March 6, 2025 • 37 mins
The logistics industry is changing fast, and women are leading the charge. In this episode of Everything is Logistics, host Blythe moderates a dynamic panel from Manifest 2025 featuring:
✅ Grace Sharkey (FreightWaves) - Media expert covering supply chain trends
✅ Oana Jinga (Dexory) - Bringing AI & robotics into warehousing
✅ Nathalie Lallet (Uber Freight) - Driving tech partnerships in logistics
✅ Rachel Levy (Brooklinen) - Supply chain executive with decades of experience
Topics include:
🔹 AI, automation, and logistics tech
🔹 The role of women in transforming supply chain
🔹 Why partnerships drive innovation
🔹 Career advice for aspiring logistics professionals
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe Brumleve (00:05):
Welcome into another episode of everything is
logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight. I'm your
host, Blythe Milligan, and weare proudly presented by SPI
logistics, and we've got a greatepisode for y'all today. It was
from a panel at manifest, thefuture of supply chain and
logistics. And this panel was, Iknow a lot of people like to
brag about their panels, youknow, with a lot of people
showing up, but our panel hadmen and women a life to standing
(00:29):
room only audience. And we weretalking women shaping the future
of supply chain presented byvision. And so I was very lucky
that Sammy over at Vision askedme to moderate another vision
panel for them. Second year in arow that I've been able to do
that for them. Love working withthem. But Sammy lined up this
incredible group of panelists,including Grace Sharkey,
(00:52):
obviously friend of the show,staff writer and series XM host
over at freight waves. We alsohave Oana Jinga, who is the co
founder and CCO at Dexory, whichis a warehouse robotics and
software company. Then we haveNatalie Lallet, who is the VP of
global partnerships at Uberfreight, and Rachel Levy, who is
the Chief Operating Officer atBrooklinen™. So I wasn't lying
(01:13):
when I said we had a starstudded lineup of panelists to
talk about, not necessarily, youknow, being a woman in
logistics, but the challengesand the accolades that you do
get from just working really,really hard in supply chain and
logistics and being really goodat your job, and you also happen
to be a woman, and so that's theframing of this discussion, and
(01:35):
I hope you guys enjoy it all asmuch as everyone did. I got
compliments the entire timeduring the conference that
people were just expressing, menand women alike, how much they
enjoyed this discussion. Soappreciate all of the kind
words. Appreciate all of thefeedback into vision and the
manifest team for making thisconversation happen. And so I
won't waste any more time. Hereis the discussion with this all
(01:58):
star lineup of panelists.
Welcome in everybody to one ofthe final sessions. We do have
another session right after thisone, but women shaping the
future of supply chain. We havea fantastic panel for y'all
today. If you don't know me, myname is Blythe Milligan. I am
the host of everything islogistics podcast, and also the
(02:19):
owner of a platform calledDigital dispatch, and I'm going
to let our other panelists dotheir intros. Grace. My name is
Grace Sharkey. I write forfreight waves. I also host a
Sirius XM show. And surprisedyou didn't say this, but I also
do a monthly podcast with Blythecalled freight friends, so I'll
queue that up for you. And yeah,happy to be here.
Natalie Lallet (02:44):
Hi, nice to meet you all. My name is Natalie
Lallet. I lead the globalpartnership team for Uber
freight. I started a journey onthe freight industry about six
years ago. Came from the veryother side of the digital side
of the Google business, and Imoved out of the European
market. So now I'm based in SanFrancisco. I lead a team from
(03:06):
San Francisco to Chicago, WestCoast, East Coast, and I'm very
nice to be here.
Oana Jinga (03:13):
Hello, everyone. My name is Oana Jinga, and I am CCO
and co founder at Dexory. So weare a robotics and AI company.
We have the world's tallestautonomous robots scanning
warehouses. You can get to seethem from tomorrow in the expo,
but I think, yeah, interestinglyenough, also I'm ex Googler, so
have moved over from thetechnology side into warehousing
(03:34):
and supply chain, absolutely,kind of loving every minute of
it. So hopefully we can share abit of my my journey today with
you. Hi, I'm Rachel Levy. I'mthe Chief Operating Officer of
Brooklinen™, and I've actuallyspent my entire career in supply
chain, actually, of myundergraduate degree in it. So
great. We have a lot of youknow, a variety of backgrounds
with you, ladies. And at first,I want to start with Oana, your
(03:57):
transition from Google intosupply chain. Can you give us a
little bit of background on whatwere some of those early
challenges for your transition?
Yeah, it's a, it's a veryinteresting step, I would say,
because I've, I've kind ofstudied marketing and management
and then worked in the techsector for probably about 12
years before I started my mycompany, with my my co founders.
(04:17):
So you could kind of say, like,I'm still in the tech world, but
the tech world for supply chainand logistics, and having to
understand, obviously, I wouldsay, a sector that has been
operating in a certain way formillennia,
and coming to that from fromsuch a dynamic company as Google
is, and obviously kind ofpioneer in a lot of different
(04:38):
types of technologies, embracinginnovation, embracing everything
that's new and having to adjustto the pace of the supply chain,
logistics sector, that was quitean interesting jump. However, I
have to say that we've beenoperating for about four years
in the space. Things are movingat a crazy pace when it comes to
adopting new technologies, andeveryone is a lot more open to.
Natalie Lallet (05:00):
So anything new, anything kind of that they want
to try and test to push theirbusinesses forward. So
absolutely, yeah, it's fantasticto see that progress and how
things are moving right now andthen. Natalie, you also have a
very similar journey going fromGoogle into supply chain. So I'd
love to hear if there are anysynergies or challenges that you
experience as well. Well, yeah,I have a similar experience in
(05:23):
different markets as well. So Iwould say, when I joined the
digital side with Google 14, Ispent 14 years at Google,
starting in Europe, and thenmoved to the States, everything
was moving online. It was likethe online, fast growing online
digital media and thetransformation itself, as was
(05:43):
very interesting. Like thoseearly days, I had a lot of
startups similar to what we seetoday in the supply chain
industry. Lot of startupeverything was moving fast, and
this digital transformation,when I looked at supply chain, I
thought it was prettyinteresting to see like this,
industry was also on the vergeof of moving to digital. So I
saw a lot of similarities anddifferences in the way of the
(06:06):
market has evolved as well. Likedriving adoption is not that
simple. In supply chain, like wesee a lot of legacy solution, a
lot of broken, disruptednetworks, nothing really connect
together, and a lot of manualprocesses. So I thought it was
pretty interesting as as acareer path, to also embrace
what was my tech first mindset,to really adapt that to the
(06:28):
supply chain and and making likethe two words Connect. It was,
it was interesting to see how inthe US, a lot of things were
emerging and a lot of tech werestill not connected. So I would
say, on the broader sense, whenI joined Uber freight and they
launched in 2016
Rachel Levy (06:46):
I joined in 2018 they had already fully digital
brokerage service, launched abunch of tools services for
carriers and the shippers. Atthat time, it was really hard
already to connect that techwith the largest system. So I
say it was an interestingjourney for me, and I was really
excited to join and to be ableto drive the change, to drive
(07:07):
innovation through AI APIs andmake a change. And then Rachel,
I would love to bring you intothis discussion, because of your
lengthy career in supply chain,and you've spent that time
working, I think your first bosswas a woman, and so I'm curious
to hear how that evolution ofwomen in supply chain, what were
your personal experience duringthat journey? Yeah, it was
(07:29):
great. The first person I workedfor in supply chain was a woman,
so she really became, like, myaspiration and driving force
throughout my career. And youtalk about technology, I'm
dating myself a little bit, butthere was no like, email was
coming out and the Internet wascoming out when I started
working, and our first ecommerce orders were faxed to
(07:50):
us, and we, like, typed theminto a system. So technology has
definitely transformed over theyears. There was not a lot of
women. I mean, there was acouple women, and now it's
really, definitely shifted overwhen I graduated, there was 30
women out of 150
Unknown (08:06):
in my major. When I started my career at Deloitte,
there was two women in my class.
