JCi GLOBAL CORPInternational sourcing & procurement

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About

Somebody has to be accountable for the wire.

Cross-border procurement fails in the gaps — between the manufacturer and the freight forwarder, the forwarder and the broker, the broker and the site. JCi Global Corp exists to stand in those gaps and be the one name on the contract when something goes wrong in them.

Founded
August 2008
Headquarters
Charlotte, NC
People
8 · Charlotte & Lagos
Markets delivered into
17 · 4 continents

BUILD NOTE — REMOVE BEFORE LAUNCH. Everything in amber is a fact only JCi knows. Grep confirmed: false in lib/data/facts.ts for the full list.

Why JCi exists

One customer. One Montero. Germany.

In August 2008 JCi Global Corp had one customer and one vehicle: a Mitsubishi Montero, bound for Germany. We found it, bought it, documented it, put it on a ship, and it arrived.

Germany does not call it a Montero. There it is a Pajero, and that is the first thing anyone learns doing this work: the same object has a different name, a different paper trail and a different set of rules depending on which side of the water it is standing on. Nobody tells you that. You find out at the border.

That was supposed to be the whole business. Then West Africa in 2010, Mexico in 2011, the Caribbean in 2012 — customers wanting things landed somewhere the manufacturer would not send them. The question stopped being about vehicles. It was about the thing underneath: that plenty of people know what they need and have the money to buy it, and still cannot get it to where they are. The manufacturer will not ship there. The forwarder will not clear it. The broker has never seen that HS code. Everyone in the chain is doing their job correctly and the thing still does not arrive.

18 years later that is still the whole business, just wider. 17 markets on 4 continents. A helicopter to Dubai. Light aircraft to Canada. Containers of yachts, jetskis and outboards into countries with no coastline. 5 people in Charlotte, 3 in Lagos. What we sell has changed, and where we buy it has too — we source globally, wherever the thing exists. What we are actually for has not changed at all: being the one name on the contract when the gap between the factory and the site turns out to be wider than anyone said it was.

To confirm — this draft is built only from what you told me

Still open: who the 2008 customer was, or how to describe them without naming them.

The Montero / Pajero line is mine, not yours — factually right, and it turns your first job into the thesis for the whole company. Cut it if it reads as too clever for JCi’s voice.

How we get paid

We work two ways. You will always know which one you are in.

Every buyer working with a sourcing company has the same private fear: that we are paid twice, and that the “best supplier” is whoever pays us most. So here is the whole arrangement. Sometimes JCi acts as your agent and never touches the goods. Sometimes JCi buys the item outright and sells it to you. Both are legitimate. They are not the same thing, and conflating them is how this industry earned its reputation.

Model one

As your agent

You engage us to find it, tender it and land it. We never take title. The goods are never ours.

YouJCiA fee, agreed and disclosed before the search starts
YouSupplierYour money for the goods, via LC or escrow, on milestones
SupplierJCiCommission, rebate or override — never, in any category

The price the supplier quotes is the price you pay the supplier. Our fee sits beside it, visible, and does not move depending on who wins.

Model two

As principal

We buy the item, own it, carry the risk on it, and sell it to you. You are buying from JCi, not through JCi.

JCiSupplierWe buy it and take title. Our capital, our risk, our problem if it is wrong
JCiYouOne price, quoted as a sale — because that is what it is
MarginIn the priceStated as a resale before you commit, not discovered afterwards

Faster, and often cheaper on stock we already hold or can move quickly. But you are buying from a dealer, so you should know that you are.

The commitment that actually matters

  • You are told which model applies, in writing, before you commit. Not after the invoice, not if you ask. Every time.
  • Never both on the same transaction. We do not charge you an agency fee and take a resale margin on the same goods.
  • Under Model One we take no commission, rebate, override, marketing allowance or referral payment from any supplier, in any category, ever.
  • Under Model Two the margin is ours and we say so. We do not present a resale as an independent recommendation.
  • If JCi holds any interest in, or relationship with, a shortlisted supplier, it is disclosed in writing before the shortlist reaches you.
  • You may audit the tender record for any agency mandate we run for you, on request, without explanation.

To confirm — check every line against what JCi will actually honour under pressure, then publish only those. A pledge you break once is worse than one you never made. Also: on public tenders Model Two may be barred outright — many procurement rules will not let an advisor sell you the thing they advised on. Agency only. Never principal on public money.

The people

A desk is a person.

This is the most important section on the page and the one most sourcing companies skip — which is exactly why buyers assume the worst about the ones who skip it. Photographs, real names, real backgrounds.

Name to confirm

Founder & Chief Executive

Years in international trade · what they did before JCi · one contract they personally closed and the number attached to it.

Name to confirm

Head of government & multilateral desk

Which agencies or banks they have actually won work with · FAR or World Bank procurement experience · a named programme.

Name to confirm

Head of marine, aviation & heavy plant

Category depth · surveyor, broker or engineer background · hull or airframe transactions closed.

Name to confirm

Head of logistics, customs & compliance

Broker licence or AEO experience · corridors personally run · the worst clearance they ever fixed.

Lou Mamaou

West Africa lead — Lagos

Runs the Lagos branch and the West Africa corridor. Books RoRo through Grimaldi when the schedule and the cargo suit it — which on this route, more often than not, they do.

Add: years in Nigerian clearance · what he has landed at Apapa or Tin Can · a photograph, with his permission.

Guidance — read this before filling the cards above

You are 8 people. Say 8 people. Buyers award large mandates to small teams constantly — they do not award them to companies that were vague about their size and got caught. 8 people trading since 2008, with a named customs broker and a named West Africa lead, is more credible than “a global team of experts.” Your age is the asset here, not your headcount.

Bios should be evidence, not adjectives. “Fourteen years at a Rotterdam shipbroker, closed the sale of nine offshore support vessels” beats “seasoned marine professional” by a distance that cannot be measured.

Use real photographs. Stock headshots get reverse-image-searched by exactly the diligence teams you most want to impress. If you don’t have photos yet, leave the silhouettes — they read as honest placeholders. Fake faces read as a fake company.

Principles

Four things we do that cost us money.

Anyone can publish values. These are the ones with a price tag, which is the only kind worth reading.

  • We tell you when not to buy. If the requirement can’t be met at your budget, or the asset is wrong for the job, you hear it in week one — when we still have the option of staying quiet and billing you for a search.
  • We pay no facilitation payments. Not to a customs officer, not through an agent, not renamed as an expediting fee. This costs us contracts. It will keep costing us contracts.
  • We disclose our own conflicts. Before the shortlist, not after the award, and not only when asked.
  • We deliver the bad news ourselves. A delay you hear from us in week six is a problem. A delay you discover in week fourteen is a lawsuit.

Where we are

Charlotte, and soon Lagos.

5 people in Charlotte. 3 in Lagos, working the West Africa corridor while the branch is fitted out — opening 2026, led by Lou Mamaou.

Why Charlotte is worth one honest sentence here rather than an address in the footer. To confirm — proximity to the East Coast ports? The banking base? It is where the founder is from? Any honest answer beats none; buyers notice when a “global” company will not say where it lives.

JCi Global Corp
3709 Eastway Drive
Charlotte, NC 28205
United States

Also to confirm on this page

  • Legal entity type and state of incorporation
  • Lagos address and opening date, once the fit-out is done
  • Whether the 2008 Germany customer can be named or described
  • Certifications actually held, with the issuing body and certificate number
  • Insurance carried: professional indemnity, marine cargo, E&O — buyers of large equipment ask early
  • Banking or escrow relationships you can name
  • Real photographs of the team and, if it exists, the office