Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Company Overview
XPO, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, is a leading provider of freight transportation services, with company-specific avenues for value creation. We use our proprietary technology to move goods efficiently through our customers’ supply chains in North America and Europe. As of December 31, 2023, we had approximately 38,000 employees and 596 locations in 17 countries serving approximately 52,000 customers.
Our company has two reportable segments: North American Less-Than-Truckload (“LTL”), the largest component of our business, and European Transportation.
North American LTL Segment
LTL in North America is a bedrock industry providing a critical service to the economy, with favorable pricing dynamics and an established competitive landscape. XPO is one of the largest LTL networks in North America, with approximately 8% share of the U.S. market, estimated to be $59 billion in 2022.
We provide approximately 31,000 shippers in North America with critical geographic density and day-definite domestic and cross-border services to approximately 99% of U.S. zip codes, as well as Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. Our capacity and reach give us the ability to manage large freight volumes efficiently and balance our network to leverage fixed costs. For the full year 2023, our customer-focused organization of truck drivers, service center teams and sales professionals worked together to move approximately 18 billion pounds of freight through our network to its destinations.
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Importantly, our LTL business historically has generated a high return on invested capital and robust free cash flow. This supports our ongoing investments in our people, network capacity and proprietary technology. We manage the business to specific objectives, such as high customer service scores for on-time delivery and damage-free freight, the optimal sourcing of linehaul transportation, and the expansion of our service center footprint in strategic markets with long-term demand. Since implementing our LTL 2.0 growth plan in the fourth quarter of 2021, we have added 551 net new doors to our network through organic expansion. In December 2023, we completed the acquisition of 28 service centers previously operated by Yellow Corporation (the “Yellow Asset Acquisition”), representing approximately 2,900 doors.
Additionally, in 2023, we continued to advance a host of initiatives that are specific to XPO and largely independent of the macroeconomic environment. We produced over 6,400 trailers at our in-house trailer manufacturing facility, surpassing our goal of more than 6,000 trailers, and continued to invest in training drivers at our 130 commercial driver schools. Our in-house trailer manufacturing and driver schools are examples of self-reliant capabilities that are competitively advantageous to us, particularly when industry conditions make it difficult to source equipment or drivers.
Specific to our technology, we believe that we have a large opportunity to drive further growth and profitability in our LTL network through innovation. For more information, see “Proprietary Technology and Intellectual Property” below.
European Transportation Segment
XPO has a unique pan-European transportation platform with leading positions in key geographies: We are the #1 full truckload broker and the #1 pallet network (LTL) provider in France; the #1 full truckload broker and the #1 LTL provider in Iberia (Spain and Portugal); and a top-tier dedicated truckload provider in the U.K., where we also have the largest single-owner LTL network. We serve an extensive base of customers within the consumer, trade and industrial markets, including many sector leaders that have long-tenured relationships with us.
Our range of freight services in Europe encompasses dedicated truckload, LTL, truck brokerage, managed transportation, last mile, freight forwarding and, increasingly, multimodal solutions, such as road-rail and road-short sea combinations that we tailor to customer needs. Our operators use our proprietary technology to manage these services within our digital ecosystem in Europe.
Strategic Developments
2023 was the first full year that XPO operated solely as an asset-based LTL service provider in North America, following the completion of three key parts of our strategic plan, as previously announced: the spin-offs of RXO, Inc. and GXO Logistics, Inc. in November 2022 and August 2021, respectively; and the sale of our North American intermodal operation in March 2022.
On December 20, 2023, we acquired 28 LTL service centers in the U.S. previously operated by Yellow Corporation. Under the transaction, we purchased 26 of the service centers and assumed existing leases for the other two locations. This is a strategic acquisition of assets that aligns with our commitment to invest in expanding our LTL network capacity.
Our Board of Directors has previously authorized the divestiture of our European business. There can be no assurance that the divestiture will occur, or of the terms or timing of a transaction.
Proprietary Technology and Intellectual Property
One of the ways in which we deliver superior service to our customers is by empowering our employees with technology. Our industry is evolving, and customers want to de-risk their supply chains by forming relationships with reliable service providers that have invested in innovation.
