AMI makes 3 key sales appointments across Americas, Europe, APAC

The global wholesale freight forwarder Air Menzies International (AMI) has made three key senior sales appointments covering the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific (APAC) regions to support its growth ambitions.

Jonathan Clark, CEO, AMI, in a recent interview given to The STAT Trade Times during air cargo Africa 2023, informed that AMI is planning to increase their global footprint from 27 branches to 50 in the next two years.

“We want to keep growing and make sure that we are in all major trade lanes. We not only want to deal with small and medium size freight forwarders but also bigger forwarders. We can do it only by being in more markets and trade lanes where our customers want us to be,” he said.

When asked about the feasibility to double the footprint, Clark noted that AMI is planning to do some acquisitions to enter some markets and then grow organically.

"The difficulty is that many companies have been very successful over the last few years which means the price asked for some of these businesses is inflated. By the middle and end of this year, the market should start to stabilise and should get back to some normality. The airfreight rates are still high. The profits of some of these companies will start to come down and we want to take advantage of this in the next few years, he added. 

Raffaella Olah joined AMI as the head of sales for APAC in December 2022. She has over 20 years experience of working in logistics and supply chain, with 11 of those in senior sales roles across multiple sectors including e-commerce, logistics, technology, consumer services and retail.

After a successful period as AMI’s branch manager at Los Angeles Airport, Michelle Bellefeuille has been promoted to head of sales for the Americas. Michelle has significant experience in the air freight industry, having spent 13 years at DHL prior to joining AMI in 2021.

The second internal appointment sees Claire Bristow taking up the role of head of Sales for Europe. Claire joined AMI in 2006 and has been leading the UK sales team for the past seven years. She was also a key member of the AMI UK team which won the Air Freight Operator of the Year award at the 2021 Multimodal Awards.

Clark, said: “At AMI, we are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive environment which reflects the diversity of our customers and the communities we operate in, so I’m pleased to announce the appointment of three senior women to strategic regional sales roles.

“We have ambitious growth plans in place and we look forward to leaning on Raffaella, Michelle, and Claire for their expertise as we seek to increase our presence in the major global trade lanes over the next five years. They are all very talented individuals with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry.”