So it's really transformed overthe years, and it's great that
now women are supporting otherwomen, and it's really grown. My
first boss, though, she told me,she said, this is the field you
want to enter. Just be prepared,because you could be at a golf
event, and it will be 49 men andyou. And so that was the advice
I got almost 30 years ago. Andthere was a lot of times that
(08:28):
you were the only woman, and youjust had to make sure you were
showing up with your data, withyour facts, like with your
information, and really beingstrong and assertive, and
actually not, like, just becauseof your gender, not being taken
advantage of, and thenthroughout the years, just
becoming stronger, and thensupporting women throughout,
like, all the years, shiftinggears a little bit into or
(08:51):
evolving into that technologylandscape. Grace, I would love
to bring you into the this partof the conversation, because
you've talked to so manydifferent people within
logistics of just the overalltechnology landscape. So from Ai
robotics, you know, all of the,you know, real time, visibility,
things like that, what is sortof a high level view of what the
technology landscape looks likein logistics and supply chain.
Blythe Brumleve (09:16):
I will say AI right buzz word that's out
there, but I think it's earnedits right. Clearly, we're
starting to apply thetechnologies that the two of
you, right have spent yourcareers on. And I think what's
awesome is that we're bringingpeople in from those experiences
into logistics. Now talk aboutan avenue that we can start
(09:37):
bringing more women in. This islike the perfect opportunity. I
think that companies can say,you know, we ought. We want
different voices. We want peoplewho have this experience and can
bring that knowledge right tothis industry. So of course, we
just did a wonderful panel onearlier this morning, data and
data integrity. I think talkingto a lot of companies out there
(09:59):
that.
It's a big problem with makingall of these wonderful
technologies that you guys aregoing to see tomorrow in that
hall, making that actually workmeans that data needs to be
right. And there are some reallyincredible, I think, Women in
Data Science roles that aregoing to have the opportunity to
join this industry and have areally great impact. So I get
(10:21):
really excited about theindustry right now, and, of
course, the tech revolution,because for me, I think it's
going to not even, of course,bring wonderful women in, but
just different minds that we'venever traditionally welcomed.
I'll just say it that way,welcomed into this industry. And
that's I get excited seeing AIand data and all of these
(10:44):
things, machine learning, etcetera, automation, even
robotics. And the engineeringbehind that right is those are
less traditional transportationroles. We're not just talking
about getting women in seats oftrucks, but getting them into, I
think, creative, new roles thata lot of money is also invested
in as well. Sothose are, like, the big topics
(11:05):
that we're focusing on rightnow. And Natalie, I would love
to hear your perspective ondiving a little bit deeper into
the technology area of howyou're approaching just all of
the different innovations thatare there coming through. You
hear a lot of sort of the quote,unquote, buzz words of AI
machine learning, but then youalso have the more practical
approaches of some of thevisibility solutions, and also
(11:28):
robotics and things like that.
I'm curious how you and yourcompany are utilizing those
different technology and how youapproach investing. Yeah, sure.
Natalie Lallet (11:38):
It's funny, because we had these different
mindsets when I was at Googleand when now I'm working the
supply chain. So it'sinteresting to see how the big
tech are investing into AI andin technology more broadly, and
how supply chain is reallyleveraging those tools, those
innovations, to really enabletheir own solutions at scale. So
(12:00):
in supply chain, mostly like AIfor me, and robotics, everything
is very practical and verydriven by the action. Like,
really, go with the agent. Gowith actions. Make it possible
reduce number of tasks, or makethose tasks more automating.
Automate tasking is like numberone, to drive a P and L impact,
to make sure, like, it's notlabor intensive, but also you
(12:23):
really reallocate that time toyour team and make this team
more powerful, efficient, andwork on more complex problem and
issues. So I would say Bob,really like those big tech
really build the tools like theyhave, really invested in
building the grown up tool, likewe need, all need to make supply
chain more efficient and becomemore productive, and also the
(12:45):
way, like we think further likewe are, again, like transforming
this industry, starting withdigitalization of the industry.
Next is really the automation.
How do we get to thisautomation? How do we make sure
like systems talk together? Howdo we go faster, so it's a
matter of speed efficiency,getting all the flexibility we
need. Like the visibility issuper important to supply chain,
(13:07):
and this is where, like, AIreally helps specific use case I
enjoy, I would say the most. AndI'm sure there are people in
this audience who are maybeconnected to this one, but when
I see robotics and AI playing inthe warehousing space. It's
where it's I'm really amazed,like thinking how ai plus
robotics together can reallytransform warehousing in a more
(13:30):
efficient way, moving thingsfaster, but also thinking about
like the storage inventory,managing better inventories, and
looking today with Uber Uberfreight, where we launch new
concepts. We launch new businessline to really go after end to
end logistics. It's a lot ofhey, how do we automate the
picking, the packing? How do wemake smarter shipments? How do
(13:51):
we make sure, like there is nowaste of inventory and
distribution? So those are like,the areas I'm most excited in
the supply chain, and there areplenty of them. I mean,
autonomous autonomous driving,obviously, with autonomous
trucking. And yeah, there are,there is a lot. And Oana is
speaking of robotics andwarehousing. That's a perfect
(14:11):
time to bring you in and talkabout dexterity's approach,
because you have the world'stallest robot, as you said
earlier, but you're also atechnology first company. So I'm
curious how you're thinkingabout what your tech stack looks
like, and how you're applyingthat for your customers. Yeah,
and I think it's veryinteresting what you said
earlier about the combination ofhardware and software. And I
(14:31):
think it's fascinating again, tosee the hardware side and
operating physically in spacesamong people and different types
of machinery, and how everythingkind of seamlessly works
together at the end of togetherat the end of the day, but I
think as a company, we are afull stack provider, so we
actually design manufacture, weproduce the robots, we install
them, we look after them, butalso the entire digital twin
platform that comes with oursolution, because at the end of
(14:54):
the day, what our customers arepaying us for is the data that
we collect with these robots.
And.
Oana Jinga (15:00):
How we manipulate that data, what we can do with
it. So we have a lot of verydifferent teams within, within
our kind of company, andstarting from those looking at,
how do we make the robot asrobust as possible, to be be
able to function in these spaceswhere, yeah, there's a lot of
motion, there's a lot of thingsare happening around them. So
(15:20):
it's not your typical kind ofclosed off, caged off area like
the robots have to be very, veryrobust and then be able to
operate around various differentenvironments. Secondly, we have
all the automation side ofthings for the robot themselves.
So the navigation, we actuallydon't have to put anything
inside the warehouse. We justoperate completely where the
warehouses is. There's no kindof infrastructure needed. So
(15:42):
again, being able to do that atscale in spaces that are one 2
million square feet, without anybeacons, any QR codes on the
floor or anything else likethat. It's quite a complex thing
in itself. And then again, howwe capture the data, the cameras
that we have, the sensors, andhow those kind of data points
come together on top of eachother, another big team there.
And then, yeah, when it comes tothe digital twin, how we
(16:03):
visualize that, how we thenstart to mathematically, kind of
compute where customers canconsolidate stock, how can they
can reduce distances betweenpick and reserve locations? So
there's, there's so muchtechnology in what we do. And
the The interesting part isthat, if somebody was telling me
the other day, we could probablybe 10 different companies, but
we are one. And I think, yeah,that's where the magic happens,
(16:24):
because it all comes together.