We have built a highly scalable ecosystem on the cloud that deploys our software consistently across our operating footprint. In our North American LTL business, the caliber of our technology is mission-critical to our success; it optimizes linehaul, pickup-and-delivery and pricing — the main components of the service we provide. An LTL
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network of our scale has hundreds of thousands of activities underway at any given time, all managed on our technology. In 2023, we moved approximately 18 billion pounds of freight 803 million miles, including moving linehaul freight an average of 2.6 million miles a day.
With intelligent route-building, we can reduce empty miles in our linehaul network, improve load factor and mitigate cargo damage. Our proprietary bypass models make recommendations to enhance trailer utilization, assimilating massive amounts of data and taking volume, density, and freight dimensions into account. We use our real-time visualization tools to reduce costs with pickups and deliveries and developed a robust pricing platform for contractual account management and automated, dynamic pricing for local accounts.
XPO Smart® is our proprietary suite of intelligent tools and analytics that self-adjusts site by site to drive productivity across our LTL service center operations. Our software incorporates dynamic data science, predictive analytics and machine learning to aid our managers in workflow decision-making. We use XPO Smart® to improve our labor in a safe, disciplined and cost-effective manner.
XPO Connect® is our fully automated, cloud-based digital platform for transportation procurement used by our European operations — it encompasses our Freight Optimizer system, shipper interface, pricing engine, carrier interface and our Drive XPO® mobile app for carriers. When our customers in Europe have freight to move, XPO Connect® tracks the freight movement from end-to-end with the optimal transportation provider, giving us a key lever to earn customer loyalty and share.
The “XPO” trademark, service mark, and trade name are essential to our business and critical to our success. XPO, XPO Smart, XPO Connect, and Your Freight First, among others, are trademarks and service marks for which registrations, or applications for registration, are on file, as applicable with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We believe these trademarks, service marks, and trade names are important components of our marketing strategy, and seek to protect those proprietary marks and trade names relevant to our business. For some marks, we have also registered or are pursuing registration in certain other countries.
Environmental Information
Our innovation strategy is focused on providing highly efficient supply chain services that use automation and data science to create value for our shareholders and customers. We use our proprietary technology to provide reliable freight transportation services and make the most of the resources within our company.
For many of our customers, the transportation needs of their business account for a significant portion of their CO2 footprint. Our technology can coordinate the movement of customer goods in ways that are greener, safer, more efficient and more cost-effective. Some of our key priorities in this regard are to optimize the utilization of truck and trailer capacity, invest in modern, fuel-efficient fleet, streamline local and linehaul freight flows and train our drivers in eco-friendly techniques.
Transportation Fleet
Our ongoing fleet initiatives companywide include modernizing our tractors and trailers; deploying cleaner fuels where practical, such as natural gas, biodiesel, biogas and electricity; expanding our use of data and analytics to improve the efficiency of routing, loading and handling freight; and exploring the commercial viability of alternative vehicles that have a lower environmental impact.
COVID-19 created supply chain challenges that temporarily disrupted the retirement of older LTL tractors industrywide. Now, new equipment is more readily available, and we will continue to invest in tractors with 15-liter engines and automatic transmissions that improve reliability and fuel economy, while lowering emissions and extending engine life. In 2024, we intend to purchase approximately 2,000 new LTL tractors for our North American LTL network.
In Europe, our diesel road fleet is over 97% compliant with Euro 6 standards, and we have a natural gas-powered fleet of more than 230 trucks serving customers in France, the U.K., Spain and Portugal. Additionally, we have environmentally-sound fleet initiatives ranging from government-approved mega-trucks in Spain, which can
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transport more freight with fewer trips, to fully electric vehicles for certain “last mile” home deliveries. We are also testing the use of duo-trailer vehicles that have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions, compared with using traditional trucks for the same freight.
Electric vehicles show promise in commercial transport applications as an alternative to diesel, particularly in urban areas. Our fleet experts are working with manufacturers of larger electric trucks, and we have completed two pilot programs to advance our understanding of the commercial viability of these vehicles. In the U.S., we have placed an order for six all-electric trucks to deploy in California, and we announced an agreement to purchase more than 100 all-electric trucks in France supported by the ongoing installation of more than 80 electric charging stations at our facilities.
