As the chairman and CEO of Fritz Companies, Lynn Fritz was an architect of the global logistics industry. With 12,000 employees in 120 countries, he understood the sources of the greatest inefficiencies in global supply chains. Fritz also witnessed numerous natural disasters – and realized that his expertise in supply chain logistics could speed disaster relief. In 2001, at age 59, six months after selling Fritz Companies to UPS, Fritz set up the Fritz Institute, a non-profit public charity that partners with governments, humanitarian aid agencies and community organizations around the world to improve the flow of aid and goods to disaster zones. Fritz now hosts an annual humanitarian logistics conference with the largest agencies in the world, including the United Nations, the Red Cross, and large international NGOs. When the South East Asia tsunami hit in 2004, the International Federation of the Red Cross, using logistics software developed by Fritz, was able to deliver relief supplies five times more effectively than it had in any previous major disaster. The Red Cross uses Fritz training programs and software to coordinate relief in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and Myanmar, as do aid organizations in more than 20 countries. “It made intuitive sense that the efficient movement of goods and people during dynamic and disturbed circumstances was a challenge I could help address.”