David Caines

Chief Operating Officer Kenco Group

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

David Caines is Chief Operating Officer of Kenco Group, the family-owned third-party logistics provider founded in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1950 and now one of the larger privately held 3PLs in North America. He carries responsibility for every one of the company’s operating contracts, which is to say for the warehousing, distribution, and transportation work Kenco performs on behalf of its customers across a national network of facilities and several thousand employees. He is an internal appointment in the fullest sense: he joined Kenco in 2002, spent a dozen years moving up through its operating businesses to run both its Logistic Services and Transportation Services divisions as President, and was promoted to the operating chief’s seat in December 2014. His background is in operational rigour rather than commercial strategy, and he holds a Six Sigma Black Belt alongside Lean engineering training.

Career Highlights

• Promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Kenco Group on 3 December 2014, with responsibility for all of the company’s operating contracts.
• At the time of that promotion, the portfolio he took on covered more than 100 facilities, roughly 3,500 employees, and 30 million square feet of warehouse space.
• Joined Kenco in 2002 and rose to serve as President of both Kenco Logistic Services and Kenco Transportation Services before the COO appointment.
• Holds a Six Sigma Black Belt and is trained in Lean engineering.
• Serves on the board of the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute and is a member of the University of Tennessee Supply Chain Forum.
• Active in the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC).
• Serves on the boards of Covenant College, the Chalmers Center, See Rock City, and the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

Professional Journey

Caines took a bachelor’s degree in business and accounting at Covenant College, on Lookout Mountain just outside Chattanooga, and later an MBA from Duke University. The accounting grounding matters to how his career developed, because the operating side of contract logistics is fundamentally a margin business: a 3PL wins a contract on a service specification and a price, and everything after that is the disciplined management of labour, space, and equipment against that price.

He joined Kenco in 2002. Kenco is an unusual company in the sector, family-owned since its founding by Jim Kennedy Jr. and Sam Smartt in 1950 and still privately held, which gives it a longer planning horizon than publicly traded competitors and a culture that promotes from within. Caines spent his first decade there inside the operating businesses, and the trajectory took him to the presidency of Kenco Logistic Services, the warehousing and distribution arm, and of Kenco Transportation Services, the freight and fleet arm. Running both meant holding the two halves of a customer’s supply chain, the static and the moving, under one accountability.

On 3 December 2014 he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer. Board chairwoman Jane Kennedy Greene announced the appointment, and the remit was broad: responsibility for all of Kenco’s operating contracts, a portfolio then described as more than 100 facilities, some 3,500 employees, and 30 million square feet of warehouse space. He brought to it a Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean engineering training, the continuous-improvement toolkit that is the standard vocabulary of high-volume warehouse operations, and the practical knowledge of having run the divisions he was now overseeing.

He has held the role since, through a period in which Kenco has continued to invest in automation, material handling equipment, and supply chain technology, and during which Denis Reilly became the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Outside the company, Caines is visible in the academic and professional infrastructure of the supply chain field, serving on the board of the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute and participating in the University of Tennessee Supply Chain Forum, CSCMP, and WERC. He is also a notably committed Chattanooga civic figure, sitting on the boards of his alma mater Covenant College, the Chalmers Center, the See Rock City attraction, and the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

Education

Duke University

MBA

Covenant College

Bachelor’s degree, Business and Accounting