking me aboutthreesomes, it's just work.
Maybe, Well, maybe in their,their head, I doubt it, but in
in your world that's like a realissue.
And so I guess, as I thinkabout you know women who might

(45:41):
be listening to this, youngerwomen who are in our industry
and wanting to fill a seat likeyours one day.
What like advice do you havefor them for navigating this?
Because it's not fair obviouslyright that women have to deal
with that in these settings andso I'm just curious what you
would say to someone who wantsto get to your seat but also is
dealing with sexualization anddifferent expectations and the

(46:04):
other BS that kind of comes withthat.

Life's not fair.
So it's not like you can't be avictim.
This, you just have tounderstand what it is.
Um.
So, yes, like the downside is,I always tell our team, like we
have, you know, lots of womenwho travel like you can't be
drinking, you can't be gettingwasted.
Um, when people text you, ourcustomers or our prospects are

(46:27):
texting you, like keep it, keepa G.
When they go X-rated, like youstill back out of it.
And it's like the same thing Iwould say if someone went to
college.
And, yes, like, be conscious,be aware of it.
I think people areprofessionals, so it's not like
anyone is going to do anythinginappropriate for you.
They just might make advances,but like always be in control so

(46:49):
you can say no.
That being said, it's still agreat opportunity to be a woman
in the supply chain, becausethere's not many of us and I
actually think that women arewell suited for logistics better
than anyone else, because womencan handle dynamic situations,

(47:10):
complex situations, fast moving,a lot of complexities really
easily.
And I always equate this tolike me versus my husband with
like running our family.
We have three kids.
My kids are like in tons ofactivities, tons of sports.
It is very easy for me tonavigate the complexity, to
create the schedule to reactwhen there's anything that

(47:32):
happens that's complex, so likea kid is sick or like something
was canceled.
When it is just him and thereis complexity, he's like
nevermind, everyone's stayinghome.
And like same on the weekends,like you watch, like on a Sunday
, when usually the dads do thebirthday parties you will have.
If there are 20 kids, there are20 dads doing pickup and
drop-offs.
If it was a birthday partyduring the week, there will be

(47:55):
five, because moms know how tocarpool and we know how to be
efficient.
So it is an excellent place tobe a woman in terms of being in
supply chain and because there'snot many women.
You shine Like when you aredifferent.
If everyone is wearing a blueshirt and you're wearing an
orange shirt, you stand out andstanding out is a good thing
because people see you and itgives you the opportunity to be

(48:18):
better.
So, yes, be aware, be smart,make smart decisions, but also,
like you are, you are fortunatethat you stand out and like
don't, don't be like.
It is not a perfect place to bea woman.

So well said.
It's interesting because Ithink about it through two
lenses.
One is kind of like thevirtuous, you know this is a
problem, and like we shouldattack it and fix it.
And I agree, it is wrong and itis a problem and like you know,
and women shouldn't feeluncomfortable when they go to a

(48:54):
trade show.
But you kind of have twochoices.
You could, you can, well Iguess I shouldn't say two
choices, but there's twodifferent ways to think about it
.
One is to say this is going tobe where I spend my energy
trying to fix this problem, butit's probably too big of a
problem for any one person orteam to try to address.

(49:16):
Like how are you going tochange the way that men across
the board are engaging with youin the setting?
Like that seems like a reallyoverwhelming thing to try to
address, versus your line ofthought which goes back to kind
of focusing on what's withinyour control, like you can't

(49:36):
control how these guys are goingto react, especially because
you can just keep swapping themout, like yeah, maybe you go to
this trade show in New Jerseyand you're going to deal with it
and then you go to one inPhoenix.
It's completely different men,but it's probably the same
behavior and so like.
Are you going to change theworld and change how all these
people react, how all thesepeople behave, or are you going
to realize, like, this is theway it is, at least today?
I can't change all that today,but what I can do is manage it

(50:01):
to the best of my ability andput myself in the best position
to win as a result of it.
Like you see it, it's a, it's an.
It's an inspiring thing, Ithink, to look at what is
clearly a very negative thingand spin it into a positive.
And I think it speaks volumesto, I think, kind of who you are
as a person and certainly as abusiness person that, rather

(50:23):
than focus on the negative andfocus on and be a victim in all
of that, to say, hey look, it'sa good thing, I've got the
orange shirt on, they're allwearing blue, I'm different.
That means I've got theirattention.
And in an industry that isbecoming more and more
commoditized, with more and morecompetition by the day, the
ability to stand out is one ofthe most important things in

(50:46):
being successful, because justgetting someone's attention is
so hard in our's industry, inour industry today I think that
if people can adopt thatmentality in life, everything
becomes better for them.

