Scott Borgerson has resigned as chief executive of shipping data platform CargoMetrics in order to avoid being "a distraction", TradeWinds can reveal.
Borgerson has this year been the target of stories in the tabloid and business media over his close friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, a player in the scandal surrounding the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A statement to TradeWinds from CargoMetrics — the company he founded in 2010 — confirmed that Borgerson resigned in July and is no longer a director of the company.
"We are enormously grateful to our founder Scott Borgerson, who resigned as CEO and from his seat on the board in late July to ensure his presence would not become a distraction from the work he believes in so deeply," the statement said.
New face
"At this exciting time in our 12-year-old company’s evolution, long-time president and chief operating officer Jes Scully has been appointed CEO and has been named to the CargoMetrics board," the company stated.
Scully has been CargoMetrics' president and chief operating officer since 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Prior to that, he had worked at Interactive Supercomputing, NetSilicon and Deloitte & Touche.
In its statement, CargoMetrics added: "There is no individual more qualified than Jes to lead our exceptional interdisciplinary team of software engineers, data scientists, mathematicians, and maritime experts as CargoMetrics realises its vast potential."
The Boston-based firm said it aims to "continue to be innovative leaders in tracking and analysing global seaborne trade".
Borgerson describes himself as an "entrepreneur" on his LinkedIn profile, which confirms he left CargoMetrics in July.
Emails sent by TradeWinds to Borgerson's CargoMetrics address bounced back. He did not immediately respond to enquiries sent to his private email address.
Private life in the press
Borgerson is said to have come to know Maxwell through her ocean conservation-focused TerraMar Project, of which he was a director, according to reports.
Press reports have even gone so far as to suggest Maxwell and Borgerson were secretly married and owned property together.
But the ex-CargoMetrics boss has never cultivated a high media profile.
CargoMetrics remained in "stealth mode" from the time of its founding in 2010 until 2016, as it built its reputation and won high-profile private investors.
Among those who put money into the company were Google’s Eric Schmidt, Lotus Development’s Jim Manzi, Citigroup’s Ed Morse and shipping billionaire Idan Ofer.
CargoMetrics began measuring ship movements in late 2009 by gathering AIS data to build a real-time picture of trade patterns.
That enabled it to build a quantitative hedge fund, backed by high-profile tech investors and other players, such as Clarksons.
The company also has fleet management data deals in place with Maersk Tankers in the product tanker space and Western Bulk in dry cargo.
European debut
Borgerson appeared at the Marine Money Hamburg conference in March this year, at which he outlined CargoMetrics' "different" approach to digitalising shipping and making freight-price discovery more transparent.
"Information can be applied to shipping and [it is] how we do it in a collaborative way to help take shipping forward to help solve some of the huge issues and problems we face," he told the conference.
"I think that’s a different approach. We have shipowners, brokers, cargo owners, trading companies, technologists. We think everybody should be involved to take shipping forward.
"Other technology entrepreneurs in shipping who have been humbled enough by years of pain think that ‘there’s an app for that’, and that’s not true in shipping."
Technology entrepreneur Borgerson, it seems, has been humbled for entirely different reasons.