So we are absolutely technologyfirst. We have some of the best
minds in the in the fieldworking for us. So very
fortunate to have that, and alsowe're able to bring some of that
to our customers as well. So Ithink it's a what I was saying
earlier, people are more open tohearing us out to understand how
things actually work, what'sbehind the technology,
obviously, like, get a bit of aglimpse into that technology,
(16:47):
and then with that, obviously,get the confidence that we can
deliver to what we say we candeliver. So yeah, there's a lot
to unpack there. And thenRachel, we've heard from the
logistics side of things, butwhat about from the shipper side
of things? What technology isimportant to you? That's a great
question. So, I mean, I oversee,obviously a lot from that
perspective. So we're looking ateverything, obviously, AI, but
(17:10):
everything from like origin toreceiving and product to
fulfillment to customerexperience to the order cycle to
fraud to returns to payment. So,like, the entire tech stack. And
so it's we've been injecting AIfor now more than a year, really
starting the customer experienceside, how we can get information
faster, both to the customer andto our agents. This year, a lot
(17:31):
of companies had, like, recordhigh in terms of that
interaction. Our average handletime was way down using AI. And
so now it's like, how do wedeploy it more last year we
actually discovered vision here.
It was great. My director and I,we walked through their booth,
and we've been using thetechnology now for a year. And
so we're here to learn, to say,what else can we deploy into our
(17:53):
tech stack? And it's a constantevolution. It's a constant
learning, like, what we're usingtoday, maybe something different
next year, six months, like it'sconstant. So we want to know
what is like latest andgreatest. It's going to involve
us as a business, and how do weshift the work that people are
doing to make it more value addand less, like manual work as we
evolve. And I think on theglobal side, it's even more
(18:14):
important because everythingthat was said in earlier panels,
like the global supply chain,the volatility, the uncertainty,
so you have to be able to reactfast based on the data changing.
And you may actually like sendstuff to different ports, or you
may change your routes, or youso you just need information
faster to make better decisions.
You don't want people to go getthat information. You want the
technology to bring them so youcan spend time on solutioning,
Blythe Brumleve (18:38):
switching gears a little bit grace. I want to
talk to you about we mentionedearlier with all of the women
that you have the pleasure ofspeaking with, with working at
freight waves. I'm curious howwomen's culture within
logistics, how it currentlystands right now, and how you
see it evolving in the future.
Grace Sharkey (18:57):
The one thing I feel like the last couple of
years, doing interviews is one.
Companies are sending me morewomen as their spokespeople, to
talk about their theirinitiatives and their
innovation. Uber freight to beone of them, to be honest with
you, as one that I've applaudedon that. And so that's one piece
of advice I would give people,is like, talk to the women in
(19:21):
your companies and know thatgive them an opportunity to
share their stories and thecompany's stories. That's one
big thing that I really loveseeing more of. I think another
aspect of that too comes from Ithink what honestly people like
you and myself, I see more womentaking a social media and using
(19:42):
it as a stage
Blythe Brumleve (19:46):
the supply chain gals is like one that you
and I really love watching, areally great Instagram account,
LinkedIn account is juststarting to grow, but giving
these platforms to women toallow them to.
Not only be incredible assets totheir companies, but also
thought leaders you would Ithink people really
(20:07):
underestimate the aspect of athought leader in this industry
and what that could mean foryour company and partnerships
and growth and strategy. We areusually naturally good at making
relationships and keeping thosegoing and building upon those.
So those are, like two big areasI just feel like in the last
(20:27):
couple, Rebecca, I think you'reone too, that are these women
that are saying, Hey, we havethese tools now that make this
barrier of entry right intothought leadership, that allow
me to to take that step forward.
And I also say that because Ithink there's plenty of people
in this room that probably havereally great stories to tell
too, and we're in the day andage where you can run with that
(20:50):
and make that happen, and itwill change the trajectory of
your career and likely thecompany that you are supporting,
too. So why that might not beengineering or tech or coding,
it is an aspect that I thinkdoes help grow this industry and
push that exclusive, inclusivenarrative as well,
(21:14):
moving into sort of thepartnership realm, because
partnerships, there's challengesthat exist, not just in the
United States but globally.
Natalie, can you kind of touchon what are some of those
challenges, or maybe aha momentsthat you've experienced with
developing a partnershipprogram, not just in maybe in
the United States, but maybeglobally as
Natalie Lallet (21:36):
well? Yeah, sure. Good question.
Partnership is, for me, it'sreally about like cultural
nuances as we obviously scalepartnerships as we grow the
supply chain. Connectivity wasthe same kind of challenge I had
also at Google digital yearswhere everything you think as as
a test market could be scaledquite easily. So it's
understanding who drives thedecision. How, how does how to
(22:00):
build the relationship first,like a lot of partnerships, is
about like, tech, rely on tech,trusting the tech, so, testing
the tech, evaluating it. Butalso, how do you convince your
own leadership, your own team,to move faster, to build faster
at some point, it's about thebalance for me always between
like, how do we use existingtech and how do we build in
(22:21):
house? And the balance of thesetwo. So partnership helps to
bridge the gaps in between techscale, whatever are the
innovations we have in house,the partnerships we can also co
brand, the CO innovation withsome of the partners we've built
with Oracle, like big softwarecompanies, and it's been like a
challenge to really positionthat in in the supply chain and
(22:43):
really foster this collaborationat scale for different markets.
Cultural analysis is reallyimportant to me as well as I
mean, my haha moments as you askme, I remember I was in Europe
at that time, and I was fullyready for a financial set of
data, metrics to really scalethose partnerships, these
partnerships. Sorry, at thattime, in multiple markets. And
(23:04):
at that time my my boss, mymanager, came to me, like, I
have a big deal. Like, we needto make this presentation with
no metrics. I was like, Wow,interesting. So it was like,
hey, build the trust. Make sure,like, you connect, you connect
them at a higher level. Youreally build the trust. You
really understand each otherbefore even you speak to their
(23:25):
wallets. So that was really mymoment in some of the markets
where it's not just about likeinvestment. We all want an OM to
go to more efficiency, reducethe balance sheet, I would say,
and make sure, like the peoplewe employ, are really looking at
the highly, high efficient taskthey can manage on their day to
day basis, and making theproductivity and making the
(23:47):
manufacturing more efficient. Sotech is really helping, and
partnership is building theframework to enable that. And
then Oana sort of the samequestion, what are some of those
aha moments when you think aboutthe partnerships and how you
approach them at dexterity. Sointeresting enough. I also used
to work in partnerships when Iwas at Google, just like
(24:08):
Natalie, we did not know eachother beforehand, I promise. And
the biggest shock to me was, Imean, not necessarily shock,
because I think I probably wasexpecting was expecting it, but
coming from a name like a bigtech company, like a Google,
potentially an Uber, every timeyou reach out to a company and
you say its partner, they'relike, of course, and like,
(24:29):
everyone wants to be associatedwith your name and your brand,
but when you're starting astartup, and no one knows who
you are, and also we are, Wepretty much kind of start a new
category of robotics. A coupleof years ago, no one had heard
of anything around usingrobotics to scan things inside
warehouses and doing inventorymanagement, getting visibility,
(24:51):
getting data from warehouses. Soit's completely new. We were no
one. We were no names, so havingto kind of approach partnerships
from that angle was.
Unknown (25:00):
Very, very different.