Just always see the opportunity.
Every single challenge is anopportunity.
And like I like even like in myfriend circles when they text
me like oh my, my God, my fightwas canceled.
Like my life sucks.
Like would you prefer to be ona flight that crashed.
Like no, like your life is fine.
Like move on, you're going tobe okay.
Take a drive.
Like perspective is soimportant and it's also a great

(51:23):
leadership quality.
Like people don't want to workfor someone who is always
complaining.
And like isn't able to changeand adapt.
And like innovate andinnovation comes from a hard
problem that you're trying tosolve and you didn't expect to.
And like it is always a goodopportunity.

The other thing too, especially as the leader it
is so easy to be negative.
It is way easier to be negativethan it is to be positive.
It's way easier to play victimthan it is to be positive.
It's way easier to play victimthan to navigate problems and
see opportunities.
And the bigger issue with thatis it's way more infectious and
so like.
If you, as the leader, take thisvictim mentality, take this
negative perspective, it isgoing to spread like wildfire in

(52:08):
your organization and it's acancer.
So I think, like understandingthat, especially at the top,
that it's your responsibility tofrankly set the perspective of
the organization.
You get to drive.
That.
That's part of driving.
The vision is determining howwe're going to look at the
outside world, how we're goingto look at the challenges that
are in front of us.
And if you're the one who'slike this is a BS industry,

(52:30):
every time I go to a conferenceI get sexualized.
I'm not going to conferencesanymore, we don't need
conferences.
That's a very differentperspective to saying, hey, this
is an unfair challenge, butlife is unfair and I'm not going
to sit here and complain aboutit.
So you're not going to complainabout it, we're going to figure
out a way to navigate it and bewinners through it.
That's an inspiring thing.

And every second you're in the pity party.
You're not thinking about it,solve it.
But I still think that going toa trade show as a woman is
amazing, because when all themen are walking by, then you see
like a person in heels.
You're like what did I just say?
Like is there a woman here?
Like this is great, like it'sit.
There is so much more upsidethan there is downside.

(53:13):
You just like you got.
You have to understand thedownside to protect it and then
like arrive.

So I want to pivot now, um, and I want to
start talking about technology alittle bit, because you know
you're you're a technologybusiness that was founded in
1996, before the dot-com, allthat.
So 30 years later, ai is theonly thing anyone wants to talk

(53:43):
about.
So what I'm curious about iswhat has the evolution of
technology looked like in yourbusiness and how have you
strategically approached that?
Because every company isdifferent and there are some
companies that TMS examplesthere are companies that are
still on-prem, that have theseclunky technologies that 30
years later they know it's notgreat, but they're unwilling to

(54:06):
adapt in a way that sometimes ittakes a transformational
adaptation in which youliterally throw out everything
you've had and start fromscratch to build something
better.
But that's a scary thing.
So I'm just curious can we talkabout that a little bit Kind of
what your technological journeyhas been like at Intelligent
Audit?

Yeah, so really important way you hit on your
past does not guarantee yourfuture.
Your past could give you anupper hand to give you a better
future, but you've got to workfor it and transform.
And AI is incredible.
What AI allows anyone to do, ifyou use it effectively, is set

(54:46):
yourself up for the future.
So the good thing about us asan organization we've always
been technology first, so ourapproach has always been through
.
You know how do you createscalable processes that are
configurable and notcustomizable?
Where you you know we havereally smart problem solvers who
are just able to buildsolutions that you know, then

(55:08):
business people can manage, thatbusiness people can manage.
I was fortunate that I went toa school where I studied finance
, but my friends were all reallysmart computer scientists,
which I think is anotherimportant lesson.
Surround yourself by people whoare smarter than you.

And different, different, smart in a different
way and different right.

