[00:00:00] Whitney Shlesinger: Data, data, data. We need to have really clear data structures, data governance, and we need to educate and enable our team members to successfully manage the data so that we know that our tools that we’re investing in and building are going to be able to work for us.

[00:00:15] Voice Over: Welcome to Supply Chain Now, the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights, and real supply chain leadership from across the globe. One conversation at a time.

[00:00:28] Karin Bursa: Well welcome Supply Chain Movers and Shakers. I am Karin Bursa and I’m thrilled to be your host for today’s very special discussion. We’re going to talk to supply chain leaders that are leading in the never normal world. We’ve got a power panel of women who are rewriting the rules and they’ve got some great insights to share with you today. And if you enjoyed the conversation, I hope that you’ll share this with your network as well. Your supply chain is a lifeline of your business, but with these geopolitical tensions, economic volatility and tariff whiplash, supply chain disruptions have never been higher. That’s why you can’t miss the upcoming conference from Inters AI, its Risk Intelligence Summit. And get this, the name of the conference, the theme is “Supply Chain is a Risky Business.” I love that. This is a one-day event that’s going to happen on October 14th, and it’s going to tackle the most urgent supply chain challenges that leaders must overcome in the year ahead.

[00:01:31] Karin Bursa: The Inters Risk Summit 2025 is going to highlight practical strategies, cutting edge AI solutions that are going to help you spot hidden threats before they escalate into a crisis. You’re going to hear keynotes from Frances Townsend, former National Security Advisor, and leading economist Dr. Marcy Relle. Plus, I know there’s some exclusive sessions from leaders at Visa, Tesat, and the National Defense University and so much more. The seats are limited, so grab your spot today. You can go to intersrisk summit2025.com. The world has changed. It is full of risk and that impacts the supply chain. So disruption is no longer the exception, it is the environment that we operate in every single day. From global shocks to rapid advances in technology, this new never normal is here to stay. But there is an exciting part about that. Leaders are turning this volatility into new opportunities and they’re leading with vision, with agility, and innovation in a number of different areas.

[00:02:45] Karin Bursa: And today we get to hear from five of them. That’s right, five. Joining me are extraordinary leaders from some of the world’s most recognized brands — and get this — all five leaders happen to be women. We’re going to explore some of their defining moments from a career perspective, the opportunities that they see with artificial intelligence to boost supply chain performance, and the wisdom that they wish they could reach back and share with their younger selves. So we’ve got a lot to get into, and let’s jump in because it is a great time to be in supply chain. Please welcome our panel. So let me tell you who they are and then I’m going to have them quickly introduce themselves, but I want to give you some names to go with faces, and then they’re going to tell you a little bit about their stories. We’ve got Stephanie Beal, who’s the Chief Supply Chain Officer with Hasbro, Tamera Fenske, Chief Supply Chain Officer with Kimberly Clark, Eliza Simeonova, Vice President of Global Supply with Mars Pet Nutrition, and Whitney Shlesinger, Vice President of Global Planning and Logistics with McCormick.

[00:03:56] Karin Bursa: And rounding out today’s panel will be Sylvia Wilks, who is the Chief Supply Chain Officer with Lamb Weston. Thank you all for being here. So I want to give our audience just a chance to get to know you. We were having so much fun actually in the pre-show just a few moments ago, I wish we could just kind of continue our conversation. But I want each of you to give us just a little context about your company, your role, and one thing that drives your passion for supply chain. And Stephanie, I want to start with you. You lead supply chain at Hasbro. And when you’re not managing a complex global network, I understand that you actually recharge your batteries in running and Pilates. I can imagine that keeps you fast and flexible. But tell us about what else drives you in your passion for supply chain.

[00:04:49] Stephanie Beal: We are in the midst of a transformation here at Hasbro, our supply chain. And what really excites me is I have a tremendously talented team and the work that we’ve been doing in our supply chain has really been phenomenal. We’ve been on a transformation journey. We’ve saved since 2022 over 250 million in productivity. We’ve also really tremendously changed our inventory position, reducing 39 days of inventory. Phenomenal results from a really energized team, and I really get my energy from my team.

