The way digital freight forwarding was widely sold, the platform would sell itself. Instant quotes, live tracking, booking in a few clicks. The shipper would log in, and the expensive part of a forwarder, the people who win the business, would shrink.
On 5 October 2026 we read the live job boards of 5 digital forwarders active in Europe. The platforms are still there. So are the salespeople. Flexport alone has 17 commercial roles open in Europe.
Flexport: nearly half its European openings are commercial
Flexport has 36 roles open in Europe and the UK. 17 of them are commercial: 7 sales development representatives, 5 account executives and 5 account managers.
The sales development roles are the telling part. They sit in Barcelona, Frankfurt and Hamburg, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Milan, and several are written for a language: Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Italian. These are people hired to start conversations with shippers who have never heard of the company, in their own language, one country at a time.
There is also a Founding Account Executive in Warsaw, first published on 21 August 2026, and an enterprise account executive in Dublin a week later. A founding sales hire is how a company opens a market.
Forto: hiring sales managers again
In February 2025 Guillaume Petit-Perrin took over as Forto's chief executive. His stated priorities were "operational excellence, commercial transformation, and reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit."
Two months later The Loadstar, citing the German trade paper DVZ (Deutsche Verkehrs-Zeitung), reported around 200 job cuts, about a third of the company, with a large portion in sales. Forto did not confirm the number. Its own statement said it was "sharpening its commercial priorities."
Today Forto has 6 roles open. 2 are sales managers covering Germany, both posted on 2 September 2026, one for the west and one for the south and east.
sennder: its newest role is a hunter
sennder, the Berlin road freight platform, closed its purchase of C.H. Robinson's European road business in February 2025 and came out with a team of 1,600. 13 of its 30 open roles today are in operations: dispatch, transport planning, carrier capacity.
The newest one, posted on 3 October 2026, is a Senior Strategic Sales Executive in Berlin. The brief: "Prospect, create, and develop new leads through cold & warm outreach." It sits alongside a Country Manager for Benelux posted in July.
Zencargo: a senior freight seller at the top
Zencargo, the London digital forwarder, has 1 role open, in product. Its commercial move this year was at the top: in January 2026 it hired Gary Jeffreys, formerly Maersk's managing director for the UK and Ireland, as Senior Vice President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The exception: Cargoboard
Not every platform is hiring sellers. Cargoboard, the German road freight platform, told WirtschaftsWoche in September that it is close to €100 million in annual revenue, growing about 30% a year, with 100 staff of whom 20 write software. Its 12 open listings include customer support for France, Italy and Poland and a partner manager for road freight. None is in sales.
That fits. A small business sending a few pallets will book online if the price is right. A shipper moving containers or full loads every week, with a procurement process and an incumbent forwarder, does not change provider because a website is quick.
What the job boards say
| Company | Open roles | Commercial | Newest sales move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flexport (Europe and UK) | 36 | 17 | Barcelona, 17 Sep 2026 |
| Forto | 6 | 2 | Germany, 2 Sep 2026 |
| sennder | 30 | 3 | Berlin, 3 Oct 2026 |
| Zencargo | 1 | 0 | Senior Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa appointed, Jan 2026 (press release) |
| Cargoboard | 12 | 0 | None open |
Open roles read on each company's own careers page, 5 October 2026.
What this means for freight forwarding sales
The technology changed how freight is quoted, booked and tracked. It did not change how a mid-size shipper chooses who moves its freight. That is still a decision made by a person, about a person, usually after a conversation they did not start.
Our reading: the digital forwarders have reached the same conclusion as every traditional forwarder. Growth beyond the shippers who find you means going out and finding the ones who will not. That is why the new hires are sales development representatives with a language and a territory, and hunters briefed to work cold.
It also means a familiar problem is coming. A new seller in Copenhagen or Warsaw is only as good as the pipeline in front of them: which companies move freight in their territory, how much, who holds the decision, and who is open to a conversation this quarter. Hiring the seller is the easy part.
Blackridge builds that pipeline for logistics businesses across the UK, Ireland and Europe, and for nobody else. Book a 30-minute call.