Facilities
Our expertise in the circular economy helps us to continually improve the eco-profile of our facilities. We have ongoing initiatives underway to install LED lighting in our buildings, reuse pallets, right-size packaging and incorporate other environmentally friendly practices in our operations. We also reduce waste by recycling or reusing materials where feasible.
Our Strategy
XPO’s strategy is to help customers move goods efficiently through their supply chains by using our transportation capacity, organizational strengths and proprietary technology. We deliver value in the form of technological innovations, process efficiencies, cost efficiencies and reliable outcomes. Our services are both highly responsive to customer goals, such as mitigating environmental impacts over time, and proactive in identifying potential improvements. Most important, we have instilled a culture that defines success as mutually beneficial results for our company and our customers.
In late 2021, we launched our LTL 2.0 growth plan in North America to focus on four pillars of value creation: provide best-in-class customer service, invest in adding capacity and enhancing our network for the long term, accelerate yield growth, and drive cost efficiencies. We made considerable progress with these initiatives in 2022 and again in 2023, and we see significant potential for further improvements with all four pillars of our plan:
• Provide best-in-class service . We are committed to building a premium service organization by aligning employee incentives and accountability with tangible quality-of-service results for our customers. In 2023, we improved our damage claims ratio to 0.3% in the fourth quarter, from 1.2% at the launch of LTL 2.0, and we improved our full year on-time performance by 8% year-over-year. We support our team with ongoing investments in employee training programs, state-of-the-art equipment and technological enhancements to elevate service quality and productivity.
• Invest in network capacity for the long-term . We are expanding our linehaul fleet with fuel-efficient tractors and in-house trailer manufacturing and adding new doors in capacity-constrained markets. Since the launch of LTL 2.0, we have added more than 11,000 trailers — including over 6,400 in 2023 — as well as more than 2,400 tractors and 551 net new doors through organic expansion. Our average tractor age at year-end 2023 was 5.0 years, compared with 5.9 years at year-end 2022. Together, these investments enable us to transport more freight while improving service and maintaining strong network fluidity. Excluding the Yellow Asset Acquisition, more than two-thirds of our capital expenditures in 2023 were deployed to increase the capacity of our fleet.
• Accelerate yield growth . We are intently focused on customer service excellence as our most powerful lever to grow yield, which we measure as gross revenue per hundredweight, excluding fuel surcharges. Our service improvements and, to a lesser extent, the expansion of both our accessorial services and local customer base, accelerated yield growth throughout the year, driving full year growth of 4.9%, compared with 2022.
• Drive cost efficiencies . We aim to improve cost efficiency by optimizing our purchased transportation, variable costs and overhead. In the fourth quarter of 2023, we lowered our cost for third-party purchased
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transportation by reducing the number of outsourced linehaul miles as a percentage of total linehaul miles to 19.6%, compared with 22.7% at the start of LTL 2.0, and by negotiating lower contract rates for the miles we outsourced. We expect that the investments we are making in expanding capacity will enhance our network fluidity and drive productivity gains, thereby accelerating cost efficiencies.
Customers and Markets
We provide services to approximately 52,000 customers ranging in size from small, entrepreneurial businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Our customers span every major industry, giving us a presence in verticals that are bedrocks of the economy, such as industrial and manufacturing, retail and e-commerce, food and beverage, and consumer goods. Our revenue is derived primarily from the United States and Europe — in 2023, we generated approximately 59% of our revenue in the U.S., 17% in France, 12% in the U.K. and 11% in the rest of Europe.
The diversification of our customer base minimizes concentration risk. Globally, the combined revenue from our top five customers in 2023 accounted for approximately 7% of revenue, with our largest customer accounting for less than 2% of revenue. In North American LTL, the combined revenue from our top five customers accounted for approximately 8% of segment revenue in 2023, with our largest customer accounting for less than 3% of revenue.
Competition
We operate in highly competitive marketplaces where customers can choose from among many different transportation providers with distinct value propositions. We compete on quality and reliability of service, scope and scale of operations, technological capabilities, expertise and price.
