Interview spotlight with Supply Chain Committee Chair, Julia Edler
This month’s newsletter features the LEAD Network Supply Chain Committee. Committee Chair Julia Edler, Senior Business Development Manager at DB Schenker, shares the committee’s exciting progress and plans for the future. Read more here. Mohammad activate link to full interview
Tell us about yourself and why you are volunteering for the LEAD Network.
I have been working in the Consumer, Retail and Fashion arena for about 20 years now. But even longer, I am an advocate for females in our society, especially in the professional field. The LEAD Network offers an excellent platform to further expand my network, share my experience and learn from others. My company, DB Schenker, recognises the need for strengthening the female baseline to capture “half” of the available talent in the work space. Striving for a more diverse workforce and specifically more diverse management is a key element on our Culture agenda. We are not yet where we want to be in this regard and the LEAD Network offers us great support.
Personally, the creation of the Supply Chain Chapter, known as SCC@LEAD, which was launched March of this year, has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience. Our initiative has received great response and we have a growing team of volunteers.
Tell us a bit about the Committee, its mission, and the activities you’re involved in.
The Steering Committee is responsible for defining, rolling out and further developing the strategic direction of the Supply Chain Chapter. We are organised in workstreams – Communication, Education, Events, and Membership – and we have monthly calls to define and track our activities. In this initial phase I am still involved in most of the workstreams, but I can count on the active support of other supply chain professionals from Nielsen, EY, CHEP, P&G, Unilever, and Sonoco –to name a few.
Our key objective is to maximize the benefit for members of the LEAD Network. As the first functional chapter, we aim to focus on knowledge and expertise, enabling the exchange between Supply Chain professionals. The idea is to attract and advance female supply chain talent through a collaborative European network, focussed on value adding business opportunities.
What will the Committee focus on this year? How will the Committee contribute to the LEAD Network 2018 theme: “Diversity & Inclusion: Doing, not Trying”?
We can best advance our careers by advancing our businesses. Stimulating the exchange between Supply Chain professionals, in addition to sharing and growing our knowledge, contributes to identifying solutions for our daily challenges as well as business opportunities, thus advancing our careers. Women have less opportunities to do this in the current business structure. The SCC@LEAD helps change this.
Our most recent milestone was achieved last month when Odile Nonat, European Director Datasharing & OSA Solutions at Nielsen, held the first of webinar, “Efficiency gains in Supply Chain through Market Analytics”. We had great attendance, with professionals from more than 20 companies such as Mondelēz, P&G, Danone, Ferrero, CHEP, Unilever, PepsiCo, and GSK. We had originally planned to hold these webinars on a bimonthly basis, but seeing the success we will have them more often.
During the LEAD Network Event 2018 in London, we will have a break-out session dedicated to Supply Chain. Speakers Florence Batchourine of Carrefour, Corina Cioranu of Mondelēz and Seda Kalkandelen of CHEP will share details of successful business cases and answer questions from the audience. Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss the key challenges we face and what is key to advancing our careers today – specifically for women in a male-dominated environment.
Next milestone on our agenda is the first Network Event of the SCC@LEAD. More details on this in a future Newsletter….
Our agenda is ambitious and the work for the Chapter is very rewarding. I encourage our members to actively engage! For more information feel free to contact me directly at Julia.edler-pain@dbschenker.com
