Karen Kinsella (pictured) has moved from her role as global key account manager for automotive at transport and logistics provider Gefco, to take up a new role at Expeditors as vertical manager in the automotive division for Europe.

Expeditors is a global logistics and freight forwarding provider based in Seattle, Washington and has a number of regional headquarters located in London, UK, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Beruit, Lebanon and Shanghai, China.

Kinsella is now based in Hams Hall, near Birmingham in the UK, and reports directly to Jim Forristall, vice-president of sales and marketing, Europe.

Forristall described Kinsella as an excellent leader with a proven track record of helping customers extract higher levels of performance from their supply chains through a broad range of projects and said the company was proud that she had selected Expeditors.

“She will be directly responsible for growing our automotive vertical via strategic account acquisitions, as well as expanding our relationships with existing automotive customers,” he said. "We are absolutely committed to delivering innovative supply chain solutions to the automotive industry."

Kinsella joined Gefco in 1991 as UK sales and marketing manager and has more than 22 years of experience within all sectors of the automotive industry. In her most recent role at Gefco she worked with automotive manufacturers and suppliers for the business development and marketing team. Her commercial experience at the company included the global account management of a number of key automotive clients. 

“Karen has worked within all aspects of automotive supply chain logistics, incorporating both inbound and outbound flows,” said Forristall.

She was responsible for the commercial development of inbound parts flows, including logistics warehousing, linefeed sequencing, assembly, decanting operations, inventory management, as well as spare parts distribution throughout dealer networks.

Kinsella was engaged with pre-dealer inspection processes for outbound logistics, while she worked with multimodal services for both inbound and outbound.

Gefco has yet to announce a replacement for the role of global key account manager, automotive.