BlueGrace names chief marketing officer

RIVERVIEW — BlueGrace Logistics, a Riverview-based third-party logistics firm, has hired a former Words At Work marketing executive and partner to be its new chief marketing officer.

Mark Derks is expected to lead brand development, marketing strategy and public relations, and help with enabling sales, innovating new products and heightening the customer experience. “The addition of Derks to the executive team deepens our strategy to serve more clients across an innovative and growing portfolio of services,” says BlueGrace CEO Bobby Harris in a statement.

“His experience across industries, deep relationships and customer-first mentality are strong attributes that will benefit our customers, carriers and employees.”

Derks has spent more than a quarter century in marketing. In addition to Words at Work, a Minneapolis-based digital content marketing agency where he assisted logistics firms, he worked for more than two decades at C.H. Robinson, leading global marketing and public relations, the release states. 

“BlueGrace has a positive brand on which to build and the right people and technology in place to help customers further embrace their supply chain and turn it into a business growth strategy,” Derks says in the statement.

Derks’ hiring comes on the heels of other C-level positions at the company. Azad Ratzki recently joined as chief technology officer and Mike Meier was hired as chief strategy officer.

With eight offices around the U.S. and some 250,000 integrated carriers, BlueGrace serves more than 10,000 customers annually. The company is supported financially by a more than $250 million investment from private equity firm Warburg Pincus.