Highlights 1 & 2 October 2025

Leaders across logistics & the supply chain face challenging market conditions, yet there are numerous ways we can add value to our businesses today.  Everyone is under pressure to innovate and put results on the table, members say ideas that worked 5 years ago aren’t working anymore and the decade ahead will both challenge and inspire.  It is critical for our own performance to understand how peers are handling today and to consider what is in our control and where we can act – perhaps collaboratively – to improve results.   

This meeting is focused around helping you understand your comparative position in global supply chains (comparative KPIs & priorities versus those of peer groups), looking towards improving your position and increasing your value.  You will consider with peers multiple decision-making criteria (service, reliability, efficiencies, optimal options, asset utilisation, changing routes to market, tech & more) using real data from leaders in your sector & other sectors.  We will decide together at the meeting how best to follow-up.

* Facility tour Nike European Logistics Campus & discussion key strategies 

* The market has changed (routes to market, E2E capabilities, sourcing, technology, trading bloc tensions etc) – but have we?

* Metrics that make a difference: senior-led peer to peer best practices ‘benchmarking’ to better understand how others run their supply chains so you can consider your own.  Including all stakeholders: 

• Your Results: based on a wide range of your own KPIs, what do you prioritise & how does that compare with what others report?    Workshop + discussion led by industry leaders / Q&A.  Breakouts focused on specific priorities.
• Progress & effective collaborative action based on your feedback, for example: 
  • Transactional through to strategic implant: how does a shipper capture value from a long term LSP partnership?
  • We co-operate more than we compete – can we help our partners do more to help our resilience and crisis mitigation, given today’s volatility, complexity and multiple contradictory pressures?  
  • +++

* Special presentation – athlete’s reflections tbc

* Continued community priority topics & specific interest breakout discussions likely to include:

• M&A activity – what’s boiling the market?
• Circular economy & robotic systems: how to triage end of life product automatically
• Innovation update
• +++

This agenda will be continually updated & may change at short notice to best serve those attending.

This meeting is for senior business leaders & their teams; people who are actively leading industry today.  

Confirmed participants include Nike of course, Borealis, Cargill, Jaguar Land Rover, Stora Enso, SSI Schäfer, Tesa, Unilever, Arcese Trasporti, Baltic Rail, Billiet & Co, CargoUnit, Catts, CFL multimodal, CLdN, Codognotto, DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association), DP World Logistics Europe, E-llis,  Freightos, Julius & Clark, LKW Walter, Loadar, NIC Place a FourKites company, Port of Calais, Rhenus, SBB Cargo International, Shell Aviation, Vinturas.  This list will be updated shortly.  

In the meantime, participants from recent meetings below – click on the ‘attendee’ tabs.

Participant list for Zurich (June 2025)

Participant list for Poland (Apr 2025)

Participant list for Zaragoza Spain (Oct 2024)

Participant list for Duisburg (June 2024)

Participant list for Italy (Apr 2024)

Dress Code

Sports wear (any brand!) and / or businesswear.

Travel 

• Air: Brussels Zaventem (BRU) is approx an hour away & Brussels Charleroi (CRL) 1.5 hours.
• Rail / Road: Hasselt, where our accommodation is based, has a railway station & plenty of parking.  Private F&L Nike buses will be running at a specific time between our hotel(s) in Hasselt and Nike.
• Car: anyone wishing to park at Nike must ask about a space in advance (ask about parking).

Venues & start / finish times

• 30 Sept, 19:00 – Dinner at Lac Bleu Restaurant (max capacity 100 & easy walking from hotels)
• 1 Oct, Meeting at Nike European Logistics Campus, Laakdaal (organised transport from F&L hotels in Hasselt & we begin our meeting at 09:30)
• 1 Oct, 19:30 – Dinner at The Century Hotel (max capacity 150, short walk from suggested hotels)
• 2 Oct, Meeting at Nike European Logistics Campus, Laakdaal (organised transport from F&L hotels in Hasselt to the meeting & an airport/railway station bus TBC at the close of the meeting).  Finish time at Nike 15:00.