And I think knowing what you canbring to the table, what you can
offer, and being extremelyconfident in that was probably
the big aha moment for me. Andalso being extremely open and
humble to how you can kind ofwork with the other party to
ideally both kind of advancefaster and be much more
efficient than what you're doingin the market. It it took
probably one or two big names tokind of establish us out there
(25:23):
in the market. And after thathappened, then, yeah, it all
kind of started to come oneafter the other, and a snowball
effect was created. But thosefirst two were probably the
hardest to like ever get in myentire career, and I'm still
kind of very, very thankful forfor those of yeah, those two
partners that really kind of beton us in the very early days,
adopted our technology, talkedabout it. We became massive
(25:44):
advocates out there in themarket for us. And, I mean,
yeah, ever since, I mean, we codevelop a lot of new features
with with our partners and ourcustomers as well, and we open
new markets together with someof our integrators. So it's been
going into many different directdirections since, but it's kind
of that first step when you comeout of nowhere is quite hard to
get through. And I imagine, sortof the confidence behind your
(26:08):
products makes it much easier tosell, as far as a partnership
relationship, because of thatconfidence, no matter what your
gender is. And Rachel, I'mcurious on the shipper side of
things. Do you experience thatas well, where it's really about
the product first, versus, sortof the geographical maybe
cultures that might look down ona woman in a leadership role,
(26:30):
and the US? Obviously, it'schanged internationally, though
it's still a challenge. I wasjust in Asia in January, and you
still feel it in certaincountries. So they assume, if
there's a male traveling in yourgroup, they're the most senior
person. That has not changed. Soit's interesting. I take an
approach that I kind of, I don'tsay anything. I wait, and then
(26:52):
they realize, like, who's incharge. It's interesting. And
then they kind of, like, have tokind of pedal backwards, but
it's interesting. It's stillgoing on. And so that's a global
challenge. As more and morewomen get into supply chain,
manufacturing is global, that insome countries that women are
just not treated equally, andyou're negotiating, you're
setting up relationships likeyou're having partnerships. So
(27:15):
they have to change how they aretowards you, knowing that you're
building a relationship, and youwant to have this really a
partnership that you have withthem, not just transactional.
And so they really have to startchanging their way. So I really
think we're going to continue towatch how that and I'd like to
see in some countries, more andmore women, I can tell you, like
in India, it's great. A bunch offactors we work with. The women
(27:35):
are the CEOs. The women are incharge. Like, it is great. And
then in other countries, it'syou have one woman in
management, maybe total. And ina country you would think that
would have more, not always. Soit's interesting depending on
like, where you aregeographically, and what
countries is, where is it morewelcoming? And where in other
countries, where you don't seethe progression as fast as we as
(27:56):
women would like. I wish we hadanother hour to continue this
discussion, because this isfantastic. In order to hear
these different perspectives onall sides, from from media, from
logistics and also the shipperside of things, we've got time
for all of the panelists toanswer one more question, and
that is, who do you follow, asfar as women in supply chain
(28:18):
that you find inspirationalgrace. I'll start with you.
Well, this person gets to thefirst mention because she quite
literally messaged me about 24hours ago. Shelley Simpson is
one of my favorite people towatch. She is a perfect example
of someone who has built herselfup in the ranks of a company and
now leads JB Hunt, and not onlythat, but leads a very tech
(28:40):
forward mindset in thatorganization. She surrounds
herself with strong women inmanagement roles, and she
highlights those on social mediaas well. And on top of that, she
goes out of all the things shecould do in a day, she sends me
a random message about somethingthat I'm working through, and
it's just it's she leads byexample, and that is why the
(29:02):
outcome of her career is there.
So that for me, I think, is theperson that I want to highlight,
because if you watch her growth,and also, I think what's great
about is you watch her growth,and you watch the growth of JB
Hunt as an organization, there'sa reason she's earned the role
(29:23):
that she's in today. So she isprobably the person. I would
say, go follow Natalie. Whatabout you? Who are some women in
supply chain that you
Natalie Lallet (29:33):
look up to? I don't have a person I follow. I
would say I follow more broadly,women as they are accomplished
more in their career path theytake more on their shoulders.
I'm always interested on how,what's the balance with having
also and raising kids? I havethree kids, what's the right
balance for us? Like, showing upreally, like, it's our time, you
(29:56):
know? Like I felt like in mycareer, I was sometime.
Like, not left behind, never.
But I had to step down a bit toreally also have my moments with
my family and making sure I wasmaking the right decision. So I
am more like, I would say,agnostically, like, interested
on all those women's storiesthat really balance this career,
their career, and balance alsotheir hobbies, their passion.
(30:19):
I'm very deep into sports, soit's really like a balance for
me of understanding, how do youshow up as a leader? How do you
grow your career path? How thosewomen have been successful, you
know, so raising their kidsthere and being like the pillar
in their family, and don'tforget about themselves.
Oana Jinga (30:38):
Well, Said, Oana, you're next. Yeah, I think I
probably won't pick a personeither, but I would definitely
encourage everyone in the roomto have a look at all the
speakers, women speakers at thisevent, and then just just follow
them on LinkedIn, becausethere's some fantastic voices
out there. And I think, I mean,going back to that diversity of
thoughts and kind of experiencesis just incredible to see. I
(30:59):
mean, yeah, I think thatmanifested a great job to kind
of have that diversity kind ofangle to it. So definitely, kind
of try and just spend fiveminutes to follow them. But I
think just, just wanted tobriefly build on what you were
saying earlier, which is, I'veseen probably now hundreds and
hundreds of warehouses aroundthe world. And I was actually
reflecting on this inpreparation for the panel today.
I find it quite interesting thatI think in a lot of the European
(31:22):
countries, you can actually seea lot of women across the entire
kind of board, I would say, fromobviously, kind of drivers of
lorries to drivers of forklifts,and kind of people inside the
warehouse itself, and thenhigher up in leadership. And
there's more and more womenacross the UK and Europe. It's
kind of leading big three PLS,and being kind of Chief supply
officers for the big brands. SoI think it's changing so fast,
(31:44):
and it's just fantastic to seethat come together for an
industry that, personally, whenwhen I kind of moved over from
the tech side, I wasn'texpecting to see to see that
diversity. So hopefully that'sgoing to spread out more around
the world. I think, yeah, kindof representing Europe here,
definitely kind of, they'redoing a good job there. So yeah,
if anything, do follow thespeakers here, because I think
they're fantastic. Well said.
And then Rachel, we'll end itwith you. Who's the women that
(32:05):
you look up at you in supplychain? So I would say, like
throughout my career, it's morelike women that created things.
So originally, you know, MarthaStewart, like she built, we
actually sold to her in theearly 2000s we had a line, so we
got to work with her. It was,like impressive to see what she
built. Then Sheryl sandenberg,she had to reinvent herself when
her husband passed away, andthat was really interesting. And
(32:26):
then my first boss, like, she'sbeen an inspiration. She went on
to be the first woman in, like,Chief supply chain officer at
CVS, at Hasbro, at Ocean Spray,like she was a pioneer in the
industry. And so she really,kind of was my guiding light,
probably more she doesn't knowas much as she was like, because
I haven't, I talked to her, butnot like, in that kind of way.
(32:46):
So throughout, like, all theyears, because there wasn't a
lot of women to look up to. AndI still, as you said, we're
still pioneering, right? We'restill finding the path. We're
still making the way. And soit's for us, for future
generations, our colleaguestoday, and everyone out there?
Well, I think that that was amic drop moment, because that's
a perfect way to close out thisdiscussion. We do as a reminder.
(33:07):
We do have one more sessionright after this, so if you want
to stay in your seat and watchthe next one, please do but that
is about it for this panel. Iecho these statements as well.
Please follow all of the women'sspeakers and the ones that you
find interesting and connectwith them, and let's continue to
grow and learn from each otherand build a better future. Thank
you all.