So about six years ago or I guess not seven
years ago because I had myoldest one I had a bunch of our
friends over and they were atthis point.
One of them was getting his PhDin computer science, another
PhD in physics and they weretalking about AI.
So you know, back then it wasall about machine learning and

(55:49):
deep learning because there wasno large language models.
So you know, even back aboutseven years ago, you know we
understood what was coming andwe were able to listen to how
others were using AI.
About One of them went out andis now CTO of an insurance

(56:16):
company where they actually havea piece of hardware that fits
in your car that's able toassess if you're a safe driver.
So it does that.
So if you think about driving,when you're driving this piece
of hardware will move, andsometimes it's because of a
divot in the road or a bump,other times it's because you're
just a bad driver and it neededthe intelligence to be able to

(56:37):
take all of these patterns,remove where you are like it is
just an issue that you did nothave control over versus what
you have control over and thentake that information to assess
if you're a safe driver and then, based on that, create an
insurance company.
So that was only made possiblebecause of deep learning.
Another friend who we ended uphiring, who at this point was

(57:01):
getting his he was working atUPMC and his job was to be able
to look at people's MRIs and beable to say you know, every
person's liver is different,mine is different than yours,
but within each person's liverand their MRI of their liver,
there's consistency.
So find me the pattern that isirregular.

(57:23):
And when you see that patternthat's irregular, tell me with
high confidence if it is fattyliver disease, because that is a
disease that is very hard totake a biopsy of and then
diagnose and then treat.
And if you could do all of thatup front, you just you're
saving lives.
So I was listening to this, likein my basement seven years ago,

(57:46):
and I thought to myself youknow, I know we have data that
is really well indexed, so ourcustomers can take massive data
and just see it very quickly anduse that to make decisions.
But what we thought was youknow, right now we have people
that are looking through dataand saying how do we help our
customers become smarter?

(58:07):
So where is their inefficiencyin their supply chain.
So where is there inefficiencyin their supply chain?

(58:28):
The thesis was can we leveragesome couple of months to help us
build the initial model andthen the second one.
His name is Brian Pollack, drBrian Pollack.
He became our head of datascience and the thesis was what
I just mentioned.
What it really does well is ittakes mass amounts of data.
Let's just say it's.
You know any type shipper.
Shippers are really complex.

(58:49):
And our customers we take theirdata across all of their modes,
globally.
So even one customer, you takeall of their global data
globally.
They're going to have differentprocesses and different
expectations of what their datalooks like.
So the model has theintelligence to say give me all

(59:10):
of this data, I will slice itinto like patterns and then,
within each pattern of data, I'mgoing to create a baseline of
expectations and then, as newdata flows in, if I couldn't
predict that, then it'sanomalous.
So we started playing aroundwith this seven years ago,
created an alpha product fiveyears ago, and what we found was

(59:33):
, yeah, bad behaviors are there,but what we are actually seeing
is a ton of fraud, a ton oftechnical glitches and just
unexpected consequences.
So the fraud is a real problem,you know there's.
It's really easy to interceptABI carrier APIs and then
actually change the ship tolocation, so that's happening at

(59:57):
scale.
But the beauty of all this iswe were, we had AI before people
knew what AI is, so we wereleveraging it through machine
learning.
But it, you know, we've alwaysbeen focused on what's next and
we've never been scared onwhat's next.
Um, and we've never been scaredof what's next, like, even when
we have a process that worksgreat.
I'm not scared to be like couldit be better?

(01:00:20):
And if the answer is yes, thenlike guys, like let's make it
better.
Because as you become a biggerorganization, any squeaky wheel
becomes squeakier.
So both, thinking about ai hasbeen, you know, amazing.
The machine learning has beenreally, really powerful and it
was our first, you know, use ofai.
But really it was just a toolthat was for our customers.

(01:00:45):
It didn't really help us.
Chat gpt has been excellent.
So our head of data sciencebecame our chief product officer
in december.
Because we used to think aboutdata science and ai differently
and in my head the future islike it's one like if they used

(01:01:05):
to like co-mingle a little bitlike I want.
I want ai to be part of the waywe think in every conversation,
and Brian Pollack is now onOpenAI's Red Team.
So OpenAI, createchat, gpt, theyhave engineers across the world
.
Before they release newproducts into the world, they

(01:01:25):
have these engineers thatactually try and test it to see
if there's any malicious contentbefore it gets into the hands
of a bunch of bad actors, whichjust allows us to be on the
front end of getting access tothese kinds of technology and we
now leverage some form of notevery time, but we think about
how do we use your chat GPT orwe're using AI for engineers.

