Mastery was conceived by Jeff Silver, whose proprietary technology systems have powered some of the largest logistics companies in North America for over four decades, and have been brought to life by a team of logistics and software professionals – true Maestri at work.
Jeff Silver is a pioneer in technology and supply chain. His first logistics experience was in 1984, fresh out of the University of Michigan when he joined American Backhaulers (ABH), a Chicago-based third-party logistics (3PL) company. Jeff created the vision and design for the ground-breaking proprietary technology platform that he and his team would build and scale and eventually lead to an industry-wide transformation. That technology fueled the growth of ABH to become the second largest 3PL provider in the country in a very short period of time.
ABH was acquired by CH Robinson (CHRW), the largest 3PL provider in the country, in 1999. Jeff spent a year helping to integrate the businesses and working to adapt the ABH system to the needs of the global CHRW organization, and then retired to spend time with his family.
During his retirement, Jeff completed an MBA at the University of Michigan as well as a Masters of Engineering in Logistics at MIT where he was introduced the optimization and queueing problems and solutions that color his thinking. In 2006, he and Marianne Silver co-founded Coyote Logistics, which they scaled to become one of the world’s fastest growing 3PLs. Along the way, Coyote received numerous awards and accolades for its culture, philanthropic efforts, and talent development. Jeff and his team grew Coyote to over $2B in less than 10 years and in 2015 Coyote was acquired by publicly traded, $60B United Parcel Service (UPS). Jeff spent several years working with the broader UPS organization, eventually landing in the group focused on automation and advanced technology solutions.
In 2019 Jeff started Mastery. He has turned his attention to working with very large, scaled enterprises to help them grow their capabilities and efficiencies. Mastery brings a proprietary SaaS offering that is more than brokerage software – it is designed to solve a big problem that no one else has: Mastery brings to market the first commercially available TMS for large, scaled brokerages, large shippers, carriers and logistics service providers. The system will help these companies save money, reduce inefficient processes, and optimize resources to thrive in the complexity of the supply chain world.
Marianne Silver is passionate about culture and developing people for long-term success. She began her career in logistics at Chicago-based American Backhaulers (ABH) in 1992 where she led the People team. She quickly pioneered the third-party logistics (3PL) HR space and forever changed the way 3PLs functioned from a culture and talent perspective.
After the acquisition of ABH by CH Robinson (CHRW) in 1999, she took some time off and added a few more members to the Silver family clan. The idea of creating Coyote Logistics was starting to take shape and in 2006 the dream came to fruition. She and her husband, Jeff Silver, started their own 3PL and it quickly became the industry model for innovation, growth, and culture.
During her second act as co-founder of Coyote, she focused again on creating an amazing culture. Coyote transformed the logistics industry. Year after year Coyote broke records for unprecedented growth. Her focus remained on all facets of the People team. Known as “Momma Coyote” she put her heart and soul into the care and development of the employees (often referred to as her kids). Coyote received numerous awards and accolades for its culture, philanthropic efforts, and talent development and quickly grew to be a model for not only the entire 3PL industry, but she made a huge impact outside the industry as well. United Parcel Service (UPS) UPS acquired Coyote in 2015 – a great partnership and Coyote continues to flourish as a subsidiary of UPS. She retired from Coyote in March 2019.
Now, in her third act she is building the masterpiece – Mastery! She is bringing together engineers, developers, designers and a whole diverse group of talented people to create systems and software that will once again be life-changing for many. You can call it a masterful mosaic of incredible people. Through diverse thinking, highly crafted design, and supply chain expertise, Marianne and her team are the talent behind the most relevant technology that people love to use.
Darren Cockrel brings Mastery a track record of success from technology and operations, with startups to the Fortune 50, with third party logistics (3PL) organizations to large retailers.
Darren joined Coyote Logistics as CIO in 2013 and was part of the team that scaled to over $2B in a few short years. Coyote was acquired by publicly traded $60B United Parcel Service (UPS) in 2015. After the acquisition, Darren took on the role of President of UPS Supply Chain Solutions Technology in addition to continuing as CIO of Coyote Logistics.
As CTO of Mastery, Darren and his team are leading the way for large shippers, carriers and logistics service providers to have improved communication, operational connectivity, and facilitated resource optimization through the Mastery cloud-based SaaS offering.
Darren was awarded Technologist of the Year from ITA City Lights in 2017. He has an MBA from Vanderbilt University.
