• TPM25
  • March 2-5, 2025 | Long Beach Convention Center

Yao Zhang

Castlery

Vice President-Operations

Yao Zhang leads supply chain management at Castlery, a fast-growing direct-to-consumer furniture retailer that designs and produces stylish, modern furniture. Yao spearheaded Castlery's successful foray into the US market in late 2019, catalyzing exponential growth and propelling the company to become Top 30 Home Furnishing website in the US in 2023. Prior to Castlery, Yao was building fulfillment capabilities for RedMart, Singapore's largest online grocer. His leadership was pivotal in driving RedMart a remarkable 100-fold growth within five years. Yao graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in supply chain management.

Sessions With Yao Zhang

Tuesday, 4 March

  • 03:05pm - 03:45pm (PST) / 04/mar/2025 11:05 pm - 04/mar/2025 11:45 pm

    Index-Linked Contracts: Time for Another Look?
    Index-linked contracts came up in conversation repeatedly in 2024 and it’s not hard to understand why. After a year of extreme rate volatility, linking rates within contracts to a floating index accomplishes several things simultaneously: It ensures shippers’ rates don’t fall out of step with the market, risking rolling of cargo, and avoids the need to renegotiate contracts midstream as often occurs in volatile years. Yet, despite the advantages in risk mitigation and volatility in recent years, the concept has struggled to gain traction. That’s due in part to the legal heavy lifting: Shippers often don’t want to use carrier or forwarder terms and conditions, but struggle to get the other side to accept their own. Then both sides need to agree on which index to use. Finally, for any party using an index-linked contract, additional value would come from being able to hedge the chosen index using exchange-traded derivative contracts, yet such markets, though they exist, are criticized for limited liquidity and transparency and are not used by carriers, remaining largely the domain of day traders. Still, some very much believe in the concept. NYSHEX said it plans to introduce a new set of indices in 2025 to be “freely available for all carriers, shippers and NVOCCs to use for their index-linked contracts.” This session will review how and when index-linked contracts can be beneficial to shippers when used properly, and what roadblocks shippers are likely to encounter.
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