SnapFulfil separates U.S. and European markets, names new CEO

Warehouse management system (WMS) software vendor SnapFulfil has named a new CEO for its North American region, promoting a company executive to the top position and assigning former leader Tony Dobson to run its U.K. and European arms.

Don White

Don White is now chief executive officer of SnapFulfil, which is the WMS product produced by Derbyshire, U.K.-based parent company Synergy Logistics. First hired in 2016, White had previously held other internal positions including vice president, Enterprise Solutions and senior vice president, Applications and Robotics. Before joining Synergy, he held senior management positions at companies including Domino Sugar, JDA Software Group Inc., Infor GT Nexus, and Dematic.

"I am proud to be at the helm of SnapFulfil as we expand our offering and bring an entire new set of value propositions to supply chain execution and operations customers," White—who once served aboard submarines in the U.S. Navy—said in a release.

Tony Dobson

Previous CEO Dobson had joined the company in 2012 to establish SnapFulfil in the U.S., and will now focus on its overseas operations. "Dobson remains chief executive of the U.K. and Europe and White will focus on the U.S. market," a SnapFulfil spokesperson said in an email. "[White's] appointment is in recognition that the two markets, while finding similar value in the SnapFulfil application, do require specific differences. He comes with detailed knowledge of the potential in the American market, and it was the right time to separate the business units to better support our remarkable growth."

The company does not plan any substantive changes in strategy following the change in organization. "White is picking up where Dobson left off, focusing on the large- and medium-sized wholesalers and retailers looking for a cloud-based warehouse management system that can be quickly and cost effectively rolled out across multiple sites," the spokesperson said.

In one change that is planned for 2020, SnapFulfil is planning to launch a robotic fulfillment cart designed to help its customers streamline their small parts picking and e-commerce fulfillment center performance. The "SnapCart" platform is a modular pick-to-light system that will follow a "man to goods" approach, allowing warehouse workers to focus on picking products while the cart does the "walking" in order to reduce employees' travel distances in each shift, the firm said.

That approach follows a similar model to some other established players in the automated warehouse fulfillment sector, including autonomous mobile robot (AMR) vendors such as Locus Robotics, Fetch Robotics, and 6 River Systems Inc., which was acquired in 2019 by Shopify.