Our competitors in North America include local, regional and national LTL carriers that offer the same services we provide, such as Old Dominion Freight Line and Saia. Our competitors in Europe vary based on the types of services provided; for example, LTL transportation versus dedicated or brokered full truckload transportation or multimodal solutions. Due to the competitive nature of our marketplaces, we strive daily to strengthen existing business relationships and forge new relationships.
In 2023, the market environment was significantly hampered by the ongoing freight recession, which continues to impact industry volumes. In the third quarter of 2023, Yellow Corporation, a national LTL provider in North America, ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy. This exit of a major competitor temporarily disrupted supply and demand in the industry and diverted more freight to other large LTL carriers, including XPO.
We believe that we have positioned XPO to benefit from secular trends in the retail and industrial economies, such as the shipper trend toward outsourcing freight transportation in all parts of the cycle, and the trend in some sectors toward more frequent shipments of freight volumes that are smaller than a full truckload, and that our ongoing expansion of capacity will facilitate the onboarding of significantly more freight when market conditions improve. Our ability to continually invest in the business is a compelling competitive strength of XPO, because we can increasingly provide our customers with the reliable capacity, technological solutions and problem-solving expertise they value.
Regulation
Our operations are regulated and licensed by various governmental agencies in the U.S. and in other countries where we conduct business. These regulations impact us directly and also indirectly when they regulate third-party transportation providers we arrange and/or contract with to transport freight for our customers.
Regulations Affecting Motor Carriers and Transportation Brokers. In the U.S., our subsidiaries that operate as motor carriers and freight transportation brokers are licensed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) of the U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”). Our motor carrier subsidiaries and the third-party motor carriers we contract with in the U.S. must comply with the safety and fitness regulations of the DOT, including those related to, without limitation, controlled substances and alcohol, hours-of-service compliance, vehicle maintenance, hazardous materials compliance, driver fitness, unsafe driving, and minimum insurance requirements, as well as the Compliance Safety Accountability (“CSA”) program, which uses a Safety Measurement
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System (“SMS”) to rank motor carriers on seven categories of safety-related data, known as Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (“BASICs”).
Other federal and state agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”), also regulate our equipment, operations, and cargo. In 2021, CARB adopted more stringent standards to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from heavy-duty trucks and also adopted regulations to accelerate large-scale transition in California to zero-emission medium and heavy-duty trucks, including trucks of a type used in our operations in California. While CARB’s Advanced Clean Truck regulation and proposed Advanced Clean Fleets regulation may permit companies to seek exemptions or relief, there are no assurances that relief from either regulation will be obtained and there are virtually no zero-emissions vehicles currently widely available that are suitable replacements for current technology used in less-than-truckload operations. We are also subject to a variety of vehicle registration and licensing requirements in certain states and local jurisdictions where we operate, as are the third-party transportation providers with which we contract. In foreign jurisdictions where we operate, our operations are regulated by the appropriate governmental authorities. We may become subject to new or more restrictive regulations relating to emissions, drivers’ hours-of-service, onboard reporting of operations, cargo security and other matters affecting safety or operating methods. Regulatory requirements, and changes to the regulatory environment, may affect our business or the economics of the transportation industry by requiring changes in operating practices that could impact the demand for, and increase the costs of providing, transportation services.
Environmental Regulations. We are subject to various environmental laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where we operate. In the U.S., these laws and regulations deal with the hauling, handling and disposal of hazardous materials, emissions from vehicles, engine-idling, storage tanks (fuel, oil, antifreeze and other products) and related fuel spillage and seepage, discharge and retention of storm water, and other environmental matters. We may be responsible for the cleanup of any spill or other incident involving hazardous materials caused by our business. In the past, we have been responsible for the cost to clean up diesel fuel spills caused by traffic accidents or other events, and none of these incidents materially affected our business or operations. We generally transport only hazardous materials rated as low-to-medium-risk, and only a small percentage of our total loads contain hazardous materials. We do not know of any existing environmental law, regulation or condition that reasonably would be expected to have a material adverse effect on our business, capital expenditures, or operating results. However, future changes to environmental laws or regulations may impact our operations and could result in increased costs.
