During the West Australian flood emergency earlier this year, 2023 Young Alumni Award winner James Rosengren (Class of 2016) found himself well and truly in the deep end.
Fresh out of the Kraft Heinz Company’s graduate program, the 26-year-old needed to find a way to keep food on WA’s supermarket shelves after the only rail freight route from the east coast was washed away.
“Rail is the most cost-efficient way to get product from the east coast to the west,” Mr Rosengren said.
“A rail freight container costs about $5000 to transport. Getting the same amount of goods into WA by truck costs around $50,000.
“It’s also not common for sea freight to travel from the east coast capitals to Fremantle, and certainly not at the volumes we needed to move.”
With only 10 percent of what customers needed hitting the shelves, the government declared a humanitarian crisis and allowed international shipping companies to move goods on Australian routes.
Not only did Mr Rosengren have to battle for space on ships to ensure the essentials like canned and bottled goods many families rely on could get to where they were needed, the entire east coast operation had to pivot as well.
It was a pretty big gig for someone in their first major logistics role, but solving gnarly problems is what floats Mr Rosengren’s boat.
He says studying a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce at Bond University gave him the quick thinking and problem-solving skills enabling a rapid rise up the ranks in less than three years.
He has just been poached to head up logistics for Australia and New Zealand by global food giant Mars.
Mr Rosengren says he looks back on his time at Bond with fondness and nostalgia and being named this year’s Young Alumni Award winner was heart-warming.