Blythe Brumleve (33:33):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff,
and people get from point A toB. Subscribe to the show, sign
up for our newsletter and followour socials over at everything
is logistics.comand in addition to the podcast,
I also wanted to let you allknow about another company I
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Presentation. Until then, I hopeyou enjoyed this episode. I'll
see you all real soon and gojags. You.
Welcome into another episode of everything is
logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight. I'm your
host, Blythe Milligan, and weare proudly presented by SPI
logistics, and we've got a greatepisode for y'all today. It was
from a panel at manifest, thefuture of supply chain and
logistics. And this panel was, Iknow a lot of people like to
brag about their panels, youknow, with a lot of people
showing up, but our panel hadmen and women a life to standing
(00:29):
room only audience. And we weretalking women shaping the future
of supply chain presented byvision. And so I was very lucky
that Sammy over at Vision askedme to moderate another vision
panel for them. Second year in arow that I've been able to do
that for them. Love working withthem. But Sammy lined up this
incredible group of panelists,including Grace Sharkey,
(00:52):
obviously friend of the show,staff writer and series XM host
over at freight waves. We alsohave Oana Jinga, who is the co
founder and CCO at Dexory, whichis a warehouse robotics and
software company. Then we haveNatalie Lallet, who is the VP of
global partnerships at Uberfreight, and Rachel Levy, who is
the Chief Operating Officer atBrooklinen™. So I wasn't lying
(01:13):
when I said we had a starstudded lineup of panelists to
talk about, not necessarily, youknow, being a woman in
logistics, but the challengesand the accolades that you do
get from just working really,really hard in supply chain and
logistics and being really goodat your job, and you also happen
to be a woman, and so that's theframing of this discussion, and
(01:35):
I hope you guys enjoy it all asmuch as everyone did. I got
compliments the entire timeduring the conference that
people were just expressing, menand women alike, how much they
enjoyed this discussion. Soappreciate all of the kind
words. Appreciate all of thefeedback into vision and the
manifest team for making thisconversation happen. And so I
won't waste any more time. Hereis the discussion with this all
(01:58):
star lineup of panelists.
Welcome in everybody to one ofthe final sessions. We do have
another session right after thisone, but women shaping the
future of supply chain. We havea fantastic panel for y'all
today. If you don't know me, myname is Blythe Milligan. I am
the host of everything islogistics podcast, and also the
(02:19):
owner of a platform calledDigital dispatch, and I'm going
to let our other panelists dotheir intros. Grace. My name is
Grace Sharkey. I write forfreight waves. I also host a
Sirius XM show. And surprisedyou didn't say this, but I also
do a monthly podcast with Blythecalled freight friends, so I'll
queue that up for you. And yeah,happy to be here.
Natalie Lallet (02:44):
Hi, nice to meet you all. My name is Natalie
Lallet. I lead the globalpartnership team for Uber
freight. I started a journey onthe freight industry about six
years ago. Came from the veryother side of the digital side
of the Google business, and Imoved out of the European
market. So now I'm based in SanFrancisco. I lead a team from
(03:06):
San Francisco to Chicago, WestCoast, East Coast, and I'm very
nice to be here.
Oana Jinga (03:13):
Hello, everyone. My name is Oana Jinga, and I am CCO
and co founder at Dexory. So weare a robotics and AI company.
We have the world's tallestautonomous robots scanning
warehouses. You can get to seethem from tomorrow in the expo,
but I think, yeah, interestinglyenough, also I'm ex Googler, so
have moved over from thetechnology side into warehousing
(03:34):
and supply chain, absolutely,kind of loving every minute of
it. So hopefully we can share abit of my my journey today with
you. Hi, I'm Rachel Levy. I'mthe Chief Operating Officer of
Brooklinen™, and I've actuallyspent my entire career in supply
chain, actually, of myundergraduate degree in it. So
great. We have a lot of youknow, a variety of backgrounds
with you, ladies. And at first,I want to start with Oana, your
(03:57):
transition from Google intosupply chain. Can you give us a
little bit of background on whatwere some of those early
challenges for your transition?
Yeah, it's a, it's a veryinteresting step, I would say,
because I've, I've kind ofstudied marketing and management
and then worked in the techsector for probably about 12
years before I started my mycompany, with my my co founders.
(04:17):
So you could kind of say, like,I'm still in the tech world, but
the tech world for supply chainand logistics, and having to
understand, obviously, I wouldsay, a sector that has been
operating in a certain way formillennia,
and coming to that from fromsuch a dynamic company as Google
is, and obviously kind ofpioneer in a lot of different
(04:38):
types of technologies, embracinginnovation, embracing everything
that's new and having to adjustto the pace of the supply chain,
logistics sector, that was quitean interesting jump. However, I
have to say that we've beenoperating for about four years
in the space. Things are movingat a crazy pace when it comes to
adopting new technologies, andeveryone is a lot more open to.
Natalie Lallet (05:00):
So anything new, anything kind of that they want
to try and test to push theirbusinesses forward. So
absolutely, yeah, it's fantasticto see that progress and how
things are moving right now andthen. Natalie, you also have a
very similar journey going fromGoogle into supply chain. So I'd
love to hear if there are anysynergies or challenges that you
experience as well. Well, yeah,I have a similar experience in
(05:23):
different markets as well. So Iwould say, when I joined the
digital side with Google 14, Ispent 14 years at Google,
starting in Europe, and thenmoved to the States, everything
was moving online. It was likethe online, fast growing online
digital media and thetransformation itself, as was
(05:43):
very interesting. Like thoseearly days, I had a lot of
startups similar to what we seetoday in the supply chain
industry. Lot of startupeverything was moving fast, and
this digital transformation,when I looked at supply chain, I
thought it was prettyinteresting to see like this,
industry was also on the vergeof of moving to digital. So I
saw a lot of similarities anddifferences in the way of the
(06:06):
market has evolved as well. Likedriving adoption is not that
simple. In supply chain, like wesee a lot of legacy solution, a
lot of broken, disruptednetworks, nothing really connect
together, and a lot of manualprocesses. So I thought it was
pretty interesting as as acareer path, to also embrace
what was my tech first mindset,to really adapt that to the
(06:28):
supply chain and and making likethe two words Connect. It was,
it was interesting to see how inthe US, a lot of things were
emerging and a lot of tech werestill not connected. So I would
say, on the broader sense, whenI joined Uber freight and they
launched in 2016
Rachel Levy (06:46):
I joined in 2018 they had already fully digital
brokerage service, launched abunch of tools services for
carriers and the shippers. Atthat time, it was really hard
already to connect that techwith the largest system. So I
say it was an interestingjourney for me, and I was really
excited to join and to be ableto drive the change, to drive
(07:07):
innovation through AI APIs andmake a change. And then Rachel,
I would love to bring you intothis discussion, because of your
lengthy career in supply chain,and you've spent that time
working, I think your first bosswas a woman, and so I'm curious
to hear how that evolution ofwomen in supply chain, what were
your personal experience duringthat journey? Yeah, it was
(07:29):
great. The first person I workedfor in supply chain was a woman,
so she really became, like, myaspiration and driving force
throughout my career. And youtalk about technology, I'm
dating myself a little bit, butthere was no like, email was
coming out and the Internet wascoming out when I started
working, and our first ecommerce orders were faxed to
(07:50):
us, and we, like, typed theminto a system. So technology has
definitely transformed over theyears. There was not a lot of
women. I mean, there was acouple women, and now it's
really, definitely shifted overwhen I graduated, there was 30
women out of 150
Unknown (08:06):
in my major. When I started my career at Deloitte,
there was two women in my class.
