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FedEx CEO named to President’s Export Council

Subramaniam one of 25 members to sit on council

Raj Subramaniam (right) last year succeeded Fred Smith as FedEx CEO. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

President Joe Biden has named 25 members, including FedEx Corp. President and CEO Raj Subramaniam, to sit on the President’s Export Council, a committee that offers insight into the ways that government policies impact U.S. trade performance.

The announcement, made on Tuesday, adds Subramaniam, who became FedEx’s (NYSE: FDX) CEO last year, to a list of business leaders who will offer feedback on how Biden’s trade policies are affecting businesses across multiple U.S. sectors, including transportation.

Subramaniam accepted Biden’s offer even though he is still adjusting to the new role at FedEx, succeeding founder Frederick W. Smith, and is spearheading arguably the most dramatic operational changes in FedEx’s 52-year history.

Under Subramaniam’s leadership, the company is overhauling operational models that had been in place since its founding, and has pledged to cut more than $5 billion in costs by its 2025 fiscal year, which begins June 1, 2024.


Washington businessman Mark D. Ein will chair the Export Council, according to published reports. Ein currently serves as chairman of Lindblad Expeditions and Kastle Systems. Rosalind Brewer, who will serve as the council’s vice chair, had been COO and group president of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and CEO of big-box retailer Sam’s Club, a unit of Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT).

The Export Council features expertise from labor, real estate, national security and law, and leaders of Fortune 200 companies. Biden has previously reached out to some of the executives for advice on the state of the economy, according to published reports.

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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.