Hotels

We will stay in nearby Hasselt, Belgian capital of taste.  Preferential rates at the “Two towers” – this is the Radisson Blu Hotel & Park Inn.  The two hotels are connected to each other internally and have recently renovated rooms.  Please see your registration confirmation email for how to access the preferential rates.  “HasHotel” next door is also recommended.

Please note: F&L transport for Nike will leave & return to these hotels.  Both dinners are easy walking distance.

Information you can trust

F&L is neutral, independent and does not seek commercial gain.  We are a members’ organisation of international senior business leaders & their teams from 20+ countries including members who utilise F&L to learn, inform, challenge and collaborate for mutual benefit within the competition laws. 

Our focus is ALL key issues for senior logistics leaders today (it’s in the name: F&L is the European Freight & Logistics Leaders’ Forum).  

Questions?

Welcome; please get in touch.

Life is becoming more complex for supply chain and logistics practitioners. We need a trusted window into others’ businesses and we need the help of our customers, suppliers, partners and our competitors to ensure our businesses sustain.

F&L senior business leaders & their teams believe they perform better by looking outside what they already know, that generating real solutions requires collaborating across industry sectors as well as in their own companies, and that they must sharpen their focus to be able to continuously demonstrate own value to their stakeholders.

Why is F&L meeting at Nike?  Nike is a member of this international community. 

Who is this meeting for? A broad community of senior management responsible for supply chain and logistics for shippers and brand owners, retail, supply, LPSs (all modes), ports, technology companies, entrepreneurs, innovators – those who are actively working in, or with, the international supply chain and logistics. Those who want to move their own strategies forward through collaborative discussion with practitioners, sector experts and industry leaders across the supply chain.  

Why should I attend?  Innovation never comes from one mind; it is a process.  Discussing strategy in a trusted environment with peers who lead different industry sectors but face similar challenges is how we find new solutions.  The community sets the agenda.  A main agenda topic – the KPIs & peer-to-peer comparative priorities benchmarking review: collaborating by design against a backdrop of febrile global trading blocs & concerns over competitiveness – will assist the identification of change and best practice. IF a simple transactional procurement model is sub optimal for today’s global marketplace, we need to develop better understanding, resilience and trust to build our supply chains of the future.  

• Each of us can build “a better 2025/26/27” with the help of our customers, suppliers, partners and competitors better than we can try to do so alone. 
• The F&L network represents significant players across Europe.
• When shippers prioritise a shared multi-stakeholder understanding of current logistics best practise across their and others’ industry sectors, strategic logistics services multiply and furnish every shipper with a far greater range and quality of services that they could obtain alone.

Can I trust F&L?  Established in 1994, F&L remains a unique international organisation balancing approximately 40-50% cargo owners and shippers with 50-60% others.  F&L does not seek commercial gain and is professional, welcoming and neutral with a not-for-profit and non lobby constitution.  Dialogue is in confidence with no recording, press or media present and operates under the Chatham House Rule which means that companies and individuals cannot be quoted.  

What can I expect? Industry practitioners and experts sharing meaningful examples and the learning from their own journeys, peers and experts asking (and answering) questions. You will leave knowing more than when you arrived, and with new peer contacts who may be helpful in your own strategies.  Many of the take-home points will be unique to you so we will not try to agree what these are.

Is there anyone who may not attend? Journalists and press are not permitted because discussions are open throughout the meeting.  Non-members may attend once or twice if they follow the spirit of the meeting.  They can then decide if they may wish to be part of the community going forward.

In recent times, the F&L network has been discussing key issues critical to the freight logistics sector including geopolitics, sustainability (profitable as well as environmental), technology driving structural change and the shifting regulatory environment. On top of these multiplying priorities we need to understand how business continuity and sustainability in all its forms requires planning and collaboration.