Other Regulations. We are subject to a variety of other U.S. and foreign laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other anti-bribery and anti-corruption statutes, and trade compliance laws. We are also subject to state and U.S. federal laws and regulations addressing some types of cargo transported or stored by our subsidiaries, or transported pursuant to a government contract or subcontract. Violations or noncompliance could result in significant fines from governmental authorities and negatively impact our reputation, operations and financial condition.
Risk Management and Insurance
We maintain insurance for commercial automobile and trucker’s liability, commercial general liability, cargo legal liability, workers’ compensation and employers’ liability, umbrella and excess liability, cyber risk, and property coverage with coverage limits, deductibles and self-insured retention levels that we believe are reasonable given the varying historical frequency, severity and timing of claims.
Seasonality
Our revenue and profitability in the first and fourth quarters of the calendar year are typically lower than in the second and third quarters. The productivity of our transportation fleet historically decreases during the winter season, as it does for the industry in general, because inclement weather impedes operations. Additionally, we believe that many of our customers historically ship less freight in the first quarter, due in part to lower post-holiday demand for their products. It is not possible to reliably predict whether our historical revenue and profitability trends will continue to occur in future periods.
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Human Capital Management
As a people-driven company with a strong customer service culture, our ability to be an employer of choice and a business partner of choice are intertwined. We have an unwavering commitment to a workplace culture that places a premium on safety, as well as professional growth, engagement and competitive total compensation and benefits for our employees. These and many other aspects of our culture help us attract and retain a high caliber of talent to our organization.
Our Chief Human Resources Officer (“CHRO”) has primary responsibility for our human capital management strategy, including recruiting, developing, engaging and retaining employees who share our work ethic and values. The CHRO is also responsible for the design of employee compensation and benefits programs.
In addition to our employment culture, our success relies on our company’s robust governance structure, our Code of Business Ethics and the importance we place on being a good corporate citizen. Ultimately, our decisions and actions are guided by XPO’s values — overachieve for customers, be safe, be accountable, always improve, respect each other and be world-class in every way.
Employee Base Profile
Based on December 31, 2023 data, XPO has locations in 17 countries, with approximately 23,300 employees in North America, 14,300 employees in Europe and 400 employees in Asia, supplemented by approximately 2,900 temporary workers.
By geography, approximately 61% of our global employees are based in North America, 38% in Europe and 1% in Asia. By job description, approximately 65% of our employees work as drivers and dockworkers, 23% as operations and facility workers, and the remainder in support roles and other positions. In North America, approximately 85% of our employees have hourly roles and 15% have salaried positions.
By gender, approximately 14% of our global employees are women — this increases to 37% when excluding drivers, dockworkers and technicians. In North America, 52% of our professional management positions are held by women, representing an increase of 2.9% from 2022.
We are continuing to make steady progress on being an employer of choice for employees of all races and backgrounds. In 2023, 56% of our newly hired U.S. employees self-identified as ethnically or racially diverse, representing a 1.4% increase from 2022, and approximately 43% of our total U.S. employee population was ethnically or racially diverse. This includes 20% of U.S. employees who self-identified as Black or African American, which is eight percentage points higher than the U.S. population, based on the most recent census data.
Additionally, we continued to expand our pipeline of women and ethnically or racially diverse employees at the middle and senior management levels (manager or supervisor and above). In our total workforce, the absolute number of females in managerial positions grew by 20% cumulatively from 2021 to 2023; the absolute number of ethnically or racially diverse employees in managerial positions grew by 20% cumulatively in the same period. Ethnically or racially diverse employees earned 34% of managerial promotions in 2023, up significantly from 9% in 2022, and held 17% of executive leadership positions (vice president and above), 28% of professional management roles and 31% of operational management roles.
XPO is committed to being transparent about the composition of our workforce. We have publicly disclosed our 2023 EEO-1 report on our website, and expect to publish our 2024 EEO-1 report in the second quarter of this year.
As of December 31, 2023, none of our employees were represented by a union in the U.S. and 85% of our employees in Europe were covered by a collective bargaining or similar agreement, consistent with our December 31, 2022 position.
Throughout 2023, we continued to make substantial investments in direct employee communications, conducting both quarterly and annual engagement surveys and holding approximately 8,000 roundtable discussions and safety and engagement committee meetings across our North American LTL network. The employee feedback we receive is often instrumental in driving new initiatives that strengthen our culture of respect, appreciation and opportunity.
