Changing the World through Supply Chain

Vector Global Logistics, and its Co-Founder and Managing Director Enrique Alvarez, were recently awarded the goBeyondProfit Champion award for their dedication to leveraging logistics to change the world. Everything from the phone in your hand to the pens you use has some element of logistics involved in it, which is why Vector believes they are uniquely situated for meaningful impact. 

In our interview with Enrique, we explore how Vector impacts change on a global scale, particularly highlighting their recent humanitarian efforts for Ukraine. 

Giving in a Global Context

Vector’s not one huge company. I mean it is, but at the same time, when it comes to day-to-day, we’re a group of smaller self-driven, independent teams. And so we ask each of the teams to determine the kinds of causes they’re passionate about. Instead of imposing something from the top down, we empower our leaders and people that are working with us to define their purpose differently, independently. As a result, we have worked with 34 different organizations in the last year alone. We visit dog shelters, we take part in running certain 5k’s, from homelessness, to foster care, our teams select where we serve. We will continue to encourage people to come to Vector with whatever concerns they have and leverage what we do best to help their causes.

At a more corporate level, if you will, we support and have partnered with three main organizations: One is SERV here in Atlanta and with SERV, for every container we move in the US we are donating 50 meals to children in Kenya. In Mexico, we partnered with an organization called Canica and help children with cancer. And in Chile, we have partnered with an organization called Coanil helping children with special needs.

Supplying Humanitarian Aid for Ukraine

Before the Ukraine war happened, we have been helping around the world very regularly. It’s part of who we are and how we act whether it’s a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis. For instance, in the beginning of the pandemic, when the situation was isolated to Wuhan, China, and no one really knew what was going to happen, we sent containers of PPE from Mexico to China trying to help our agents, friends and partners in China with the emerging pandemic. Before that, we helped victims of the hurricane in Puerto Rico and leveraged logistics to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

When the Ukraine conflict happened, the first thing we did was just reach out to talk to people. We have agents and good friends in the Ukraine, so we talk to them regularly to find out what they need. We got connected to the consulate here in the US, people in Poland and around the region, as well as in UK and other countries. As we started listening and it was very clear that they needed a lot of supplies.

Join Vector's Efforts to Aid Ukraine

As of now, we have shipped over 500,000 pounds of supplies, not only to help people inside the Ukraine, but also for the millions of refugees around the Ukraine. We’ve sent everything from hygiene products, flashlights, tents, sleeping bags, etc.

But I think one of the most important things we have done is open the dialogue among different organizations. We are working with competitors, agents, the governments, and clients that have been donating products left and right. Trucking companies have been donating trucking moves for us, the steamship lines have actually jumped in and helped us with some of the rates to send containers to the Ukraine.

Vision for the Future

We are a boutique logistics company with presence in different parts of the world, and what we have set up to do is really continue leveraging logistics to change the world. My vision and hope would be to inspire other companies, some of our suppliers, making sure that they join us on this kind of quest or movement, if you may, so that together with everything we ship, we donate and with everything we do together we are changing the world. That’s the aspiration for the future.