• TPM24
  • March 3-6, 2024 | Long Beach Convention Center

Peter Tirschwell

S&P Global

Vice President-Shipping Intelligence

Peter Tirschwell is Vice President within the Maritime & Trade business of S&P Global Market Intelligence, which provides a range of data and analytics and intelligence capabilities. In his role he is responsible for all content appearing in JOC publications, websites, events and other products. A career shipping and transportation journalist, Peter was a reporter, West Coast Bureau Chief, Editor in Chief and Publisher of The Journal of Commerce in his 25+ year career with the company beginning in 1992. He is the founder and chairman of the annual TPM conference in Long Beach, Calif., the world's largest container shipping conference. He writes a regular column in The Journal of Commerce print magazine and website covering a range of international logistics topics. He speaks regularly at industry events and has been quoted in mainstream business media including the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and The New York Times. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.

Sessions With Peter Tirschwell

Monday, 27 February

  • 08:30am - 08:50am (PST) / 27/feb/2023 04:30 pm - 27/feb/2023 04:50 pm

    Welcome Remarks
  • 11:30am - 12:15pm (PST) / 27/feb/2023 07:30 pm - 27/feb/2023 08:15 pm

    TPM CEO Series: A Conversation With Mediterranean Shipping Co.'s Søren Toft

    Søren Toft joined MSC in December 2020 as CEO of what is now the world’s largest container shipping company, following a distinguished 25-year career at Maersk where he rose to executive vice [resident and chief operating officer. He is the first person outside the Aponte family to hold such a leadership role at MSC. In addition to becoming the world’s largest carrier in early 2022, MSC has been growing its fleet and has built the largest order book of any major carrier, at 39 percent of its current fleet, according to Alphaliner. MSC also has been diversifying this year, launching an air cargo offering for the first time and expanding its rail transportation and towage businesses, particularly within Europe. Meanwhile, the company is approaching completion of its acquisition of Bollore Africa Logistics. In North America, it is steadily building its presence and investment in terminal operations via majority-owned Terminal Investment Ltd. since acquiring a majority stake in TTI at Long Beach in 2017. Most recently, it is partnering to build a new terminal at Baltimore that would double the port’s throughput. MSC is also an active bidder to operate a new terminal at the Port of Montreal. In this in-depth conversation with Soren at TPM23, we will have the opportunity to discuss with him all of these developments and others. MSC has been increasingly active in tackling climate change, committing to deploy its first net-zero-carbon-emissions-capable ship by 2030 and achieving complete net decarbonization by 2050.

Tuesday, 28 February

  • 08:30am - 08:45am (PST) / 28/feb/2023 04:30 pm - 28/feb/2023 04:45 pm

    Welcome Remarks and Log-Net E-Commerce Excellence Award
    LOG-NET's Electronic Commerce Excellence award has consistently reinforced the partnership between carriers and their customers and the fundamental importance of data quality in that relationship. Digitization has made data management and data quality foundational elements of successful global supply chains. Whether the data is coming from smartphones, web forms, Internet of Things devices, AI, or EDI, it needs to be complete, timely, and accurate. Data quality is critical, considering the consumers of this information now range from import and logistics specialists to business intelligence and machine learning platforms that demand ever more granular information. Since 2003, LOG-NET CEO John Motley has presented the LOG-NET E-Commerce Excellence award at TPM. The award recognizes the efforts of the international carrier community and its outstanding daily performance with LOG-NET's Trading Partner and Data Quality teams. 

    Award Presenter: John Motley, CEO, LOG-NET

  • 01:30pm - 02:00pm (PST) / 28/feb/2023 09:30 pm - 28/feb/2023 10:00 pm

    TPM23 CEO Series: A Conversation With DCLI CEO Bill Shea
    One would be challenged to identify a US transportation executive with a longer, more successful track record than Bill Shea, the CEO of DCLI, the largest provider of chassis to the US transportation market. A decades-long streak of deal-making and business building has left Bill in a position to offer unique perspective on the current environment and where the industry is headed. He was the key driver behind the carve-out of DCLI from Maersk in 2012, thereby playing a key role in facilitating the mass exit of ocean carriers from the chassis business. DCLI owns approximately 285,000 chassis and expanded into the domestic chassis market in 2018 with the acquisition of TRAC Intermodal’s fleet of approximately 72,000 53-foot domestic chassis. Bill was also the thought leader behind the 2015 creation of the Pool of Pools, the gray daily-use chassis pool that operates at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. He also led DCLI’s acquisitions of REZ-1 and IAS and their further development into Blume Global, a leading technology company providing asset management and logistics software services to railroads, ocean carriers, logistics companies, motor carriers, and BCOs. In this conversation with Peter Tirschwell, Bill will offer his thoughts about where the industry is headed in terms of railroads, intermodal, chassis, ocean carriers, ports, and technology.
  • 03:15pm - 04:00pm (PST) / 28/feb/2023 11:15 pm - 01/mar/2023 12:00 am

    How to Improve Container Flow Through Terminals
    If the pandemic experience taught us anything about supply chains, it's the urgency of maintaining container flow through ports and terminals. The logic is simple: Too many containers — loaded or empty — sitting on terminal grounds slows productivity at the berth and the gate. As data clearly showed, lower productivity results in ships remaining at berth for longer, forcing incoming ships — and all of their cargo — to wait at anchor. Transit times, lead times, and inventory-carrying costs all increase as a direct result, while shippers' revenue and responsiveness to customer demands go down. Many factors work against flow: empties not being removed quickly, excessive free time within service contracts, and shippers and truckers' slow transition to 24/7 operations, to mention but a few. Unprecedented pressure obviously was placed on the system beginning in late 2020, but future shocks are a certainty, and lessons need to be learned. This session will address what steps need to be taken to ensure consistent flow going forward. 

Wednesday, 1 March

  • 09:50am - 10:30am (PST) / 01/mar/2023 05:50 pm - 01/mar/2023 06:30 pm

    Building Strategic Shipper-Carrier Relationships Amid Volatility: A Pure Fishing Case Study
    After a pandemic experience that wasn’t easy on shipper-carrier relationships, the reality remains that both sides need each other and in many cases are still capable of viewing each other as partners. What are the elements of a true win-win shipper-carrier relationship that can be seen by the participants as a strategic partnership? With all of the variability in the marketplace over the past nearly three years, what currently defines a shipper or a carrier of choice? One element is mutual accessibility to stakeholders. Another is honest communication and willingness of both sides to air “dirty laundry” to ensure transparency and to acknowledge that things may get rough from time to time. When the partnership goes through a rough patch — as all do at some point — it’s critical to keep in mind what the core components of the successful partnership truly are. This case study will examine the elements that make up a genuine partnership between shippers and carriers, while acknowledging the realities of a volatile business environment.
  • 12:30pm - 02:00pm (PST) / 01/mar/2023 08:30 pm - 01/mar/2023 10:00 pm

    A Conversation with Bryn Heimbeck, Veteran Ocean Carrier and Logistics Technology Executive

    Bryn Heimbeck is an experienced veteran and thought leader within ocean container shipping and logistics, having worked at OOCL and over the past 26 years having founded and built Trade Tech into a leading cloud-based integrated logistics computing technology company. The company has steadily grown into an organization with 11 offices in 7 countries serving over 400 customers worldwide. In this conversation with S&P Global Vice President and TPM Chairman Peter Tirschwell, Bryn will offer his perspectives on the state of the market coming out of Covid and what transformational changes lie ahead for the industry in the coming years.

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