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Health and Safety
The physical and emotional safety of our employees is paramount, and we have numerous protocols in place to ensure a safe work environment. We developed our Road to Zero program to decrease occupational injuries and illnesses through education, mentoring, communication and on-the-job training that instills awareness and reduces risk. These same priorities are emphasized when we train new commercial driver candidates at our inhouse, LTL driver training schools nationwide, where veteran XPO driver-instructors reinforce our safety culture.
As part of Road to Zero, we track accident-free miles and recognize XPO drivers who have achieved million-mile safety milestones. As of December 31, 2023, more than 2,475 of our LTL drivers have achieved a safety designation of at least one million accident-free miles, with 194 of these drivers meeting this threshold in 2023. In 2022, we announced a landmark achievement by a driver on our team — our first driver to reach four million accident-free miles, which is the highest driver safety record in XPO’s history.
In addition to physical well-being, we consider emotional well-being to be an important part of workplace safety. Our Code of Business Ethics mandates zero tolerance of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, bullying and other unacceptable behaviors. We want our employees to feel welcome at work, and we give them multiple channels to report any incidents. This includes an open-door policy that encourages employees to speak with any supervisor, manager or member of the HR team, and our EthicsPoint hotline and website for reporting incidents anonymously.
We are diligent about evaluating new programs as they become available to support the physical and mental health of our employees. In our open enrollment period for 2024 benefit plans, we introduced new options for virtual physical therapy and “physicals on the go,” and enhanced our employee assistance programs specifically for mental health.
Employee Engagement and Development
XPO executive leadership regularly solicits feedback from employees to gauge our progress, assess satisfaction and encourage constructive suggestions. Each quarter, we ask our “wired” employees to submit their input through an anonymous online satisfaction survey. In the U.S., we also conduct an annual satisfaction survey of our “non-wired” frontline employees, and hold regular roundtables and town halls. Based on employee feedback, we develop action plans at the business unit and facility levels to implement targeted improvements.
In 2023, our annual engagement survey yielded a participation rate of over 80%, and employee satisfaction scores rose to their highest historical levels. XPO was named a 2023 “Top Company for Women to Work for in Transportation” by the Women in Trucking Association, a 2024 “Top 25 Veteran Employer” by military.com, and one of “America’s Best Large Employers” by Forbes for the third time.
Additionally, we foster career development at all levels to recruit and retain high-caliber employees. Our career development infrastructure includes these nine areas of focus, among others:
Recruitment. We tailor our recruitment efforts by geography and job function using an array of channels and recruiting partnerships. This enables us to reach a diversity of candidates with tailored messaging. For example, we advertise open positions on recruitment websites designed to reach women, the LGBTQ+ community, Blacks and African Americans, Hispanics, military veterans and individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to identify candidates who have the skills our customers need, or the desire to learn those skills. In 2023, we partnered with Partnership for Your Success to attract military veterans, and worked with Women in Trucking to engage more women in transportation industry careers.
Interactive Hiring. Our integrated approach to talent development begins with our robust digital recruitment platform, which includes online job previews and pre-employment assessments for key positions. Our platform provides an efficient way for candidates to learn about XPO at their convenience and explore positions that match their interests and abilities. This is a more stress-free entry into the recruitment process for job candidates, and improves both the onboarding experience and retention rates for new hires.
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Grow at XPO. Data from our new hire survey indicates that the majority of hourly employees join XPO for professional growth and learning opportunities. The Grow at XPO program is structured to cultivate continuous learning for our hourly population — it includes development tracks that teach, for example, computer skills, safety knowledge, people skills, work-life integration and commercial driving fundamentals. Employees are paid while completing the courses and are supported by on-site management and our field HR team. As of December 31, 2023, 93% of employees who completed the Grow at XPO program have been retained.
XPO Accelerate. Launched in September 2022, XPO Accelerate prepares high-potential service center, sales and support staff leaders to be “ready now” successors for director-level roles. This program helps retain and promote promising leadership talent by building relevant strategic skills.