(01:01:49):
How do we use it everywhere?
So it's not just our engineers,but it's like our operations.
It's rate loading, it's rateauditing.
We actually still leave anadvisory board and a lot of our
shippers said that they haveteams of people across their
entire executive team that getconstantly trained on AI.

(01:02:11):
So they taught us that we needto have every group at our
company and have their divisionhead say where can our teams use
AI, even if it's just promptgeneration or workflow
automation?
But how do we continuouslythink about AI empowering either
us, our customers or or thecarriers to be more effective.

(01:02:32):
So the way I equate it now mostsimply is we've had screwdrivers
for a long time and likescrewdrivers get things done,
like they work.
But imagine when you get adrill and then you're like holy
shit, like had this have beenout there for so long?
Like holy shit, like had thishave been out there for so long.
So now my only challenge to theteam is let's make sure that

(01:02:56):
everyone has a drill with abattery, like I don't want them
to have a drill and likesomeone's like well, we can't
get this because of X, y, z.
Like no, give them a drill,make sure it has a battery and
then give them a tool belt sowhen they're up on the ladder

(01:03:16):
they're not like coming up anddown and coming up and down, but
like make them hyper efficient.
And AI is just so powerful toeveryone.
But you have to embrace it.

Andrew Silver (01:03:24):
At Molo we built a great company and I'm proud of
the work we did.
We knew when to ask for helpand sometimes that meant going
outside of our own company.
I'm proud we built an ecosystemof trusted partners like
Metaphora.
When we needed differentiatedindustry expertise in business
consulting or technologyservices, we looked at Peter
Ryan and the team at Metaphora.
They've consistently deliveredvalue in the transportation and

(01:03:47):
logistics space for over adecade for mid-market and
enterprise brokers, for shippersand logistics space for over a
decade for mid-market andenterprise brokers for shippers,
carriers, private equity andfreight tech companies.
At Molo we use Metafora tosolve problems we simply
couldn't on our own.
Metafora is the only partneryou should trust to help you win
, whether that's doing ops andtech diligence, growing revenue,
optimizing spend or selectingand building software.

(01:04:08):
Go check them out atmetaforanet.
That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-A dot net.
Have you dealt with headwindsor challenges in getting the
team to buy in or adopt thiskind of change?
I mean, it's not that it.
Let me just ask that.
I'm curious there.

Hannah Testani (01:04:29):
Yes, always, like human nature, nature we
need to evolve to hate change,like change has come with in the
past.
So we hate change.
But it's so easy to prove, like, literally, it is a screwdriver
versus a drill, like itempowers you and we've we've
always embraced technology andwe've always proven to our

(01:04:50):
people that it's not going toreplace them, it's going to make
them a superpower, and we'refortunate that we've grown so
much year over year where theyhave seen we've never fired a
team of people because they were.
We could automate their jobs.
Like, if anything, we'llautomate it.
We'll use AI to answer emails,and now those people are doing
more challenging tasks.
So I you know, I think you haveto approve, you have to have

(01:05:14):
trust and then you have to showthem why it's going to make them
able to do more work and nottaking work out of their plate.

And once you have that and you can use it like it
is so powerful what do you feellike has been one of the best
examples where these new tools,the drills that you've now
employed with your team relativeto the screwdriver, has
actually, like, made an impact,like?
Are there examples in your?

mind of like.
We completely changed thisbecause of it prompt that is
repeatable in nature, then it'seasy to be able to take that
partner, that or integrate itwith GitHub and integrate it
with the actual code to be ableto really create products so
much quicker and the engineerscan now work on more exciting

(01:06:24):
work a lot faster.
And people like to bechallenged and if you give them
a tool where they can be betterand they can win more, they're
happy.
On more of the operations side,like our most entry-level
position, we used to get a lotof carriers emailing us saying
like when am I going to get paid?
Or like why is Invoice's stack?

