Chamber Insider Spotlight: World Kinect

Michael Kasbar is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of World Kinect Corporation.

What is one thing Floridians may not know about your company?

For nearly 40 years, our team at World Kinect has been providing energy, logistics and finance solutions for our customers and suppliers around the world. We have been headquartered here in Miami for our full history and have expanded our global footprint with offices throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.  When we went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1986, we were a small intermediary reselling fuel to primarily smaller airlines and shipping companies.  Now we are the one of the largest public companies in Florida, with nearly $60 billion in sales in 2022 and more than 150,000 customers in over 200 countries and territories. I’m incredibly proud of the company we have built in the Florida community, where we employ over 650 Floridians.

At World Kinect, our mission is to meet our customers’ energy needs in the most efficient manner possible. We work every day to provide conventional and renewable energy through our own inventory, distribution and sophisticated digital services and products and our global network of partners.

To better communicate our commitment to that mission, we recently renamed our company “World Kinect” from “World Fuel Services”.  We believe that the name World Kinect better reflects our ongoing transformation into a more resilient, diversified energy and solutions provider for the conventional, sustainable and digital products the market is demanding.

What is one opportunity and one challenge your industry is facing?

The biggest challenge facing our industry is also our biggest opportunity, which is the global need for more sustainable and yet affordable forms of energy. The evolution of a diverse energy diet is a multi-decade journey with many ‘ripples’ along the way.  Our customers in the transportation sector are facing a particularly difficult energy “trilemma” – navigating between the need for reliability, affordability,  and availability with the desire for lower carbon energy alternatives. This is all while continuing to “keep the lights on” and deliver goods and services for their own customers today while investing in a sustainable future for all. We at World Kinect are not only providing conventional energy to our customers around the world – but also preparing those customers for the diversity of energy choices by continuing to expand our portfolio of energy solutions and providing customers with greater access to sustainably sourced energy.

What is one way we can unite to help grow your industry in Florida?

We need to acknowledge the energy transition is an evolution – it will not happen overnight, and we need to work together toward a sustainable long-term future. The current global demand for energy far exceeds the supply of renewable and sustainable fuel sources, meaning there are numerous critical industries and services that could not function utilizing exclusively the lower carbon energy sources currently available. We need to be collectively prepared to invest in the necessary infrastructure and development of low and zero carbon energy sources in the near term, while accepting that the energy transition may take longer than some anticipate. Our job at World Kinect is to ensure we keep our customers well supplied, so critical infrastructure and businesses are up and running all day and every day – all while investing to help prepare and accelerate a sustainable future.

About World Kinect Corporation

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, World Kinect Corporation (NYSE: WKC) is a leading global energy management company, offering a broad suite of solutions across the energy product spectrum. In addition to our core energy and fuel offerings to customers in the transportation sector, we provide advisory services, sustainability and renewable energy solutions, as well as supply fulfillment for natural gas and power. We continue to focus on advancing the energy transition to lower carbon alternatives through expanding our portfolio of energy solutions and providing customers with greater access to sustainably sourced energy.

For more information, visit https://corp.worldkinect.com.