Winning on My Terms: How a Setback Became the Catalyst for Plug-In Freight Ops™

4 days ago
3 min read

By Michelle DeFronzo

When people talk about “winning,” they often picture the finish line. For me, winning has always looked more like surviving storms, rebuilding from scratch, and showing up even when life hits hard. My biggest turning point didn’t come from a perfect moment — it came after COVID knocked me flat.

After I recovered, I didn’t bounce back as the same person. Something inside me had shifted. For the first time in my 30-plus years in logistics, I faced the reality that the industry I loved was too dependent on people working through exhaustion, emails, emergencies, and nonstop pressure. While I was fighting to regain my strength, shipments still needed to move, customers still needed updates, and teams were overwhelmed across the globe.

Lying in bed, I kept thinking, There has to be a better way to run freight.

There had to be a way for logistics professionals to work smarter — without sacrificing their health, time, or freedom.

That is the moment Plug-In Freight Ops™ was born.

I didn’t set out to build a software platform; I set out to solve a pain I lived through. If I was struggling to keep the freight world running while recovering, imagine what thousands of logistics teams were experiencing daily. That spark became a vision: a digital portal that would automate quotes, bookings, and tracking in seconds — something the industry had been talking about for years but never truly delivered at a full-service level.

Today, Plug-In Freight Ops™ is a complete ecosystem that empowers airlines, GSAs, freight forwarders, and government contractors to streamline their operations instantly. It integrates with the tools they already use, but goes further by providing real-time freight visibility, instant quoting, route intelligence, booking automation, and white-label capabilities for companies who want to scale globally without the heavy overhead. It gives logistics professionals — especially women — the power to run their business from anywhere: a beach, a hotel, a conference, or even recovery at home.

COVID forced me to redesign not just my business model, but my definition of success. I no longer wanted to build a company where I had to work every single day to keep everything moving. I wanted to build a company that could take care of others — the younger generation entering logistics, the single mothers trying to build a career, the entrepreneurs chasing opportunity, and the teams who deserve better tools than spreadsheets, emails, and outdated systems.

Winning in 2025 means freedom. Freedom of time. Freedom to lead from a place of strength instead of burnout. Freedom to build, teach, and pass the torch.

As a woman-owned business, ImEx Cargo has always carried a deep sense of responsibility. With certifications such as WBE, WOSB, DBE, and ACDBE, we’ve spent decades paving the way for diversity in aviation, freight, and government contracting. But Plug-In Freight Ops™ represents our next chapter: a smarter, more innovative, more accessible logistics future — one where women don’t just participate, they lead.

If my story teaches anything, it’s this:

Setbacks are not the end. They are catalysts for innovation.

Sometimes life pushes you into the darkness so you can build something that shines brighter than anything you imagined.

One Actionable Tip for Women Who Want to Win

Turn your toughest moment into your next blueprint. There is power in saying, “If this doesn’t exist, I’ll build it.”

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