(01:06:46):
And it was a very highlyrepetitive job and you know we
automated it because we wereable to create this product
called Polly Polly because DrBrian Pollack, so the name is
after him, polly and a carriersends an email in.
You know emails are veryunstructured in nature.
It's not going to be consistenteach time and you can't force

(01:07:09):
thousands of carriers to emailyou in a structured way.
But that's where you know largelanguage models actually do
really well, so they can takeunstructured emails with.
You know unstructured formatsand respond back to carriers
within 60 seconds with what theywant to hear, which means all
of those people that used to dothat can now go up level and

(01:07:31):
they're now answering morecomplicated work.
So it's it's been a win-win.
Carriers get answers quicklyand those people who you know
are great people and greatassets to our company and are
now being able to be challengedmore, and we're investing in
them more so that they can, youknow, be great at ia but also
being great outside of ia ifthey decide that they want to go

(01:07:53):
somewhere else.
They've been trained to do morethan entry-level positions, so
it's a massive win-win.

I love that.
New opportunities, like big newopportunities that you see for
Intelligent Audit as a result ofsome of this change, or just in
general, like as you thinkabout the years ahead, like
where are you taking thebusiness in terms of growing it

(01:08:23):
or building it beyond what it'sdoing today?

Yeah, I mean it's great time for the
questioning because we just hadour team here and it's a lot of
asking the question of lookingat all of our processes and not
being scared to break and changewhat's working well, to think
about the future.
Um, so, you know, there's a lotof processes that we do today

(01:08:47):
that we know could be donebetter.
You know, and the question thatI asked our team is could
anyone off the street whounderstands logistics get this
done very quickly?
And if not, what are thehurdles and what has to be true
if that was the case?
So if you were to put, you know, your five problems down and I

(01:09:09):
was to come back to you and saythose were solved by the end of
this year, what does that mean?
We did, and first, thatempowers them to really think
creatively to solve a solution.
But it also empowers us toreally think about what's next.
So where the business is todayis different where it was five
years ago.

(01:09:29):
I mean we were very lucky thatwe transformed before COVID or
we would not have a business.
And I think the same about thefuture.
You know, right now we do a lotfor our customers.
You know, we load the rates, weaudit the data, we configure
new carriers, which is fine.
But what if we made it easierfor carriers to do that
themselves, or for our customersto do that themselves, because

(01:09:51):
I think the future in ourindustry is more self-serve.
Our people will always be here,but I think shippers want to do
more by themselves, and Iequate that to like banking.
You know, I used to have to godown to a JP Morgan branch to do
just about everything and now Ican do so much more on my phone

(01:10:12):
and I'm empowered to do that,and I don't want to have to call
my banker to be like hey, canyou move the funds here so I can
invest here?
I want to do it all by myselfand that does the need.
I don't need the bank, but itmeans that I am just empowered
to be so much more nimble whereI actually need and I rely on
that tool so much more.

(01:10:33):
So, from our perspective, Ithink the future is going to be
a lot more self-serve.
I think that you know now, ifit's, you know, 70% us doing
work for our customers, I thinkthey get down to 15% where you
know they want to be able to buya tool, have all their carriers
send their invoicing in, andit's really easy to create cost

(01:10:54):
allocation rules, to get theanalytics to become smarter, to
configure all of the complexityof audit rules, and that's where
we're doubling down.
And it's a lot of having toteach people of yeah, it works
great today.
Yeah, we have great marginstoday works great today.
Yeah, we have great marginstoday.
But just because we're doinggreat today in this environment

(01:11:15):
doesn't mean that we're going tohave a chance of winning in the
future.
Like, we need to think aboutwhat that future is going to be
and then say how are we alsowinning then?
And yeah, we'll look a lotdifferent, but you've got to
innovate.
But you've got to innovate.
Is there any?

fear or risk, that I 100% align with what you
just said and appreciate it andI think it makes a ton of sense.
But I'm curious if there's anyfear or risk of margin erosion
or the ability, or you lose theability to charge maybe as much
as you do because you're givingthem tools to do a lot more
themselves.

(01:11:51):
So like what used to be a verykind of um exhaustive process of
configuring carriers that youhad to do for them.
Now, okay, you've created avery innovative tool that allows
you to take some of your workout of it and them to do it a
little easier themselves andthen does.
That is the risk.
Like they say, like okay, well,I shouldn't have to pay you so
much if, if I can you know,because do you get what I'm

(01:12:14):
talking about?

and it's yeah, I I would assume that our pricing
goes down.
I mean, we'll always have ahigh margin because we'll always
be able to show our wine value,and as long as we can do that,
then I do expect that our costswould go down.
I mean, they're not to like godown in half, but if we don't
need to have as many people, whynot reduce them?