XPO Field Management Training . XPO maintains a strong “ready now” pipeline of future leaders for our operations through a comprehensive, 14-week, blended learning approach. Our Field Management Training program graduated over 60 supervisors in 2023, of which more than two-thirds were ethnically or racially diverse, or female.
Frontline Leadership Training. XPO’s Freight Leadership Certification is part of a robust onboarding process for newly hired frontline leaders. The program equips employees with fundamental skills to succeed in our operations, and offers weekly live, instructor-led training sessions to reinforce those skills. Freight operations supervisors who complete all sessions and achieve certification have an 83% retention rate.
LTL Driver Training Schools. XPO’s commercial truck driver training schools are an essential channel for recruiting new drivers to XPO, as well as providing new careers for employees currently in other roles, such as dockworkers. Trainees attend our driver school tuition-free, receive pay while training and have an opportunity for full-time employment with XPO after earning a CDL-A license. We also offer employees tuition reimbursement of up to $5,000 for any approved non-XPO driver training school. In 2023, we graduated nearly 800 students from our LTL driver training locations.
Maintenance Training. Well-maintained tractors and trailers are an essential component of both safety and customer service in LTL transportation. Our in-house maintenance training school enhances technical skills for new hires and provides continuous learning for our field maintenance personnel to stay abreast of maintenance developments and warranty recovery requirements.
XPO University . Our learning and development platform, XPO University, delivers approximately 25,000 online and in-person learning and assessment programs in areas such as onboarding, management training and professional skills development. XPO University supports approximately 38,000 employees in North America and Europe, and tracks their progress. In 2023, more than a million training hours were completed by our employees worldwide.
Expansive Total Rewards
Our total compensation package is instrumental in providing a superior employment experience, and conveys how much we appreciate each employee’s choice of XPO. The pillars of the expansive total rewards we offer are:
Competitive Wages and Jobs Creation. In addition to our annual merit and hourly pay increases that broadly cover our employee population in North America, approximately 1,000 eligible LTL employees at over 35 locations received additional wage increases throughout 2023. Further, across our North American and European operations, our ongoing investments in growth expanded our total permanent workforce by 1.4% year-over-year with a net 401 new permanent employees.
Comprehensive Benefits. We offer an extensive suite of benefits to support the health and well-being of our employees and their families, often reflecting responsiveness to employee feedback. In the U.S., examples include:
• Pregnancy Care Policy: Guarantees up to 80 hours of paid prenatal leave and certain automatic accommodations, plus consideration of more significant accommodations while preserving existing wage rates.
• Family Bonding Policy: Provides an additional six weeks of 100% paid time off for the primary caregiver of a newborn or newly adopted child, and two weeks of 100% paid time off for a secondary caregiver.
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• Tuition Reimbursement: Provides for up to $5,250 of annual reimbursement for continuing education, academic discounts in more than 80 fields of online study and tuition-free commercial driver training.
• Additional Benefits: Includes virtual preventive health care, pelvic health management, physical therapy services and diabetes management services at no cost to employees, as well as supplemental insurance, short-term loans and a personalized Total Rewards Statement.
In Europe, XPO’s benefit programs vary by country and are tailored to the needs of local markets. Examples include comprehensive health and risk insurances, employee assistance programs covering mental, physical and financial well-being, commercial driver training, vocational coaching and training, and a fully flexible benefits program in the U.K.
Community Outreach
XPO continues to support organizations that reflect the interests of our employees and the communities where we operate. In 2023, our company served as official transportation partner for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walks to end breast cancer, and partnered with Truckers Against Trafficking to educate our employees about human trafficking. We supported homeless shelters by donating more than 60,000 pairs of socks, and participated in the Pat Tillman Run. Local teams from our North American LTL service centers helped Scouts complete their Trucking Merit Badge in Oregon, assisted Habitat for Humanity with a build in Wisconsin, and cleaned up trash in an Illinois community, as a few examples. On the safety front, our employees take pride in XPO being the official transport partner for the Tour de France competition for 43 years.
