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Welcome to F&L, where senior freight logistics leaders develop international strategy through confidential peer group & expert exchange, enabling faster, better-informed decisions in an increasingly complex business environment (est 1994).
Agenda. Supply chain & logistics leaders and their teams are confronting multiple urgent systemic challenges. Confidential, senior led strategic cross-sector & all transport modes commercial dialogue across industry sectors and transport modes focuses on the vision for tomorrow and ask if we should change how we think about balancing immediate operational demands and proactive steps required for future corporate viability? The Agenda & participation list will grow around participant interests as always – please register early. Everyone will also be able to drive a truck around Volvo’s challenging test track.
Meeting date & location. 18-19 November 2026, Gothenburg, Sweden.
What to expect. F&L meetings are based around debate, panel discussions, workshops & site visits rather than presentations, thus ensuring opportunity and full participation by all. F&L competition law & antitrust compliance policy. Confidential. All participants will meet everyone present.
Costs. €450 card at registration / €500 payment by invoice + relevant VAT. These discounted rates apply to F&L members: non-member companies pay €2,000 + VAT. F&L is a neutral (independent), non-for-profit and non lobby members’ forum using knowledge, skills and collaborative opportunities across the freight logistics sector to drive improved standards, learnings & the success of Members of the community.
Help? Get in touch.
In association with
Transition – fuel, but much more
A confidential, high-level strategic commercial dialogue across industry sectors and transport modes
in-person | Chatham House Rule | no recording | no media | no online participation | no sales pitches
The issues that supply chain and logistics leaders & their teams are tackling today – from the impact of multiple separate yet interconnected global crises, to environmental degradation, to the future of Europe and of our own companies – are systemic. Tackling these in isolation can lead to unintended consequences and/or simply shift the burden elsewhere. In Gothenburg, we focus on supporting leaders to understand the vision for tomorrow and ask if we should change how we think about balancing immediate operational demands and proactive steps required for future corporate viability? Transition – fuel, but much more. Everyone will also be able to drive a truck around Volvo’s challenging test track.
18 November 2026 (Wed)
09:00 - 17:30, Gothenburg (registration & coffee 08:30)
The agenda is led by attending senior leaders including ... (see 'Attending' tab)
Welcome & short Q&A with Roger Alm President Volvo Trucks
A different conversation
1. Do we envisage a “better” future in 2028 or 2030? What is The Plan?
- Key players outline how & why they are shaping change across the sector [cargo owners, infrastructure & asset owners, financiers & others]
- Briefings: mega trends, what can we learn from global trading blocs, climate status [leaders, experts & academics]
- (Re)defining ‘resilience’ & participants’ OKM (one key message) – what will make the difference to each of us today so that we can succeed tomorrow?
“Those who are waiting for regulation won’t even be on the playing field”
“The opportunities are tremendous!”
2. “Built to last”? Playing the long game
With customers, partners, suppliers and others, how can we each minimise impact from disruption, volatility and crisis while taking proactive steps forward to secure our own future corporate viability?
- A different way for everyone to view the new financial reality & how it impacts all KPIs [logistics leaders, financiers & academics]
- Innovations & technology including AI – an answer to long-lasting commercial trade-offs? The cost trap, strategic behaviours, forecasting, inventory, supplier relationships & contracts, asset users vs owners, fragmented visibility, “3 to tango”, conflicting KPIs …. each decision in isolation makes sense, but what do they create together? [leaders]
- Clean energy cross mode progress – linking, assessing, comparing and learning from others; transferable learning?
3. What next? Actions agreed for and by those present
- Conclusion – cost of inaction? What next; just to keep what we have? A brighter future?
19:30 – 22:30, Gothenburg
- Evening networking dinner programme, sponsor tbc
19 November 2026 (Thurs)
08:30 - 14:00 or 16:00, Gothenburg
Moving from theory to practical realities
- Driving: in being able to drive a truck around Volvo’s challenging test track, leaders understand the practical realities of operationalising new technology including real-world performance, charging logistics, and driver experience requirements.
- Practical problem-solving: rotating around key issues that impact daily operations and resonate with all of us. We close the knowledge gap where we only know what we know in our own area by looking end to end and understanding what happens in other modes.
Conclusions & lunch
14:00 first private airport bus to Gothenburg Landvetter
Choice of visits to important industry sites
14:00 choice of visits TBC
16:00 airport bus to Gothenburg Landvetter
“What one sector hails as a “breakthrough” is often just standard practice from an industry that has been doing it for decades”
“What got our businesses here today will not get the results we are looking for tomorrow, but it’s not as simple as swapping diesel for an electric plug”
“Like compound interest or the Chinese bamboo tree, actions we take today change tomorrow…”
Transition – fuel, but much more
Legal:
Data subjects’ explicit GDPR consent: The data subject hereby explicitly consents to submit his/her personal data to F&L and to F&L’s processing thereof in accordance with the F&L general privacy policy that is available on the F&L website (https://www.europeanfreightleaders.eu/privacy/). The data subject explicitly consents to occasional silent photographs / filming during F&L events/meetings and to the consequent processing of his/her personal data by F&L in accordance with the provisions of the said general privacy policy. The data subject hereby also confirms that he/she has read, fully understood and entirely approves F&L’s general privacy policy without making any reservations.
F&L events are in principle governed by a tailored “Chatham House Rule”. That Chatham House Rule helps to create a trusted environment to understand and resolve complex matters. When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the tailored Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s) in relation to his/her particular content may be revealed externally. Speaker presentations /materials can however be shared with F&L members and participants to the F&L event but should not be shared externally without the consent of the speaker or without his/her anonymization.
Transition – fuel, but much more
F&L has a single purpose: to exploit knowledge, skills and collaborative opportunities across the freight logistics sector to drive improved standards, learnings & the success of Members of the community.