So it's really transformed overthe years, and it's great that
now women are supporting otherwomen, and it's really grown. My
first boss, though, she told me,she said, this is the field you
want to enter. Just be prepared,because you could be at a golf
event, and it will be 49 men andyou. And so that was the advice
I got almost 30 years ago. Andthere was a lot of times that
(08:28):
you were the only woman, and youjust had to make sure you were
showing up with your data, withyour facts, like with your
information, and really beingstrong and assertive, and
actually not, like, just becauseof your gender, not being taken
advantage of, and thenthroughout the years, just
becoming stronger, and thensupporting women throughout,
like, all the years, shiftinggears a little bit into or
(08:51):
evolving into that technologylandscape. Grace, I would love
to bring you into the this partof the conversation, because
you've talked to so manydifferent people within
logistics of just the overalltechnology landscape. So from Ai
robotics, you know, all of the,you know, real time, visibility,
things like that, what is sortof a high level view of what the
technology landscape looks likein logistics and supply chain.
Blythe Brumleve (09:16):
I will say AI right buzz word that's out
there, but I think it's earnedits right. Clearly, we're
starting to apply thetechnologies that the two of
you, right have spent yourcareers on. And I think what's
awesome is that we're bringingpeople in from those experiences
into logistics. Now talk aboutan avenue that we can start
(09:37):
bringing more women in. This islike the perfect opportunity. I
think that companies can say,you know, we ought. We want
different voices. We want peoplewho have this experience and can
bring that knowledge right tothis industry. So of course, we
just did a wonderful panel onearlier this morning, data and
data integrity. I think talkingto a lot of companies out there
(09:59):
that.
It's a big problem with makingall of these wonderful
technologies that you guys aregoing to see tomorrow in that
hall, making that actually workmeans that data needs to be
right. And there are some reallyincredible, I think, Women in
Data Science roles that aregoing to have the opportunity to
join this industry and have areally great impact. So I get
(10:21):
really excited about theindustry right now, and, of
course, the tech revolution,because for me, I think it's
going to not even, of course,bring wonderful women in, but
just different minds that we'venever traditionally welcomed.
I'll just say it that way,welcomed into this industry. And
that's I get excited seeing AIand data and all of these
(10:44):
things, machine learning, etcetera, automation, even
robotics. And the engineeringbehind that right is those are
less traditional transportationroles. We're not just talking
about getting women in seats oftrucks, but getting them into, I
think, creative, new roles thata lot of money is also invested
in as well. Sothose are, like, the big topics
(11:05):
that we're focusing on rightnow. And Natalie, I would love
to hear your perspective ondiving a little bit deeper into
the technology area of howyou're approaching just all of
the different innovations thatare there coming through. You
hear a lot of sort of the quote,unquote, buzz words of AI
machine learning, but then youalso have the more practical
approaches of some of thevisibility solutions, and also
(11:28):
robotics and things like that.
I'm curious how you and yourcompany are utilizing those
different technology and how youapproach investing. Yeah, sure.
Natalie Lallet (11:38):
It's funny, because we had these different
mindsets when I was at Googleand when now I'm working the
supply chain. So it'sinteresting to see how the big
tech are investing into AI andin technology more broadly, and
how supply chain is reallyleveraging those tools, those
innovations, to really enabletheir own solutions at scale. So
(12:00):
in supply chain, mostly like AIfor me, and robotics, everything
is very practical and verydriven by the action. Like,
really, go with the agent. Gowith actions. Make it possible
reduce number of tasks, or makethose tasks more automating.
Automate tasking is like numberone, to drive a P and L impact,
to make sure, like, it's notlabor intensive, but also you
(12:23):
really reallocate that time toyour team and make this team
more powerful, efficient, andwork on more complex problem and
issues. So I would say Bob,really like those big tech
really build the tools like theyhave, really invested in
building the grown up tool, likewe need, all need to make supply
chain more efficient and becomemore productive, and also the
(12:45):
way, like we think further likewe are, again, like transforming
this industry, starting withdigitalization of the industry.
Next is really the automation.
How do we get to thisautomation? How do we make sure
like systems talk together? Howdo we go faster, so it's a
matter of speed efficiency,getting all the flexibility we
need. Like the visibility issuper important to supply chain,
(13:07):
and this is where, like, AIreally helps specific use case I
enjoy, I would say the most. AndI'm sure there are people in
this audience who are maybeconnected to this one, but when
I see robotics and AI playing inthe warehousing space. It's
where it's I'm really amazed,like thinking how ai plus
robotics together can reallytransform warehousing in a more
(13:30):
efficient way, moving thingsfaster, but also thinking about
like the storage inventory,managing better inventories, and
looking today with Uber Uberfreight, where we launch new
concepts. We launch new businessline to really go after end to
end logistics. It's a lot ofhey, how do we automate the
picking, the packing? How do wemake smarter shipments? How do
(13:51):
we make sure, like there is nowaste of inventory and
distribution? So those are like,the areas I'm most excited in
the supply chain, and there areplenty of them. I mean,
autonomous autonomous driving,obviously, with autonomous
trucking. And yeah, there are,there is a lot. And Oana is
speaking of robotics andwarehousing. That's a perfect
(14:11):
time to bring you in and talkabout dexterity's approach,
because you have the world'stallest robot, as you said
earlier, but you're also atechnology first company. So I'm
curious how you're thinkingabout what your tech stack looks
like, and how you're applyingthat for your customers. Yeah,
and I think it's veryinteresting what you said
earlier about the combination ofhardware and software. And I
(14:31):
think it's fascinating again, tosee the hardware side and
operating physically in spacesamong people and different types
of machinery, and how everythingkind of seamlessly works
together at the end of togetherat the end of the day, but I
think as a company, we are afull stack provider, so we
actually design manufacture, weproduce the robots, we install
them, we look after them, butalso the entire digital twin
platform that comes with oursolution, because at the end of
(14:54):
the day, what our customers arepaying us for is the data that
we collect with these robots.
And.
Oana Jinga (15:00):
How we manipulate that data, what we can do with
it. So we have a lot of verydifferent teams within, within
our kind of company, andstarting from those looking at,
how do we make the robot asrobust as possible, to be be
able to function in these spaceswhere, yeah, there's a lot of
motion, there's a lot of thingsare happening around them. So
(15:20):
it's not your typical kind ofclosed off, caged off area like
the robots have to be very, veryrobust and then be able to
operate around various differentenvironments. Secondly, we have
all the automation side ofthings for the robot themselves.
So the navigation, we actuallydon't have to put anything
inside the warehouse. We justoperate completely where the
warehouses is. There's no kindof infrastructure needed. So
(15:42):
again, being able to do that atscale in spaces that are one 2
million square feet, without anybeacons, any QR codes on the
floor or anything else likethat. It's quite a complex thing
in itself. And then again, howwe capture the data, the cameras
that we have, the sensors, andhow those kind of data points
come together on top of eachother, another big team there.
And then, yeah, when it comes tothe digital twin, how we
(16:03):
visualize that, how we thenstart to mathematically, kind of
compute where customers canconsolidate stock, how can they
can reduce distances betweenpick and reserve locations? So
there's, there's so muchtechnology in what we do. And
the The interesting part isthat, if somebody was telling me
the other day, we could probablybe 10 different companies, but
we are one. And I think, yeah,that's where the magic happens,
(16:24):
because it all comes together.
