Throughout 2021, IntelliTrans spoke with and profiled an impressive lineup of Amazing Women in Supply Chain. We talked to them about their careers, top challenges, industry insights and future outlooks both for the supply chain industry as a whole and for the talented women working in it. Here are the top highlights from their 2021 profiles:
Carving Out a Successful Career
Early in her career, Cindy Bond, Manager, Surface Transportation and Logistics at Phillips 66 didn’t see too many co-workers or managers who “looked” like her working in supply chain. “I didn’t interact with many women at all, much less in management roles,” says Bond, who is now seeing more women entering the field and enjoying successful careers in an area that she discovered over 30 years ago.
“During my time at Phillips 66, I’ve been very fortunate to work for many women in increasingly higher leadership roles,” says Bond, who over the last 20 years has been in six different roles and worked for 13 different bosses, 50% of whom have been women. “I’ve been fortunate to have really good female role models on my side, helping to navigate my career.”
As a whole, Bond says supply chain, logistics, and transportation is slowly becoming a more popular career choice for women. “Trucking is still a bit behind in that area, but we’re definitely seeing more of them coming into the rail industry,” she observes. “As the old guard continues to retire, I think we’ll see more and more women taking on leadership roles and rising up through the ranks in our industry.”
The Only Woman in the Room
As a supply chain professional in the chemical industry, Jo Shepherd, Executive VP of Supply Chain at AkzoNobel says she’s accustomed to being the “only woman in the room.” She’s seen more women making their way into the industry over the last 10 years—from entry-level positions right up to senior leadership roles, and everything in between. For example, she says that with more women earning technical degrees (e.g., chemical engineering), they’re apt to explore opportunities in supply chain and logistics.
“The pool is getting a little bigger,” says Shepherd, who actively encourages women to look into the career opportunities in supply chain. “It gets better and better every year.” She says individuals who enjoy pushing their own limits and working outside of their comfort zones tend to fare best in the field, where they could be implementing new technology one day and addressing a monumental supply chain disruption the next.
Technology’s Impact on the Supply Chain
Laura Eory, Sr. Manager Transportation at GAF, says strong alliances with technology providers also play a key role in helping the company remain agile and future-proof. She sees supply chain visibility and automation as playing critical roles in her company’s logistics operations today and in the future, and values the partnerships that GAF has with its technology providers.
“We work together with companies like IntelliTrans to figure out what we need for the future,” says Eory, “and how we can bring everything together and move down the same path forward, and within the same timeframe.”
These strategies are crucial in an industry where most of the logistics focus was on getting products out the door, and not on gaining high levels of visibility as those goods made their way through transportation networks. Today, Eory sees more focus being placed on loading trucks in a timely manner, setting drivers up for success, and then tracking the goods as they make their way to their destinations.
Overcoming Challenges
A year like no other, at least from a tactical standpoint, 2020 put unique pressures on W.R. Grace’s logistics team, which is now viewing the world more strategically and coming up with new ways to track and anticipate the pace and movement of its freight. The team relies on technology partners like IntelliTrans to help it streamline its logistics operations and gain efficiencies. Because it works across most modes, the company seeks out partners and technology that can help it connect the dots across those various modes.
“Our main challenge is finding someone that can do it all, and who incorporates all of the complexity that comes along with W.R. Grace and the customized decisions that were made back in the early-2000s and late-1990s, when SAP was implemented,” says Alisha Ayre, Senior Manager, Logistics, Warehousing & Trade Compliance, “and that allows us to leverage new technology without having to reinvent the wheel.”
The Speed of Supply Chain Digitization
Laura Ensell, Dow’s Logistics Transportation Visibility Leader and her team help the chemical manufacturer keep up with the speed of supply chain digitization. She says the chemical sector as a whole made significant advancements on this front during the pandemic in 2020, and that it’s continuing down that path in 2021. For Ensell, this means finding ways to increase efficiencies within Dow’s supply chain while also integrating technologies that help further the company’s supply chain and logistics operations.
“It’s also about ensuring that our workforce is prepared for that digitization, so change management is a large part of what we do,” Ensell explains. Working within an Improve and Scale organization, her department works to find the right technology solution to support Dow’s overall supply chain digitization efforts.
The technology behind those efforts include those focused on supply chain automation, optimization, integration, and visibility. She says supply chain visibility platforms like IntelliTrans have produced a wide range of benefits for the company. Reflecting on her first position in supply chain, she says tracking a marine packed cargo shipment meant sifting through various different websites, emails, and other platforms to figure out where the cargo was at any given point.