Information about our Executive Officers
The following information relates to each of our executive officers:
Name Age Position
Brad Jacobs 67 Executive Chairman of the Board
Mario Harik 43 Chief Executive Officer
Kyle Wismans 40 Chief Financial Officer
David Bates 58 Chief Operating Officer
Wendy Cassity 48 Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
Brad Jacobs has served as XPO’s executive chairman since November 2022, and served as the Company’s chairman and chief executive officer from September 2011 through October 2022. Mr. Jacobs led the spin-offs of GXO Logistics, Inc. and RXO, Inc. from XPO as separate public companies and has served as non-executive chairman of GXO and RXO from August 2021 and November 2022, respectively. Additionally, he is the managing member of Jacobs Private Equity, LLC. Prior to XPO, Mr. Jacobs led two other public companies: United Rentals, Inc., which he founded in 1997, and United Waste Systems, Inc., which he founded in 1989. He served as chairman of United Rentals from 1997 to 2007, and as chief executive officer from 1997 to 2003. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of United Waste Systems from 1989 to 1997.
Mario Harik has served as XPO’s chief executive officer since November 2022, after previously leading the Company’s North American less-than-truckload segment as president from October 2021 to October 2022. Additionally, he served as XPO’s chief information officer from November 2011 to October 2022 and XPO’s chief customer officer from February 2021 to January 2022. Mr. Harik has led numerous technological developments for global transportation and logistics operations, built comprehensive technology organizations and consulted to Fortune 100 companies. His prior positions include chief information officer and senior vice president of research and development with Oakleaf Waste Management; chief technology officer with Tallan, Inc.; co-founder of G3 Analyst, where he served as chief architect of web and voice applications; and solutions architect and consultant with Adea Solutions. Mr. Harik holds a master’s degree in engineering – information technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a degree in engineering – computer and communications from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.
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Kyle Wismans has served as XPO’s chief financial officer since August 2023, after being promoted from our senior vice president of revenue management and finance, a position he held from February 2023 to August 2023. Additionally, he served as XPO’s senior vice president, financial planning and analysis from September 2019 to February 2023. Mr. Wismans has played a vital role in the implementation of our LTL growth strategy, as well as our spin-offs of GXO and RXO. He was previously an executive with General Electric Company for over a decade, including most recently as head of global financial planning and analysis for Baker Hughes Oilfield Services, a GE company, from August 2017 to August 2019. Mr. Wismans holds a degree in business administration from the University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
David Bates joined XPO as chief operating officer in April 2023. He previously served as senior vice president – operations at Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. from November 2011 to April 2023. From July 2007 to November 2011, Mr. Bates served as a regional vice president, and from December 1995 to July 2007 as a manager, at Old Dominion. Prior to joining Old Dominion, Mr. Bates served in supervisory roles with Carolina Freight Carriers and YRC Freight. Mr. Bates received his Bachelor's degree in Business Management from Junita College.
Wendy Cassity joined XPO in March 2023 as chief legal officer and corporate secretary. Prior to joining XPO, she was chief legal officer of Nuance Communications, Inc. from September 2018 to March 2023. Nuance was publicly traded until it was acquired in March 2022. Prior to joining Nuance, she was general counsel of Zayo Group, a publicly traded communications infrastructure company, from January 2016 to August 2018, and general counsel of Thompson Creek Metals Company, a publicly traded natural resources company, from 2010 to January 2016. Prior to joining Thompson Creek Metals Company, Ms. Cassity was in private practice as a corporate transactional attorney at McDermott Will & Emery, LLP and Cravath Swaine & Moore, LLP in their New York offices. Ms. Cassity holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona in English and History and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Available Information
Our corporate website is www.xpo.com . On this website, you can access, free of charge, our Annual Report on Form 10–K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10–Q, and Current Reports on Form 8–K, as well as specialized disclosure reports on Form SD, Proxy Statements on Schedule 14A and amendments to those materials filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. Materials are available online as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. You can also access materials on our website regarding our corporate governance policies and practices, including our Corporate Governance Guidelines, Code of Business Ethics and the charters relating to the committees of our Board of Directors. You may request a printed copy of these materials without charge by writing to: Investor Relations, XPO, Inc., Five American Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut 06831. Information filed electronically with, or furnished to, the SEC is also available at www.sec.gov . References to these websites do not constitute incorporation by reference of the information contained therein and should not be considered part of this document.
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