So we are absolutely technologyfirst. We have some of the best
minds in the in the fieldworking for us. So very
fortunate to have that, and alsowe're able to bring some of that
to our customers as well. So Ithink it's a what I was saying
earlier, people are more open tohearing us out to understand how
things actually work, what'sbehind the technology,
obviously, like, get a bit of aglimpse into that technology,
(16:47):
and then with that, obviously,get the confidence that we can
deliver to what we say we candeliver. So yeah, there's a lot
to unpack there. And thenRachel, we've heard from the
logistics side of things, butwhat about from the shipper side
of things? What technology isimportant to you? That's a great
question. So, I mean, I oversee,obviously a lot from that
perspective. So we're looking ateverything, obviously, AI, but
(17:10):
everything from like origin toreceiving and product to
fulfillment to customerexperience to the order cycle to
fraud to returns to payment. So,like, the entire tech stack. And
so it's we've been injecting AIfor now more than a year, really
starting the customer experienceside, how we can get information
faster, both to the customer andto our agents. This year, a lot
(17:31):
of companies had, like, recordhigh in terms of that
interaction. Our average handletime was way down using AI. And
so now it's like, how do wedeploy it more last year we
actually discovered vision here.
It was great. My director and I,we walked through their booth,
and we've been using thetechnology now for a year. And
so we're here to learn, to say,what else can we deploy into our
(17:53):
tech stack? And it's a constantevolution. It's a constant
learning, like, what we're usingtoday, maybe something different
next year, six months, like it'sconstant. So we want to know
what is like latest andgreatest. It's going to involve
us as a business, and how do weshift the work that people are
doing to make it more value addand less, like manual work as we
evolve. And I think on theglobal side, it's even more
(18:14):
important because everythingthat was said in earlier panels,
like the global supply chain,the volatility, the uncertainty,
so you have to be able to reactfast based on the data changing.
And you may actually like sendstuff to different ports, or you
may change your routes, or youso you just need information
faster to make better decisions.
You don't want people to go getthat information. You want the
technology to bring them so youcan spend time on solutioning,
Blythe Brumleve (18:38):
switching gears a little bit grace. I want to
talk to you about we mentionedearlier with all of the women
that you have the pleasure ofspeaking with, with working at
freight waves. I'm curious howwomen's culture within
logistics, how it currentlystands right now, and how you
see it evolving in the future.
Grace Sharkey (18:57):
The one thing I feel like the last couple of
years, doing interviews is one.
Companies are sending me morewomen as their spokespeople, to
talk about their theirinitiatives and their
innovation. Uber freight to beone of them, to be honest with
you, as one that I've applaudedon that. And so that's one piece
of advice I would give people,is like, talk to the women in
(19:21):
your companies and know thatgive them an opportunity to
share their stories and thecompany's stories. That's one
big thing that I really loveseeing more of. I think another
aspect of that too comes from Ithink what honestly people like
you and myself, I see more womentaking a social media and using
(19:42):
it as a stage
Blythe Brumleve (19:46):
the supply chain gals is like one that you
and I really love watching, areally great Instagram account,
LinkedIn account is juststarting to grow, but giving
these platforms to women toallow them to.
Not only be incredible assets totheir companies, but also
thought leaders you would Ithink people really
(20:07):
underestimate the aspect of athought leader in this industry
and what that could mean foryour company and partnerships
and growth and strategy. We areusually naturally good at making
relationships and keeping thosegoing and building upon those.
So those are, like two big areasI just feel like in the last
(20:27):
couple, Rebecca, I think you'reone too, that are these women
that are saying, Hey, we havethese tools now that make this
barrier of entry right intothought leadership, that allow
me to to take that step forward.
And I also say that because Ithink there's plenty of people
in this room that probably havereally great stories to tell
too, and we're in the day andage where you can run with that
(20:50):
and make that happen, and itwill change the trajectory of
your career and likely thecompany that you are supporting,
too. So why that might not beengineering or tech or coding,
it is an aspect that I thinkdoes help grow this industry and
push that exclusive, inclusivenarrative as well,
(21:14):
moving into sort of thepartnership realm, because
partnerships, there's challengesthat exist, not just in the
United States but globally.
Natalie, can you kind of touchon what are some of those
challenges, or maybe aha momentsthat you've experienced with
developing a partnershipprogram, not just in maybe in
the United States, but maybeglobally as
Natalie Lallet (21:36):
well? Yeah, sure. Good question.
Partnership is, for me, it'sreally about like cultural
nuances as we obviously scalepartnerships as we grow the
supply chain. Connectivity wasthe same kind of challenge I had
also at Google digital yearswhere everything you think as as
a test market could be scaledquite easily. So it's
understanding who drives thedecision. How, how does how to
(22:00):
build the relationship first,like a lot of partnerships, is
about like, tech, rely on tech,trusting the tech, so, testing
the tech, evaluating it. Butalso, how do you convince your
own leadership, your own team,to move faster, to build faster
at some point, it's about thebalance for me always between
like, how do we use existingtech and how do we build in
(22:21):
house? And the balance of thesetwo. So partnership helps to
bridge the gaps in between techscale, whatever are the
innovations we have in house,the partnerships we can also co
brand, the CO innovation withsome of the partners we've built
with Oracle, like big softwarecompanies, and it's been like a
challenge to really positionthat in in the supply chain and
(22:43):
really foster this collaborationat scale for different markets.
Cultural analysis is reallyimportant to me as well as I
mean, my haha moments as you askme, I remember I was in Europe
at that time, and I was fullyready for a financial set of
data, metrics to really scalethose partnerships, these
partnerships. Sorry, at thattime, in multiple markets. And
(23:04):
at that time my my boss, mymanager, came to me, like, I
have a big deal. Like, we needto make this presentation with
no metrics. I was like, Wow,interesting. So it was like,
hey, build the trust. Make sure,like, you connect, you connect
them at a higher level. Youreally build the trust. You
really understand each otherbefore even you speak to their
(23:25):
wallets. So that was really mymoment in some of the markets
where it's not just about likeinvestment. We all want an OM to
go to more efficiency, reducethe balance sheet, I would say,
and make sure, like the peoplewe employ, are really looking at
the highly, high efficient taskthey can manage on their day to
day basis, and making theproductivity and making the
(23:47):
manufacturing more efficient. Sotech is really helping, and
partnership is building theframework to enable that. And
then Oana sort of the samequestion, what are some of those
aha moments when you think aboutthe partnerships and how you
approach them at dexterity. Sointeresting enough. I also used
to work in partnerships when Iwas at Google, just like
(24:08):
Natalie, we did not know eachother beforehand, I promise. And
the biggest shock to me was, Imean, not necessarily shock,
because I think I probably wasexpecting was expecting it, but
coming from a name like a bigtech company, like a Google,
potentially an Uber, every timeyou reach out to a company and
you say its partner, they'relike, of course, and like,
(24:29):
everyone wants to be associatedwith your name and your brand,
but when you're starting astartup, and no one knows who
you are, and also we are, Wepretty much kind of start a new
category of robotics. A coupleof years ago, no one had heard
of anything around usingrobotics to scan things inside
warehouses and doing inventorymanagement, getting visibility,
(24:51):
getting data from warehouses. Soit's completely new. We were no
one. We were no names, so havingto kind of approach partnerships
from that angle was.
Unknown (25:00):
Very, very different.
