C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the CH Robinson second quarter 2023 conference call. At this time all participants are on a listen-only mode. Following the company's prepared remarks we will open the line for a live question and answer session. To ask a question please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If anyone requires assistance at any time during the conference please press star 0. As a reminder this conference is being recorded Wednesday August 2nd, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chuck Ives, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Donna, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call with me today is Dave Bozeman, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Zuckmeister, our Chief Financial Officer, and Arun Rajan, our Chief Operating Officer. Dave will provide some introductory comments. Mike will provide a summary of our 2023 second quarter results and our outlook for 2023. Arun will provide an update on our efforts to improve our customer and carrier experience and our operating leverage, and then we will open the call up for questions. Our earnings presentation slides are supplemental to our earnings release and can be found in the investor section of our website at investor.chrobinson.com. Our prepared comments are not intended to follow the slides. If we do refer to specific information on the slides, we will let you know which slide we're referencing. I'd also like to remind you that our remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. Slide two in today's presentation lists factors that could cause our actual results to differ from management's expectations. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dave. Thank you, Chuck.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Let me start by saying it is an absolute privilege to be leading CH Robinson, a market leader with enormous scale, a strong base of loyal customers, and a resilient business model that generates profits and free cash flow through the entirety of the freight cycle. I know from my time in the transportation market that other freight providers and new entrants look to Robinson as an example of a commercial engine with the breadth, scale, expertise, and financial strength that they aspire to achieve. However, there's always room for improvement. And I recognize the tremendous opportunity in front of us to accelerate growth in a very fragmented market. In my first month, I've been spending time meeting with and talking to customers, employees, and shareholders as I analyze the business. A customer-centric focus is in my DNA. And I have successfully implemented customer-focused strategies over my 30-year career at leading brands such as Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, Amazon, and Ford Motor Company. I look forward to applying that experience towards our goal of providing such a compelling offering that customers feel like C.H. Robinson is essential to the success of their supply chain. As a lean practitioner, I'm in a discovery and diagnosis phase, and I've been learning more and shaping my vision for the company each day. I'm digging in quickly with the leadership team. I'm looking at the portfolio of businesses with an open mind. And my intentions are to drive focus so that we position ourselves for growth in our core business. As I aim to reinvigorate the winning culture, my focus will be on people, products, processes, technology, collaboration, and excellence. My style is to one, Be accountable for driving improvement and be passionate about making people better. Two, look around corners and anticipate in order to minimize surprises. And three, wake up every day like you're working for a startup by being gritty, scrappy, innovative, and change-oriented with a focus on improving clock speed and acknowledging every day that you can be better. These practices have enabled success for the companies I've worked at and the people I've worked with. People are at the heart of Robinson, and I'm confident that together we will win for our customers, carriers, and shareholders. I'm passionate about continuously improving how organizations operate. Lean principles work and are applicable at Robinson to further improve efficiency. Robinson is a strong company. But all companies have ways they can be removed to make a company quicker, more flexible, and more agile in solving problems for their customers, improving workflows, and providing better customer service and experiences. I have helped build out and scale transportation businesses, most notably at Amazon, where technology is the starting point. I am certain we can leverage technology as a force multiplier here at Robinson, and I've been discussing it with the room and the team. As an example, when I look at C.H. Robinson, I'm excited about the potential benefits from generative AI in conjunction with the machine learning and artificial intelligence that the company has already been utilizing. With more data and history to leverage than any other 3PL, we have opportunities to harness the power that these advanced technologies now offer to further capitalize on our information advantage, and we'll continue to look for and pursue those opportunities. Arun will touch more on this in his prepared comments. In summary, I look forward to leading this great company to new heights and sharing our progress with all of you along our journey. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike for a review of our second quarter results.