(01:12:36):
And that would just make usmore competitive.
And we're really lucky as anorganization.
If you look at almost all of ourcompetitors, they're all owned
by private equity firms andtheir their focus is how do I
reduce cost and increase EBITDA,which is reduced investment in
the technology, so we don't haveoutside investors that control

(01:13:01):
us.
So we're still family owned.
We still have complete control,which means we can build for
the future and we can make bigrisks now and we're not up
against people who are trying tocut costs.
We will lose margin in theshort term hiring data
scientists and doing what needsto happen, because we are

(01:13:22):
confident that in the long run,this will be the more viable
business option and we'll alwayshave both.
I'm sure that there will besome people who just need the
people.
They don't want to insource it,but we want to be able to
accommodate both.

Well said.
So as we start to wrap up here,um, I want to kind of
understand how you think aboutthe future and you know what in
your mind is.
What does intelligent auditlook like in five years?

Different than what it looks like today, for
sure, you know, I don't know.
I don't know what it looks like.
I know what I'm hoping, I knowwhat the technology looks like
directionally, but I reallythink that AI is going to be
pretty transformative in termsof what we're doing as an
organization.
That being said, I mean we'll,I'm sure, still be a Freighton

(01:14:17):
Analytics company.
We're going to exist to be ableto help our customers take mass
amounts of data, reduce thecomplexity and help them be able
to operate efficiently and besmarter about it.
And, you know, hopefully, wehave a great team the people who
want to show up.
Every day, they're beingchallenged, they're forced to

(01:14:37):
innovate, they're, you know,overcoming tough challenges.
I want our most junior peopleto become our best leaders and I
want to make sure that we'regiving them the platform to do
that.
And, like you know, there's aroller coaster, so there will be
ups, there will be downs, butI'm here for it and that's life.

How about for you personally, Five years from now
?
What will be different?
How will you evolve or changeas a person?

It's a great question.
I got young kids, so they'renine, seven and five, so I think
I'll still be in New York and Iam really lucky that I have a
team now where you know, when Ifirst started doing this, I was
on the road every day, differentplace every day, when COVID hit
and I had to be at home and atthat point I had a

(01:15:32):
three-year-old and aone-year-old.
I remember my son saying to mewhy are you home?
And because I was home like thethird day in a row and I was
like, hey, kid, like I live here, this is my house, and he just
wasn't used to seeing me.
So you know, it's all aboutbalance.
I, you know I want to be doingmore um with them, but I but I'm

(01:15:54):
very lucky now I love to playtennis.
Um, I don't have the bald headissue, so that's good, but I
also don't have the issue.
People care to see my footages,my footage.
So maybe people will be tryingto get my footage in a few years
, but I don't know.
I'm here for it.
Whatever it is, hopefully I'mbeing challenged, hopefully I'm

(01:16:16):
having fun, hopefully thebusiness is growing and doing
well, but whatever it is, it'llbe fun.

Well, listen as we come up on time here.
I just want to thank you.
This has been a reallyexceptional interview.
I think you know I've known youfor an hour and 15 minutes, but
I've really enjoyed ourconversation and I think our
audience will too.
It's funny because I, like,came into this with the intent
of diving deep into freightaudit and pay, because it's just

(01:16:46):
not something I've spent a tonof time on and my audience
hasn't heard a ton about it, andthis was more like a
masterclass on business.
I really think it was, and so Ijust want to say thank you.
I'm sure my audience willappreciate it and, I guess, any
parting thoughts for ouraudience before we wrap it up.

It's been an honor watching you and your
career.
I mentioned this before we wenton camera, but the industry
that we are in you know you'revery highly respected.
You've done so much.
So many investors have alwayskind of proven you as the one
that everyone wants to emulate.

(01:17:25):
So I know that there might notbe the best situation now, but
you've done exceptionally welland I think everyone is excited
to see what's next for you.
So thank you for inviting me on.
It's been an honor, it's been agreat time and I can't wait to
talk to you next.

Thank you, I appreciate that very much.

And we'll see how much hair you have then
Hopefully none To our audience.

We'll see you next week, Thank you.
Hopefully none.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. #71: Hannah Testani, CEO, Intelligent Audit

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

All Episodes

Ep. #71: Hannah Testani, CEO, Intelligent Audit

Stuff You Should Know