Outstanding Directors 2024: Jodee Kozlak
Jodee Kozlak assumed immense business challenges on Jan. 1, 2023, when she became the chair of C.H. Robinson.
The Eden Prairie-based logistics company was experiencing deep revenue declines, the CEO had just been fired, and an activist investor had secured two board seats.
Kozlak was unbowed and determined to preside over a well-functioning board, find a transformative CEO to guide the company, and work with management on adapting a business model that was battered from weak freight demand and excess carrier capacity.
Kozlak had several assets that would help her navigate the rough waters at C.H. Robinson. She knew the business because she’d been on the company’s board for 10 years, she was a lawyer and veteran business executive, and she had a good ally in Scott Anderson, a former CEO of Patterson Cos., who shifted from C.H. Robinson board chair to the company’s interim CEO.
“We need a good rhythm in the board room,” she remembers thinking. “We need conditions to maximize the effectiveness of the group.” Rules of the road that she established included expectations of professionalism and engaged listening, which allowed board members to ask difficult questions.
“We were focused on the top priority issues, and making sure that we enabled all voices around the table to be heard respectfully,” she says.
Ancora Advisors LLC, the activist investor, had raised questions in 2022 about how the company was being run. Kozlak was deliberate about ensuring there was an appropriate pace of change, but she says that would only occur by “setting up the right conversations in the right order.”
She stressed relationship-building and direct communication among board members.
When asked how she expected board members to treat each other, Kozlak says: “Drop the hyperbole. Drop the rhetoric. Show up with the appropriate demeanor of a professional board member who cares about good governance. And let’s talk. Be candid. If you have something to say, say it in the meeting so we can all hear it, instead of leaving the meeting and writing a three-paragraph email. That’s not helpful.”
Kermit Crawford, former president and COO of Rite Aid Corp., has served on the C.H. Robinson board since 2020. Kozlak “has the ability to get to the bottom of the matter very quickly,” Crawford says. He characterizes her as a passionate “servant leader,” who cares about shareholders, employees, and the Twin Cities community. He also says that Kozlak is a person of integrity who’s displayed courage in taking on tough issues directly.
Kozlak and Crawford co-chaired C.H. Robinson’s CEO search committee. They were looking for someone with a strong vision who recognized the possibilities of turning C.H. Robinson into a great company, he says. “We wanted to make sure that we brought a ‘people person’ in, a person who was a leader of leaders,” Crawford says. He notes that C.H. Robinson already had talented leaders, but he and Kozlak wanted the new CEO to channel their energy behind a new business strategy.
In June 2023, they hired Dave Bozeman, a Ford Motor Co. executive, as CEO. He had also worked for Caterpillar and Amazon. Kozlak says she was impressed that Bozeman was a good teacher, strategic thinker, and “successfully reinvented operating models across his career at scale.”
Under Bozeman’s leadership, she says that C.H. Robinson has become more agile, made productivity gains, and improved its financial performance through Bozeman’s “fit, fast, and focused” strategy.
For example, she says, Bozeman and company employees have the ability “to harness AI, technology, and digital to make sure that we are able to move faster,” such as on bidding and booking loads.
The founder and CEO of Kozlak Capital Partners, Kozlak earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of St. Thomas, where she is chair of the board of trustees.
“One of the things I care about so much is helping that school raise its national profile,” Kozlak says.
She joined the board in 2018 to work with then-president Julie Sullivan, who had a robust agenda of building programs, pursuing innovative projects, and constructing modern facilities.
“Academic excellence and student scholarships are the most important things,” she says of the board’s priorities. “Meanwhile, we have this elevation to Division I [athletics] and making sure that we’re positioning ourselves to be able to compete effectively.”
Other Board Service
KB Home (2020–present)
Leslie’s Inc. (2020–23)
MGIC Investment Corp. (2018–present)
University of St. Thomas (2018–present)
