Federal Express Federal Express (FedEx) under the leadership of Fred Smith has been innovative from its very beginning. The very idea of a hub-and-spokes distribution system was revolutionary. Smith saw the air freight industry in the early 70’s as inefficient and unreliable. In the early stages Smith was quoted as saying, “Federal Express has the opportunity to become one of American’s great corporations and the dominant force in the small package air express industry. We have found a gap in the transportation industry and we are going to fill it.” The hub-and-spokes system addressed the inefficiencies of the industry. Smith then utilized technology to deal with th