Ben Hartford brings almost two decades of logistics industry knowledge to Mastery. For over 15 years, Ben covered the transportation and logistics sector as an institutional equity research analyst at Baird, where he spent the last decade as Senior Analyst and leader of the franchise and received numerous awards and recognition for his work. He has deep experience with large, publicly traded companies across many modes, a variety of operating models and capital allocation strategies as well as the broader industry’s evolution. He brings a keen eye for emerging trends, needs and opportunities and is excited to be part of the Mastery leadership team, helping to create the newest, most comprehensive technology solution to deliver value among constituents throughout the supply chain.
Ben was widely recognized for his achievements as Senior Research Analyst. In 2012 he was awarded a “Rising Star” designation on Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-America Research Team Rising Stars list. He received numerous recognitions annually for his work, including #1 earnings estimator in Air Freight & Logistics by StarMine in 2013; he also earned Top 3 awards in several other years for his work covering both the Air Freight & Logistics and the Road & Rail sectors.
At Mastery, Ben will be responsible for overseeing finance and accounting along with contracts and legal. Ben has a BS in Finance and an MS in Accounting from Indiana University and earned a CFA charter. He and his family reside in Milwaukee, WI.
As Mastery’s Chief Scientist, Derek will lead the research and development of Mastery’s industrial strength optimization tools and analytics capabilities needed to support customers. Prior to Mastery, Derek held leadership positions in several supply chain technology and consulting organizations. He was Vice President of Project Management at LogicTools, which was acquired by ILOG in 2007 and IBM in 2009. After LogicTools, he was a partner at OPS Rules, a consulting firm focusing on applying analytics to operations, which was acquired by Accenture in 2016. At Accenture he was a Managing Director (Partner), leading the North American supply chain analytics team within the Accenture Applied Intelligence group. Following Accenture, Derek became a Partner at Opex Analytics, a startup software and services company applying AI to supply chain and operations problems. Opex was acquired by LLamasoft in 2019 and Derek transitioned to a leadership role in the solution design group.
Derek is an adjunct professor in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. He has taught courses in the Master of Engineering Management program as well as the Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences program. The courses cover such topics as optimization, simulation, queueing, analytics, and statistics. In 2013, he co-authored the book “Managerial Analytics” which is focused on explaining the field of analytics to managers. In addition, he has published on supply chain topics in the Wall Street Journal and has spoken on analytics and supply chain at a number of universities and industry conferences.
Derek has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University and a M.S. in Operations Research at Cornell University. He lives in Evanston, IL.
Annie joins Mastery with an impressive background in the Federal Government and Hospitality. In her role, Annie places a large emphasis on relationship development, building high performing teams, and working with internal clients to manage risk and facilitate business strategy and is thrilled to make an impact at Mastery both internally and externally with all Mastery stakeholders.
Annie began her legal career with the United States Government as a Federal Law Clerk, working as a lawyer alongside Judges to analyze cases and issue judicial opinions. She transitioned from the Government to the hospitality sector working “in-house” at Hyatt Corporation for 20 years. There, Annie developed and nurtured relationships with internal and external business executives providing careful and thoughtful legal analysis and guidance, while protecting the corporation.
Annie has a BA from Vanderbilt University and JD from University of Illinois Chicago. Annie is a former French teacher and lives in Chicago with her husband and three teenage girls.
Gopal Nagappan brings over 2 decades of diversified technology experience across multiple business domains in Logistics. In his last role, he was the was the Vice President of UPS Healthcare ($7B+ annual revenue), UPS Freight Forwarding ($3B+ annual revenue), UPS Stores IT ($2.5B annual revenue) and Global Trade Compliance. He led the transformation of Digital and Operational platforms across business areas including creating a new digital revenue channel for air and ocean freight forwarding enabling $1B+growth strategy.
He is a seasoned team builder who believes in developing talent to build technology and products that wows users.
He has a Bachelors in Engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University, India and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Emory University. He and his family live in Atlanta, GA.
For more than 40 years, the industry has grown with patchwork tools built for specific jobs. And complexity continues to soar.
Supply Chains have generally been disconnected, and disconnected systems force manual intervention to deliver desired results. With multiple tools and multiple work streams, labor and IT costs compound with no guarantee of a single view into a given Supply Chain. Waste and inefficiency abound. When multiple systems are used to manage operational activity across business units, workstreams and networks, it creates complexities that can be challenging to manage and costly to manage.
Companies often sub-optimize one or more of those functions by attempting to fit it into a transportation management system that is adequate at another function, creating friction between systems or added work. Mastery solves this problem by bringing all operating functions into a single cloud-based TMS, providing flexibility, visibility, control, and efficiency. We can all work faster, smarter, and more efficiently with Mastery.
Our philanthropic partner is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