Reasons to attend
- F&L is not-for-profit so that it can focus on bringing the right people into the room
- Diverse senior perspectives under Chatham House Rule – collective understanding of what is happening across markets before it becomes obvious to everyone
- All of us must actively build and maintain connections across the sector to be effective, especially with uncertainty and change as it is today
- F&L tends to focus on practical commercial levers to approach and understand challenges and other stakeholder perspectives
- Supply chains now sit at the centre of commercial resilience, national competitiveness, customer trust and corporate strategy – we need to behave accordingly
- All participants will meet everyone present
- “Worthwhile peer exchange”; F&L is designed to provide a safe space to pressure-test strategies against those of peers
- As a cross-functional leadership forum, the focus of this meeting is how to survive and profit from the transition where environmental sustainability is one of many variables.
- Discussion agenda (not presentations), workshops, a choice of behind-the-scenes industry visits in Gothenburg (details tbc) plus driving trucks on Volvo’s professional test track to understand the practical realities of operationalising new technology.
- Opportunity to build on and continue F&L work focused on:
- KPI company priority benchmarking, adding external insights, expertise & inspiration to internal knowledge about future capabilities
- Planning to prosper regardless of external challenges through international community commercial priorities & actions – April 2026 +++.
- New & original research created by F&L Members with academics:
- Results – “Green Corridors for Freight Decarbonisation: Are They an End in Themselves or a Step Towards Collaborative End-to-End Logistics?”
- Further to be added.
Transition – fuel, but much more
This meeting is for senior business leaders & their teams; people who are actively leading industry today.
Many F&L Member companies will be present. We are currently agreeing together the best format for the agenda.
You are advised to register now because at F&L we build agendas to match the interests of those in the room.
Participants will be added in due course and, in the meantime, you can see who attended recent meetings below.
- Participant list for “Priorities & Choices: stuck in Crisis Mode?” (Apr 2026)
- Participant list for F&L at Nike (Oct 2025)
- Participant list for Poland (Apr 2025)
- Participant list for Zaragoza Spain (Oct 2024)
High level overview
We are hosted by Volvo Trucks in Gothenburg at their Volvo Trucks Experience Center
VTEX, VTDC, 423 52 Göteborg, Entrence via TLA-porten, Pressvägen 2
- Tues 17 Nov – welcome dinner & industry visits (central Gothenburg)
- Wed 18 Nov – F&L agenda 09:00 – 17:30 hosted by Volvo Trucks at their HQ in Gothenburg + evening dinner programme
- Thurs 19 Nov – F&L agenda 09:00 – 13:00 hosted by Volvo Trucks at their HQ in Gothenburg and including practical ‘stations’ & driving trucks around Volvo’s test track
Venue addresses
- Sleeping hotel – 17 & 18 Nov – Elite Plaza Hotel 4* in Gothenburg is centrally located at Västra Hamngatan 3, 411 17 Göteborg, Sweden. 15% discount details in the registration confirmation email.
- Welcome dinner 17 Nov – walking distance of Elite Plaza Hotel, location will be confirmed.
- Meeting venue – 18 & 19 Nov – Volvo Trucks Experience Center VTEX, VTDC, 423 52 Göteborg, Entrance via TLA-porten, Pressvägen 2.
- Networking dinner 18 Nov – location will be confirmed and transport will be included.
- Parking is available at both the hotel (below) & at Volvo but we will travel from the hotel to the meeting and both dinners together.
Dress Code & Questions
- General businesswear and any F&L members‘ products!
- Questions welcome – please get in touch.
A different goal...
… F&L was created in 1994 by shippers & logistics providers who realised that they could not tackle logistics issues alone in their companies, or within a commercial structure. They created a neutral, independent not-for-profit platform for senior logistics leaders and their teams to utilise cross-industry peer exchange to – judge today’s trade-offs – identify new opportunities for resilience and growth – catch blind spots – de-risk decision making – and determine facts, helping everyone build on real world experience to develop more practical, durable solutions and choose their own paths forward, together and separately.
Mission – to drive improved standards, learnings & the success of Members by leveraging the multi-stakeholder international community to spark knowledge sharing & tackle obstacles from every possible vantage point.
How is this achieved? F&L is structured as a neutral (independent), not-for-profit, confidential, antitrust compliant Members’ forum and is registered in Belgium as an ASBL. Multi-stakeholder membership is deliberately balanced to ensure a variety of perspectives across a host of variables. F&L does not lobby but it does have strong relationships with policymakers and many other institutions and communities for its Members’ benefit.
Members are global / regional heads of logistics & supply chain, CEOs & senior management focused on freight logistics across the supply chain, asset owners, founders of critical solutions, all industry sectors and transport modes, based across Europe & globally (list). Unlimited licences are provided for leaders to share the membership with colleagues (no charge).
“The important thing is to avoid the ‘narrow’ trap & the echo chamber”
“Access to informed external views & sheer breadth which it is not possible to organise by yourself”
“Where else can you ask questions openly and listen to others doing the same?”
“Learn, benchmark & challenge”
“We make better, more informed, more robust decisions”
Volvo Trucks is part of the Volvo Group, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks, buses, construction equipment, and marine and industrial engines. It supplies complete transport solutions through a full range of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and offers customer support through a global network of dealers. Volvo trucks are assembled in 12 countries across the globe.
Port of Gothenburg is the largest port in Scandinavia. An important feature is the port’s highly efficient rail network. Geographically, the port is uniquely positioned within a 500 km radius of 70% of Scandinavia’s population and industrial base. The port is directly connected to over 2 million square meters of modern warehouse and logistics park space, making it a natural hub for centralised Nordic distribution.