And I think knowing what you canbring to the table, what you can
offer, and being extremelyconfident in that was probably
the big aha moment for me. Andalso being extremely open and
humble to how you can kind ofwork with the other party to
ideally both kind of advancefaster and be much more
efficient than what you're doingin the market. It it took
probably one or two big names tokind of establish us out there
(25:23):
in the market. And after thathappened, then, yeah, it all
kind of started to come oneafter the other, and a snowball
effect was created. But thosefirst two were probably the
hardest to like ever get in myentire career, and I'm still
kind of very, very thankful forfor those of yeah, those two
partners that really kind of beton us in the very early days,
adopted our technology, talkedabout it. We became massive
(25:44):
advocates out there in themarket for us. And, I mean,
yeah, ever since, I mean, we codevelop a lot of new features
with with our partners and ourcustomers as well, and we open
new markets together with someof our integrators. So it's been
going into many different directdirections since, but it's kind
of that first step when you comeout of nowhere is quite hard to
get through. And I imagine, sortof the confidence behind your
(26:08):
products makes it much easier tosell, as far as a partnership
relationship, because of thatconfidence, no matter what your
gender is. And Rachel, I'mcurious on the shipper side of
things. Do you experience thatas well, where it's really about
the product first, versus, sortof the geographical maybe
cultures that might look down ona woman in a leadership role,
(26:30):
and the US? Obviously, it'schanged internationally, though
it's still a challenge. I wasjust in Asia in January, and you
still feel it in certaincountries. So they assume, if
there's a male traveling in yourgroup, they're the most senior
person. That has not changed. Soit's interesting. I take an
approach that I kind of, I don'tsay anything. I wait, and then
(26:52):
they realize, like, who's incharge. It's interesting. And
then they kind of, like, have tokind of pedal backwards, but
it's interesting. It's stillgoing on. And so that's a global
challenge. As more and morewomen get into supply chain,
manufacturing is global, that insome countries that women are
just not treated equally, andyou're negotiating, you're
setting up relationships likeyou're having partnerships. So
(27:15):
they have to change how they aretowards you, knowing that you're
building a relationship, and youwant to have this really a
partnership that you have withthem, not just transactional.
And so they really have to startchanging their way. So I really
think we're going to continue towatch how that and I'd like to
see in some countries, more andmore women, I can tell you, like
in India, it's great. A bunch offactors we work with. The women
(27:35):
are the CEOs. The women are incharge. Like, it is great. And
then in other countries, it'syou have one woman in
management, maybe total. And ina country you would think that
would have more, not always. Soit's interesting depending on
like, where you aregeographically, and what
countries is, where is it morewelcoming? And where in other
countries, where you don't seethe progression as fast as we as
(27:56):
women would like. I wish we hadanother hour to continue this
discussion, because this isfantastic. In order to hear
these different perspectives onall sides, from from media, from
logistics and also the shipperside of things, we've got time
for all of the panelists toanswer one more question, and
that is, who do you follow, asfar as women in supply chain
(28:18):
that you find inspirationalgrace. I'll start with you.
Well, this person gets to thefirst mention because she quite
literally messaged me about 24hours ago. Shelley Simpson is
one of my favorite people towatch. She is a perfect example
of someone who has built herselfup in the ranks of a company and
now leads JB Hunt, and not onlythat, but leads a very tech
(28:40):
forward mindset in thatorganization. She surrounds
herself with strong women inmanagement roles, and she
highlights those on social mediaas well. And on top of that, she
goes out of all the things shecould do in a day, she sends me
a random message about somethingthat I'm working through, and
it's just it's she leads byexample, and that is why the
(29:02):
outcome of her career is there.
So that for me, I think, is theperson that I want to highlight,
because if you watch her growth,and also, I think what's great
about is you watch her growth,and you watch the growth of JB
Hunt as an organization, there'sa reason she's earned the role
(29:23):
that she's in today. So she isprobably the person. I would
say, go follow Natalie. Whatabout you? Who are some women in
supply chain that you
Natalie Lallet (29:33):
look up to? I don't have a person I follow. I
would say I follow more broadly,women as they are accomplished
more in their career path theytake more on their shoulders.
I'm always interested on how,what's the balance with having
also and raising kids? I havethree kids, what's the right
balance for us? Like, showing upreally, like, it's our time, you
(29:56):
know? Like I felt like in mycareer, I was sometime.
Like, not left behind, never.
But I had to step down a bit toreally also have my moments with
my family and making sure I wasmaking the right decision. So I
am more like, I would say,agnostically, like, interested
on all those women's storiesthat really balance this career,
their career, and balance alsotheir hobbies, their passion.
(30:19):
I'm very deep into sports, soit's really like a balance for
me of understanding, how do youshow up as a leader? How do you
grow your career path? How thosewomen have been successful, you
know, so raising their kidsthere and being like the pillar
in their family, and don'tforget about themselves.
Oana Jinga (30:38):
Well, Said, Oana, you're next. Yeah, I think I
probably won't pick a personeither, but I would definitely
encourage everyone in the roomto have a look at all the
speakers, women speakers at thisevent, and then just just follow
them on LinkedIn, becausethere's some fantastic voices
out there. And I think, I mean,going back to that diversity of
thoughts and kind of experiencesis just incredible to see. I
(30:59):
mean, yeah, I think thatmanifested a great job to kind
of have that diversity kind ofangle to it. So definitely, kind
of try and just spend fiveminutes to follow them. But I
think just, just wanted tobriefly build on what you were
saying earlier, which is, I'veseen probably now hundreds and
hundreds of warehouses aroundthe world. And I was actually
reflecting on this inpreparation for the panel today.
I find it quite interesting thatI think in a lot of the European
(31:22):
countries, you can actually seea lot of women across the entire
kind of board, I would say, fromobviously, kind of drivers of
lorries to drivers of forklifts,and kind of people inside the
warehouse itself, and thenhigher up in leadership. And
there's more and more womenacross the UK and Europe. It's
kind of leading big three PLS,and being kind of Chief supply
officers for the big brands. SoI think it's changing so fast,
(31:44):
and it's just fantastic to seethat come together for an
industry that, personally, whenwhen I kind of moved over from
the tech side, I wasn'texpecting to see to see that
diversity. So hopefully that'sgoing to spread out more around
the world. I think, yeah, kindof representing Europe here,
definitely kind of, they'redoing a good job there. So yeah,
if anything, do follow thespeakers here, because I think
they're fantastic. Well said.
And then Rachel, we'll end itwith you. Who's the women that
(32:05):
you look up at you in supplychain? So I would say, like
throughout my career, it's morelike women that created things.
So originally, you know, MarthaStewart, like she built, we
actually sold to her in theearly 2000s we had a line, so we
got to work with her. It was,like impressive to see what she
built. Then Sheryl sandenberg,she had to reinvent herself when
her husband passed away, andthat was really interesting. And
(32:26):
then my first boss, like, she'sbeen an inspiration. She went on
to be the first woman in, like,Chief supply chain officer at
CVS, at Hasbro, at Ocean Spray,like she was a pioneer in the
industry. And so she really,kind of was my guiding light,
probably more she doesn't knowas much as she was like, because
I haven't, I talked to her, butnot like, in that kind of way.
(32:46):
So throughout, like, all theyears, because there wasn't a
lot of women to look up to. AndI still, as you said, we're
still pioneering, right? We'restill finding the path. We're
still making the way. And soit's for us, for future
generations, our colleaguestoday, and everyone out there?
Well, I think that that was amic drop moment, because that's
a perfect way to close out thisdiscussion. We do as a reminder.
(33:07):
We do have one more sessionright after this, so if you want
to stay in your seat and watchthe next one, please do but that
is about it for this panel. Iecho these statements as well.
Please follow all of the women'sspeakers and the ones that you
find interesting and connectwith them, and let's continue to
grow and learn from each otherand build a better future. Thank
you all.
Blythe Brumleve (33:33):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff,
and people get from point A toB. Subscribe to the show, sign
up for our newsletter and followour socials over at everything
is logistics.comand in addition to the podcast,
I also wanted to let you allknow about another company I
operate, and that's digitaldispatch, where we help you
(33:54):
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Presentation. Until then, I hopeyou enjoyed this episode. I'll
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