There's a pattern in how carrier consulting strategy work gets done inside shipping organizations, and it often has a gap in the middle of it. The flow typically goes like this:
- A shipper brings in an expert consultant.
- The consultant does genuinely good work: assesses the carrier portfolio mix, identifies the concentration risk, evaluates contracts, recommends a diversification path.
- The recommendations land in a deck.
- The deck is considered, partially, and executed, maybe.
- Eighteen months later, the performance expectations from the consultant have not been fully realized and the shipper is in the same rut - enduring similar risks, surprised by unexpected costs, wondering if they have the right carrier mix.
The advice was sound, but the connection to execution, monitoring, and iteration never existed.
I've watched this from both sides. As a procurement leader at Best Buy and Kohler, consultants came and went, and my teams lived with what happened afterward. The consulting industry produces strategy, while the platform industry produces execution, yet the two rarely touch, and shippers pay for that gap in every rate cycle. At Shipium, running Compass, I now sit on the platform side and see a clear opportunity to build that bridge.
Today we're doing something about it. Shipium is launching the Certified Advisor Network, and I'm honored to announce that Nate Skiver, founder of LPF Spend Management, is our first Certified Advisor.
What this actually is
On paper, the Certified Advisor Network is a partner program. In practice, it's an extension of the Compass bridge between strategy and execution, built from independent experts whose recommendations can plug directly into a platform instead of dying in a slide deck.
Here's the operating model.
A Certified Advisor works with a shipper the way they always have: independent discovery, strategic assessment, carrier portfolio recommendations grounded in their own experience.
The difference is what happens when the work reaches a decision point that deserves quantitative rigor. Things like a carrier network change, a volume shift, a rate increase scenario, or a contract renegotiation.
At that moment, the Advisor brings in the Compass team, and we run the analysis on the Shipium platform: real simulation against the shipper's actual volume profile, producing findings the Advisor and the shipper can act on together.
The division of ownership is deliberate. Advisors are not expected to configure or run simulations. That work belongs to Compass. Instead, the Advisor owns the strategic relationship and the recommendation; Compass serves as the analytical engine underneath it. Strategy without execution is theater. Execution without strategy is busywork. This model puts each in the hands of the people best equipped to deliver it.
Certification is earned, not assumed
The word "certified" is doing real work in the program name, so let me be specific about what's behind it.
Every Certified Advisor must bring a minimum set of verifiable experiences in carrier management, parcel contract negotiation, or supply chain consulting. From there, certification requires working with the Compass team to become experts on Shipium’s capabilities in four areas:
- Platform foundations. The architecture, the Carrier Network of 80+ carriers with 99.2% domestic coverage, the Business Rule Engine, and the self-service tooling in Console.
- Carrier Portfolio Management methodology. Both halves of it: the strategy layer (carrier roles, operational and technical ratings, capabilities, coverage, specialties) and the execution layer (volume balancing, carrier load management, dynamic limits, and the difference between pure rate shopping and ML-driven selection).
- Compass and simulation awareness. A working knowledge of what our simulation capabilities can answer, what a Compass engagement looks like, and when to bring us in. Enough to set accurate expectations with a shipper, which matters more than most partner programs admit.
- Positioning and messaging. The competitive landscape and how to represent Shipium accurately in advisor-generated materials.
We are creating rigor around creating expertise with our certified advisors so mutual clients can trust the depth of our collaboration.
Why Nate Skiver is first
If you work in parcel, you already know Nate. He spent 17 years running parcel programs inside major retail brands, including Gap Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch, before founding LPF Spend Management in 2019. He is probably the most consistent independent voice in parcel transportation today, publishing daily and getting quoted everywhere from Supply Chain Dive to The Wall Street Journal.
What makes Nate the right first Advisor is his vantage point. LPF was built from a shipper's perspective. Nate isn't a former carrier salesperson repackaging insider knowledge, and he isn't an auditor upselling consulting hours. He has sat in the seat his clients sit in, managing carrier portfolios under real budget pressure with service commitments on the line. That perspective, that scar tissue, is exactly what certification is meant to signal.
“I’ve dedicated 20 years to creating value through parcel solutions, and the biggest challenge I’ve encountered is performing scenario analysis with efficiency, precision, and velocity. Partnering with Shipium as an Advisor doesn’t just solve that challenge, it creates incremental value by moving from strategy and analysis to execution and results.”
The road ahead
Nate is the first Certified Advisor, but he will not be the last.
The first certification track is Carrier Portfolio Management, because that's where independent advisory work and platform-grade analysis compound fastest. Over time, the network grows in two dimensions: more advisors within this track, and additional tracks as Compass expands its advisory surface area. If you map the shipping operations calendar (GRI season, peak planning, contract cycles, network reviews), each of those moments has independent experts a shipper already trusts. Our intent is that, over time, the best of them are Certified Advisors.
There's a longer arc here too. I've written before about how AI agents earn their autonomy inside operations: Humans In the Loop first, Humans On the Loop second, trust last. Certified Advisors accelerate that pathway. Every advisor-led engagement runs a shipper's real constraints and strategic intent through the platform, and that's precisely the material agentic workflows learn from. Today's strategic discussions will become tomorrow's agentic recommendations, and a network of certified independent experts multiplies how many of those discussions are happening at the quality bar the platform deserves.
Where to go from here
If you're a shipper, and your carrier strategy currently lives in a document rather than a system, working with a Certified Advisor paired with Shipium’s offerings is one of the fastest ways to close that gap.
If you're an independent consultant with deep carrier management experience, and you've felt the frustration of watching sound recommendations stall for lack of an execution path, I want to hear from you. The network will be selectively growing this year based on our capacity as a team to onboard.
Either way, you can reach me directly at tim.m@shipium.com. Powering what's possible has always required both the strategy and the machinery. This is us connecting the two.
