Andrew Hart Reaches 5 Years At Cargostore

Marking his fifth anniversary as CEO of Cargostore, we talk to Andrew Hart about his journey within the business to date and the passion that is driving its growth trajectory.

You were appointed as Cargostore CEO in 2021, but can you share a little about your career path prior to that?

You could say my path to Cargostore started many years ago when I picked up a Wilbur Smith book set in Africa. The book inspired me to leave the UK to go to Zambia when I was eighteen and I fell in love with the continent and later moved back to live and work in Rwanda, Sudan and ultimately Kenya for a decade.

That’s really where I carved out my working life, operating in several roles within project logistics both in Africa and the Middle East. As CEO of AFEX Group (a Lonrho Company), I was responsible for overseeing a rapid phase of growth  spurred by East Africa oil and gas exploration and peace keeping operations before going on to lead Freight Forwarders Kenya (FFK), a project logistics specialist in out of gauge and complex cargo operating in the mining, oil and gas and aid sectors across East and Central Africa.

Funnily enough I was aware of Cargostore even then, as I would see their containers being loaded on to the vessel carrying our weekly shipments to Mogadishu for the UNSOS peace keeping mission. After Connection Capital acquired Cargostore in 2020, I was contacted about the possibility of joining them. A key premise of the Cargostore acquisition to was to identify and bring in a younger management team with fresh impetus to see the business into the next chapter of its journey.

And the rest as they say, is history. I was delighted to be appointed CEO in March 2021, and it’s been an incredible journey ever since.

What are some of the things that stand out for you on your Cargostore Journey to date?

I think one of the key elements I wanted to implement when I first arrived was to take a deeper dive into our strategy. The world was right in the midst of Covid and the aftermath of the April 2020 global oil price crash which were challenging times for the energy sector.

But with the market subdued, that also presented an opportunity for us to knuckle down and look at the business and identify what we needed to do to create the platform to really capture futuremarket opportunities. So very quickly we launched the ‘Simba Strategy’. Structured, Innovative, Measured, Bold and Accurate – this was a strategy that was all about sorting out the engine room of the business which would ultimately allow us to thrive over the next 3-5 years.

The business needed a new structure to enable us to be more efficient and provide the foundation for growth. This meant looking at key infrastructures such as software and process automation, reporting and consistency. We also looked at our people and how they could work in roles that best suited their skills and experience and by doing that adding greater value to the business.

Alongside internal operations, we saw there was a recognition challenge in those early days. While our capability was strong, our brand was not yet widely known in the market.  We needed to communicate externally that we had the scale, strength and reach to support our customers wherever and whenever they needed us. This ultimately led to a full rebrand in 2022.

This was a significant step change in the business and took a lot of collective focus and work. With the Simba Strategy complete, we then moved into the Duma (Cheetah) Strategy – which as the name suggests, was about speed! Dynamic, Uncomplicated, Measured and Audacious, this is all about ensuring we stick to our values of rapid and flexible decision making with our clients’ best interests at heart whilst avoiding the inertia that can sometimes be created by rapid growth. At the same time, we had some ambitions which the team have already delivered upon.

We made our first ever acquisition (two in fact!) of Reftrade and Environstore. Both were businesses we knew, with similar guiding principles to ours and they were a good fit.

Crucially it brought the arrival of Zone 2 refrigerated containers, completing the entire spectrum of refrigeration containers for Cargostore and furthering the team’s technical knowledge to expand into ATEX related equipment. Furthermore, it provided us with a foothold into Aberdeen, the UK’s key offshore hub, and the perfect base for scaling our presence in Scotland, the Northeast and East Anglia.

 Shortly after that in June 2025, we announced the launch of LiftaLoo; our unique and ground-breaking welfare unit serving the offshore sector. 

Bringing new products to market was a key element of our growth strategy and through acquisition and innovation we have done this, in turn, and by doing so increasing our revenue streams.

With those strategies in mind, what is the longer-term vision for Cargostore Worldwide over the next 5 years?

Since 2020 the business has more than doubled its profits to around £7 million by the end of 2025 and the aim is to grow again over the next 5 years.

All being well in 2026 we will undergo another transaction; an investment which will give us additional firepower and the opportunity to recalibrate our business strategy and targets, enabling us to be bolder about our future aspirations and acquisitions.

We also want to capitalise on the growth in the offshore wind market by leveraging on our expertise and capability in CCU’s (Cargo Carrying Units) to deliver the LiftaLoo product across the European offshore wind market and beyond.

What do you see as critical ingredients in achieving the growth ambitions over that time?

I believe passionately that in tandem with the quality of our products, it is our people and our ethos that are key. We continuously look at who we are as a business and how we deliver on our promises to our customers.

In the last five years we have won contracts that, from the outside, you probably thought we shouldn’t have won. Our people and ethos were, and are, critical to that. Speed of response, flexibility and our focus and enthusiasm for delivering results for our clients are key ingredients. I strongly believe this gives us an advantage in the market. This is reflected at board level where we also make ourselves available to support this approach.

So, when you win some of those key contracts, you start to generate a level of traction which becomes magnetic to the market. One of our USPs is that we are not slow and cumbersome due to size. We are agile and flexible with the way we work with our customers. People, product, price – that’s how we approach and engage with the sales process.

Our goal is to make the experience of leasing containers so easy that clients enjoy working with us, and our business personality is a critical part of that. How we do what we do enables our philosophy and our people to shine.

Are there any developing market opportunities you are looking at?

Yes, I am very excited about the potential for Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) projects (having completed our first in 2025) and how they are looking at utilizing the vast network of redundant oil wells to return carbon back into the ground.

What are some of the biggest challenges in the market currently?

There is no doubt ours is an industry that can change quickly; whether that is though geopolitical and environmental impacts or market sentiment which makes longer-term planning more challenging.

Aside from that, I think we are going to see stiffer competition from players in our market in the coming years. We are the ‘Emirates Business Class’ of the container world and that is what we want to be. We deliver higher quality kit, equipment and levels of service which in turn attracts clients that want this and are willing to pay a small premium for that service. It is clearly an attractive space for our competitors to target.

Where do you see innovation playing a role in the company’s future, particularly regarding the use of technology or new services?

We spend a lot of time looking at equipment and seeing how we can reinvent or improve features on existing products. The LiftaLoo is a prime example of this. We also spend a lot of time talking to customers to see how we can do things better, simpler and safer.

We like to look and consider fresh ways of doing things in our industry that have traditionally been done in the same way for a long time. Our team is very good at asking questions and getting to know the clients deeply and working with them to develop solutions for them.

You talked about the Cargostore way of doing things, the ethos and personality of the business. Can you put that into words?

Energy, enthusiasm, professionalism and fun.

We like to do things differently. We do things energetically and with commitment. When you enjoy doing what you do, then you do good work and naturally good business follows.