Kieran began his career in the early 1980s working as an industrial engineer in the European multinational manufacturing sector. By the late 1980s he was working as a publisher in the trade, technical and scientific media where he was directly responsible for journals and magazines, which documented the rise of foreign direct investment (FDI). In 1989 he was appointed Deputy Publisher to the Paris-based Eurexpansion Group with responsibility for Ireland’s ‘Sunday Business Post’.
In 1995 he was appointed ED of the European Institute of Transport, where he established the Global Logistics Forum, the forerunner to the Global Institute of Logistics. He founded the Global Institute of Logistics in New York in 2003 with members of the Global Logistics Forum under the Chairmanship of the late Robert V. Delaney (Bob), the renowned US author and logistician.

Born and now based in Beijing, Mr. Yang Lei (William) was appointed the Institute’s China Director in September 2010.
William leads the Institute’s China Taskforce under the chairmanship of Dr FU Yuning of China Merchant Group, which is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the transfer of logistics best practice east to west and west to east, and of stimulating joint Trade Development Programs between Chinese and global port communities.
William began his career working as a Researcher for the Institute, and is the author of “Reasoning and Methodology for the Creation of a Global Standard for Port Performance in Container Terminal Operations” in which he set out the academic argument that led to the development of the Institute’s Container Terminal Quality System (CTQS).
He subsequently worked in the Freight Forwarding industry in Europe as a Marketing specialist, and was awarded the “Rising Star of Freight” by International Freight Weekly (IFW) in 2010 for his argument on the need for a Fixed Exchange Rate System to avoid freight pricing uncertainty against a backdrop of exchange rate fluctuation.
Mr. Yang Lei holds a Bachelors Degree (BA) in Business Management and a Masters Degree (MBS) in Supply Chain Management from University College Dublin.

Gareth was born in 1987. After receiving his secondary education from Wesley College, Dublin, Gareth went on to study at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Bolton St. After four years Gareth graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in the field of Transport Operations & Technology
After his graduation in 2010, Gareth joined the Institute in 2011 to take on the role of Communications Office where he was responsible for managing the day to day running of the Institute.
His current role with the Institute is conducting research, and is at present researching the role of port-city relations and megacity logistics.