The Speed of Supply Chain Digitization
Laura Ensell, Dow’s Logistics Transportation Visibility Leader and her team help the chemical manufacturer keep up with the speed of supply chain digitization. She says the chemical sector as a whole made significant advancements on this front during the pandemic in 2020, and that it’s continuing down that path in 2021. For Ensell, this means finding ways to increase efficiencies within Dow’s supply chain while also integrating technologies that help further the company’s supply chain and logistics operations.
“It’s also about ensuring that our workforce is prepared for that digitization, so change management is a large part of what we do,” Ensell explains. Working within an Improve and Scale organization, her department works to find the right technology solution to support Dow’s overall supply chain digitization efforts.
The technology behind those efforts include those focused on supply chain automation, optimization, integration, and visibility. She says supply chain visibility platforms like IntelliTrans have produced a wide range of benefits for the company. Reflecting on her first position in supply chain, she says tracking a marine packed cargo shipment meant sifting through various different websites, emails, and other platforms to figure out where the cargo was at any given point.
Leveraging Technology
Providing supply chain visibility to customers and business clients is a priority for Cargill, which folds as much automation as possible into this process. Using GVP, for example, Jayleen Farver’s team produces hundreds of different “snapshot reports” on a daily basis for its external and internal customers. “It gives them a pipeline of where inventory is at,” says Farver, CTL Rail Transportation Lead, “and has been a great visibility tool for our customers.”
Looking ahead, Farver expects supply chains as a whole to continue down the path to becoming even more automated and data-centric. “I’ve been hearing so much more about this over the last year or two, and I do think that’s going to continue,” says Farver. “As we move further away from doing manual tasks and using spreadsheets, the future is going to be focused on automation and data.”
Sage Advice for Others
To young women who are interested in supply chain careers, Mary Beth Fischer’s best piece of advice is to explore the areas of supply chain risk and compliance, both of which are becoming increasingly important in the modern business world. “I saw that exact major listed on an intern’s resume recently and thought to myself, ‘that’s brilliant, and probably the upcoming niche needed in supply chains,’” says Fischer, Innovation Diamond Leader at Procter & Gamble.
Fischer says P&G places a particularly strong emphasis on quality as an organization. “There’s quality in everything we do. All of our supply chain employees work hand-in-hand with our quality employees, and I think it’s going to continue to be the way of the world,” says Fischer. “If I had a daughter today who was 18 years old and interested in supply chain, I’d tell her to think about majoring in supply chain risk and compliance.”
She’d also suggest an organizational behavior minor—something that not all up-and-coming supply chain professionals may be thinking about while in college or on the job. However, she sees it as an important piece of the overall puzzle. “In the supply chain, you deal with a lot of different components, personalities, needs, and hierarchies,” says Fischer. “If you don’t have strong relationships, then all of the fancy data, contracts, and other elements won’t come together properly.”
Staying Accountable and Up to Date
To young women who may be eyeing supply chain and logistics as a potential career path, Karen Bryant, Senior Vice President at Petroleum Service Corporation, offers the same piece of advice, regardless of gender: success in this sector requires a strong bias for action, effective communication skills, and follow-up.
As a leader, make sure to establish clear roles and responsibilities and set expectations for your team, she adds. “A simple example is that if you take time out of people’s schedules to meet on a specific topic,” says Bryant, “it is valuable to document the agreements and action items, and then follow-up to hold people accountable for delivering on their commitments.”
Paving their Way to Success
As she surveys the supply chain space, Jeanne Risley, Logistics and I/T Analyst at Ciner Resources says she doesn’t see too many women in senior or leadership positions in her specific corner of the industry. In fact, for the past 20+ years she says nearly all plant personnel, salespeople and C-level executives have been male. Upon reading IntelliTrans’ recent Amazing Women in Supply Chain profiles, however, she’s enthused by the number of senior-level women that have successfully paved their career paths in an industry that she loves working in.
“It’s nice to see women making that entrance,” says Risley, who sees virtually “endless” career paths for women who are interested in the field. “There are so many different paths that you can take; the road is definitely there for women.”
To women who may be choosing their first jobs in supply chain or working their way up the ladder, Risley says her best piece of advice is to not be intimidated. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, she added, and boast about your accomplishments, capabilities and skill sets. “We’re all good listeners who can multitask well, which is definitely needed in the supply chain environment,” she says. “We can get things done.”
Get Educated and Up to Speed
To women who are exploring the career opportunities in supply chain, Shannon Evans, Director of Logistics at Weyerhaeuser says her best piece of advice is to get educated and up to speed on any topics that you’ll be discussing in either group or one-on-one meetings.
“I’ve found that you gain more respect that way,” says Evans, who reads a lot and does copious amounts of research to make sure she’s “over prepared” for any meeting she attends. “I always have a lot of facts, figures and data on hand because I do feel like it’s really important to earn that respect and credibility.”