3rd Annual Meeting of the Project Logistics Alliance

Teşekkürler Istanbul, thank you for your hospitality!

From October 13 to 16, 2019, the Project Logistics Alliance held its 3rd Annual General Meeting in the magical city of Istanbul, where East meets West and where modernism blends with historical beauty. Istanbul was carefully selected amongst other cities to provide attendees with unrivaled hospitality of the Turkish culture, interesting cultural experience, as well as an inspiring and engaging atmosphere for our one-to-one meetings. We are extremely pleased by the number of attendees that registered to participate in this event, which by far exceeded our expectations: 171 participants from 101 different companies, representing 87 different countries.

The 3rd Annual Meeting was hosted at the 5-Star Hilton Bomonti, located on a hill with a terrific view over the Bosphorus River and the Marmara Sea of Istanbul. The event kicked off with registrations and then a welcoming dinner in the Cloud 34 Bar, on Sunday 13th Oct. The elegant bar area on the top floor of our hotel was closed for the Project Logistics Alliance community and the welcoming dinner was generously sponsored by our member C.H. Robinson. The guests were served a flying buffet and drinks for a first get-together, which successfully set a high note for the upcoming days. After a warm welcome from CEO Alexander Hellmers and Network Coordinator Maya Wagner, the delegates grouped up for a photo and then the one-to-one meetings commenced. All meeting participants were provided with 35 meeting slots spanning 3 intense days, which fully showcased the professionalism of our network. Additionally, 4 case studies were presented by selected companies to stimulate discussion, transfer knowledge and raise attention to currently arising important topics of the logistics industry.

To round off the first day, the delegates were brought to a small island right between the European side and the Asian side of the Bosphorus River. On the island stood a unique piece of architecture dating back to the Byzantine era 1110 A.D., called the “Maiden’s Tower”. Under a night sky lit by a ravishing orange moon, it was time to wind down and enjoy each other company. We would like to express our gratitude to our new member for Canada, Convoy Logistics Providers, for sponsoring this event and making this wonderful evening possible.

Another special feature of this years’ Annual Meeting was the simultaneous hosting of the Annual Conference of the Africa Logistics Network (ALN). For the very first time, two entirely separate managed networks decided to host their Annual Meetings at the same time and the same place to allow its members to mingle on a common meeting day. Our partnership with the Africa Logistics Network is a worldwide unique example of two networks collaborating and complementing each other for the benefit of their members. After a common dinner cruise on the Bosphorus River on Tuesday evening, the one-to-one meetings were combined on Wednesday, October 16, the last day of the event. While members of both sides were not obliged to meet with the other network, many took advantage of this occasion and broadened their networking even further, making the most out of these 3 days. As a premium global network of selected project freight forwarders, our 2019 New Year’s resolution was to bring together even more people, improve their opportunities of connecting with industry experts worldwide, and enable our members and partners to extract more benefits in a time and cost-saving manner. The Annual Global Meeting in Istanbul took us almost a year to plan and organize, however, we are proud to say that we have successfully ticked off this main challenge from our resolutions.

As many of you know, our Annual Global Meeting has and will always focus on creating the best business outcome for you. We aim for a couple of intense and rewarding days with a tightly organized schedule that provides time for many good encounters and conversations, enabling you to meet with the right people for your projects. While we know business takes time to nurture, the initial response after Istanbul has been overwhelmingly amazing, thanks to the participation of every single one of our delegates and sponsors.

We look forward to hosting many more successful meetings in the following years, and hope to always see both old friends and new members & partners there!