Global trade moves trillions of dollars every year and much of it still runs on paper. For James Kevin Harris, that gap between the industry’s scale and its technology is an opportunity.
With over two decades of spanning electrical engineering, commodity trading, trade compliance, and venture-backed startups, James has seen both sides of this divide up close. He’s chartered vessels in Australia, built landed cost engines in Silicon Valley, and sat across the table from investors who couldn’t explain what they were funding – only that the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) looked good.
Now he’s working to close the gap: building a venture capital firm that combines deep industry knowledge with the capital to back digital trade innovation globally. In this interview, he reflects on the career journey that got him here – and what it will take to bring the rest of the industry along.
Bridging tech and digital trade
How did a career in semiconductors lead to revolutionising global supply chains?
You’ve worked across semiconductors, global trade compliance, and now you’re automatic B2B supply chains with venture-backed startups. What connected these dots for you?
My background is a little different from most people who end up in global trade. I’m an engineer by training, specifically electrical engineering, so I’ve always understood the technology side. But the other thread goes back further than that.
Growing up, I went to school with the grandchildren of the founder of a copper mine in Chile.
I didn’t come from a business family, but I was fascinated by what theirs did. That curiosity sent me on a journey to understand the business and I quickly realised my engineering background was a natural fit.
Copper goes into electronics. The raw materials I was learning about were the same ones engineers use to build products. So, I became deeply interested in the entire supply chain: how materials are extracted, transported, transformed, and ultimately turned into the things we sell to the public.
When you transitioned from technical analysis in the storage and semiconductor industry to hands-on trade operations, what surprised you most about how global commerce works?
Actually, I went the other way around. I left the US and went to Australia specifically to learn the international version of this business because what you learn in America is a version that doesn’t travel well. It could be specific to America.
Australia is a major exporter of raw materials – oil, gas, iron ore, copper – so it was the right place to learn. I got hands-on experience trading commodities to China when they were just beginning to industrialise. I visited the Port of Newcastle, which is the world’s largest coal export terminal. I learned how to load a bulk carrier and charter a vessel.
When I returned to the US during the dot-com boom, a company was looking to automate international trade flows. Because I’d actually been in the field and understood the international version, not the Americanised one, they hired me to help build a landed cost engine. That was my first real glimpse of how much technology could do for international trade.
So, where does the traditional industry stand on digitalisation today?
Honestly, it’s still largely stuck. The practices in global commodity trading go back 500 years to when Dutch East India Company ships sailed toward the Malacca Islands to bring spices back to Europe at a 3,000% profit margin. The mentality is still very much paper-based and closed.
When I was interviewing with some of these companies, I could see they didn’t believe technology could help them. Part of it is that senior executives often don’t have a technology background. But the bigger issue is short-term thinking. In commodity trading, you buy for a dollar and sell for two – there’s very little appetite to invest for medium-term gains.
Read: ‘Break the eBL silos: Why interoperability is the missing link in digital trade‘
How can practitioners overcome these barriers to accelerating digitalisation?
Two things are happening. First, a younger generation is entering the industry – more comfortable with digital tools and gradually bringing the senior staff along with them.
Second, a lot of these businesses, particularly in commodity trading in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, are family-run, father-to-son operations. They’re protective of what they’ve built. But when a son comes in and says “we can do this better,” things start to shift.
The older generation isn’t unwilling – they’re cautious. They’re not ready to risk using technology to develop new business models, because they believe their existing model is the only path to a profitable balance sheet. But that’s not true. You have to be willing to experiment.
Your background spans both highly technical environments and operational trade roles. How has this combination shaped the way you approach supply chain challenges today?
What my combined background gives me is the ability to see both sides: I understand what the technology can actually do, and I understand the operational realities well enough to know where it genuinely fits.
Most people in this space have one or the other. Having both lets me ask different questions and spot gaps that others might miss.
Certificate in Digital Trade Strategy (CDTS)
From corporate trade to startup innovation
What does it take to automate global supply chains?
You’ve managed import/export operations across Malaysia, Thailand, China, Canada, and the U.S. What’s one lesson from managing physical cross-border shipments that most people building trade tech don’t fully appreciate?
The unexpected physical things that happen. Let me give you a real example.
I was working at an exporting company in Australia. We were shipping three 40-foot containers of wastepaper to China for recycling. The bill of lading came back listing all three container numbers – but then I got a call from the shipping line to say two of the containers were still sitting on the wharf. The ship had left without them. No explanation, no warning – the captain had either miscalculated space or simply left them behind.
Someone without hands-on field experience can’t fully appreciate situations like that.
Technology people tend to model the ideal version of a process. But real trade is full of moments like this one, and your systems have to be built to handle them.
When people talk about “automating supply chains”, what part of the process do you think is most misunderstood or oversimplified?
Tracking and tracing. People underestimate how hard it is to do properly.
Going back to that container story – if I’d had sensors reporting to me in real time, I would have seen immediately that one container was moving on the vessel and two were still sitting on the wharf in Sydney. I would have known before I even picked up the bill of lading.
There’s enormous room to invest here. Sensors are getting smaller and lower-power, and with satellite networks like Starlink now available, it’s becoming possible to track cargo continuously – 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world. But we’re not there yet, and…
…a lot of automation projects underestimate just how foundational that visibility layer really is.
Why is tracking and tracing such a hard problem to solve?
Communication technologies are still catching up. There was a sensor system I came across that worked well, but only when a ship entered a port area where cellular networks could pick up the signal. Out at sea, there was nothing. If a typhoon hit, you had no idea what was happening to your cargo.
Satellite communication wasn’t advanced enough for civilian use – military, yes, but not commercial. That’s changing now. With Starlink and other emerging networks, you can build sensors that communicate directly with satellites, keeping track of cargo across mountains, valleys, jungle, open ocean – anywhere. But we haven’t fully got there yet.
