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Burroughs aims to continue TIA’s progress on building membership, strengthening partnerships and expanding educational efforts. (TIA)

The Transportation Intermediaries Association on Sept. 26 announced a leadership change, tapping longtime executive Christopher Burroughs to succeed Anne Reinke as its next President and CEO.

Burroughs, who has been with the association for more than a decade, most recently served as vice president of government affairs, overseeing all federal legislative and regulatory efforts.

The TIA board of directors , the same day Reinke of the Intermodal Association of North America.

Burroughs is set to take the reins at TIA at the end of November.

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“I’m obviously thrilled and honored to lead such a great organization,” Burroughs told Transport Topics. “TIA has been an industry-leading voice for the freight brokerage industry. I’ve been here 13 years and just have a ton of passion. Our members are amazing and just love the collaboration we have with a bunch of different other organizations — folks like [American Trucking Associations] — and just the great work that we’ve all collectively done together to advance transportation.”

Burroughs aims to continue TIA’s progress on building membership, strengthening partnerships and expanding educational efforts, but given his background he also expects to remain involved in policy and government issues.

“We’ll continue to build upon those strong coalitions that we have — making those even stronger, sharing in that collective voice, addressing issues,” Burroughs said, “which we’re doing right now in addressing issues like the rampant fraud that’s going on.” He cited ATA, the Truckload Carriers Association, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, retail industry leaders and “other great organizations” working with TIA to address a wave of fraudulent brokering activity that has beset the 3PL sector.

Burroughs is confident TIA can help members navigate difficult business conditions amid a soft freight environment and looming regulatory and legislative challenges.

“That part will be seamless,” he said. “Obviously my background in government relations will help a lot with that. Here at TIA the government affairs department runs a lot of our policy committees, so we’re having those day-to-day conversations with members [about] the most important issues that they all are facing.”

Burroughs stressed that freight fraud has been a particularly vexing challenge in the aftermath of the pandemic, made more difficult as criminal organizations continually evolve their schemes and strategies. He says these types of complex issues give associations an opportunity to add value by organizing private and government stakeholders.

“We already have a phenomenal government relations team in place,” Burroughs said. “Obviously, we’ll have to find another member to join it with me taking the step up in November, but it’s continuing to be that voice — be that advocate — for our members. Advocate for those issues and talk common sense solutions to the federal agencies, to Congress. When there’s so much noise going on, we just try to cut through that and provide value to our members in terms of pushing what’s important.”

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