There’s also a cargo theft dimension that people don’t talk about enough. In parts of Eastern Europe – Romania, Bulgaria – there are documented cases of thieves using high-speed cars to chase trucks, jump onto the back, break the seal, and off-load cargo into a vehicle behind, all while the driver has no idea. By the time the truck arrives at its destination, half the goods are gone. Sensors that monitor the door and alert both the driver and the merchant in real time could change that entirely.
Read: ‘Unlocking digital trade in Latin America with the power of Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs)’
Can you walk us through a moment when you realised that a manual process you’d been doing could be automated? What made that lightbulb go off?
It happened when I was hired in Silicon Valley to work on a startup building a landed cost engine.
The idea was straightforward but powerful: say you want to buy shoes and you have bids from suppliers in China, Brazil, and Italy. The Chinese quote looks cheapest at the factory gate. But once you factor in land transport, loading costs, freight, duties, and taxes, the Brazilian supplier might actually be cheaper when the goods arrive.
Previously, calculating that meant calling shipping lines for rates, calling customs brokers to find out what duties applied by country of origin, all done manually. What we built allowed a computer to do all of that instantly, giving you the lowest landed cost across all options in seconds.
That was the moment it clicked for me: automation doesn’t just save time. It changes the quality of the decision.
Venture capital meets global trade
How do investors evaluate trade tech opportunities?
As an Angel Squad Member and venture partner, what’s the first thing you look for when a founder pitches you a supply chain or trade technology solution?
Their understanding of the customer’s real problem, not just the technology they’ve built.
I spoke recently with a founder who had developed a clever blockchain algorithm to match empty trucks with companies needing transport. Solid idea. But when I dug in, it became clear he’d missed something critical…
…the customer doesn’t just want a truck. They want to know where their cargo is at every moment, because that cargo represents millions of dollars of exposure.
In the US, you can track the truck, but often not the trailer, which is where the goods actually are. If a driver disconnects from the trailer, or someone breaks the seal while the truck is moving, the cargo can be stolen with no way to trace it. I had to tell him: without robust tracking and tracing, you won’t get the customers you need. The technology was impressive. But it wasn’t solving the problem the customer actually had.
Where do you see the most exciting opportunities for innovation in global trade and supply chains right now?
Three areas stand out. First, the shift from paper to digital documentation, especially with the legal changes now happening around electronic trade documents. The timing is right, and there are companies actively working on it.
Second, tracking and tracing for shipping containers and cargo, for all the reasons we’ve discussed.
Third, settlement. Specifically, getting letters of credit paid digitally. Tokenisation and Web3 are promising, but there are real obstacles: too many competing digital currencies, no accepted standard, and significant price volatility. You can’t trade effectively when your settlement currency moves the way Bitcoin does. Blockchain settlement speeds are improving too, but not yet where they need to be.
These are solvable problems, but they’ll take time.
The most important ingredient right now isn’t the technology. It’s appetite.
Companies need to be willing to create sandboxes, test digital solutions safely, build confidence, and bring things online gradually.
Certificate in Digital Trade Strategy (CDTS)
Learning in a fast-evolving field
How do professional stay ahead in digital trade?
You’ve completed the Certificate in Digital Trade Strategy (CDTS). What insight from that programme has been most useful in evaluating which technologies and approaches are actually viable in the real world of international trade?
It filled in gaps and created connections I hadn’t seen before and that pointed me toward what I think is the biggest missing piece in this space: a venture capital firm that specialises specifically in trade and supply chain technology.
Most startups in this space have to pitch to generalist VCs who don’t understand the business. I know a founder whose first investment came from someone who had actually worked in gold and copper mining and understood exactly what the company did. The second, much larger cheque came from a London VC firm focused purely on internal rate of return. I asked the partner directly: do you understand what Open Mineral does? He said: “I don’t care. If the IRR is above 10%, I invest.”
That gap between capital and industry knowledge is what I’m working to close. I’m actively building a venture capital firm that raises from people in the industry – investors who want to see real advances in digital trade – and deploys globally: the US, Europe, Singapore, Australia.
The CDTS reinforced the two concepts that matter most to that vision: ecosystem and interoperability. The course uses the word “ecosystem” 174 times and “interoperability” 71 times. Those aren’t buzzwords, they’re the architecture of what we’re trying to build.
Read: ‘Digital Trade 101: What you need to know‘
If you could go back to the beginning of your career, what’s one skill or area of knowledge you’d prioritise learning earlier?
Finance. My background is engineering – I understand numbers, but finance is a highly specialised discipline in its own right. I’d have taken it much more seriously, much earlier.
The future of global trade
Where is technology taking international commerce?
You’ve seen both the traditional side of trade operations and the cutting-edge automation projects. Ten years from now, what do you think will still be done the ‘old way’, and what will be transformed?
Physical transportation won’t change. Goods will always need to move from surplus areas to deficit areas – by ship, plane, or train. That’s not going anywhere.
What will change is everything around it. I expect much better tracking and tracing, and one or two widely accepted digital settlement systems. The wildcard is quantum computing. Quantum computers solve multiple complex problems simultaneously – marry that with AI, and you have something genuinely extraordinary.
How fast that arrives will shape how quickly the rest of the transformation unfolds.
What advice would you give to someone early in their career who wants to work at the intersection of trade, technology, and innovation?
Think of it as fitting puzzle pieces together. If you don’t have a technical background, make the effort to read up on science and technology or build relationships with people who do.
The real value isn’t in any one piece. It’s in understanding how technology, business, and operations connect, and being able to bring them together.
That’s where you’ll make the greatest advances and eventually, the greatest returns.