[00:05:31] Karin Bursa: That’s great. And move from Stephanie. Tamera, let’s hear your perspective. So you are Chief Supply Chain Officer at Kimberly Clark, and I know you are shaping the global supply chain for a variety of leading household products. I also understand, Tamera, that you just recently dropped your son off to college, so that’s a major milestone as well. Share a little bit about your role and what keeps you passionate about supply chain.

[00:05:58] Tamera Fenske: I didn’t know you were going to make me cry right at the beginning. No, I’m kidding. I’m handling it. But yes, we are empty nesters and it is my husband and my 20th anniversary today, so that’s another fun fact. But very honored to be here today, thank you. And with all these great women. I’ve been with Kimberly-Clark — it’ll be three years now as Chief Supply Chain Officer. And as you mentioned, we announced a big Powering Care transformation last year. So I think that’s the theme of many companies, is how do you continue to transform and reinvent. We’re over 150 years old and we’ve really put the supply chain, I would say, in the center of what our transformation is. So you talked about the brands, and certainly Kleenex and Toilet Paper and Huggies, and one in four people across the world use our products every day.

[00:06:43] Tamera Fenske: And so similar to Stephanie, I would say it’s innovation that really drives me in the supply chain. I’ve always had an innate curiosity, I’ve always loved problem solving and how things work. And I would say all of those things come to life right now in all of our jobs — making sure you’re winning with consumers, you’re really innovating your products, your processes, the way you work. And I agree with Stephanie as well, it’s the teams that bring it to life. So super proud of the Kimberly-Clark team. And if you go back, it’s pretty clear to see some of the big ambitions that we’ve set, but we have massive, massive goals in terms of productivity, cash, and service to make sure that we’re continuing to reinvent for our consumers, which I’m sure we’ll dig more into. But very happy to be here.

[00:07:28] Karin Bursa: Yeah, I love that — that problem solving and the ability to look at complex problems and break ‘em down and then kind of put the process back together is really so important in supply chain. Eliza, I know that you’re helping to keep our pets happy and healthy with your work at Mars Pet Nutrition, but I also understand that your kids kind of keep you moving outside of work too. So tell us what inspires you from a supply chain perspective. What was that aspect that really made you think, hey, supply chain is a great place to be?

[00:08:04] Eliza Simeonova: Thank you, Karin. And hello everyone. Really, really happy to be here, privileged to be part of this powerful panel. Yes, indeed. I work for Mars, and most of probably the company is known for its chocolates, yet we in Mars Pet Nutrition have a mission to create a better world for pets. That’s a challenging mission given the high adoption of pets during COVID and post-COVID times. I must say we just adopted one at home as well, so I’ve got two kids plus one puppy, which takes more energy than the two babies.

What energizes me? I must say I knew at university we make things happen in supply chain. I fell in love with manufacturing and with the realness of things in supply chain. What inspires me 25 years later is the same. And I lean a little bit on what Stephanie said: I get so much energy from the team, I am energized when I enter a factory. And I think really the PowerPoints turning into life on the shop floor and things being real — real people, real products on the shop floor — that’s what makes me move every day. And I often say, in supply chain, we are not top of mind when we talk in the executive board about strategic plans, but we become very quickly the key business partner when it’s about making it happen. So that “make it happen” is actually what inspires me in supply chain.

[00:09:31] Karin Bursa: Absolutely — making it happen, where strategy meets execution and delivering on that brand promise for your customers as well. So Whitney Shlesinger, you’re with McCormick, and McCormick brings a lot of flavor and spice to our lives. I also know that you are doing some coaching on the side, so you are looking for action in your family coaching and community involvement as well. I think you’re maybe coaching your daughter’s field hockey team in your spare time.

[00:10:05] Whitney Shlesinger: Yes, halfway to where Tamera is. So I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son, and very active in their social lives and their sports activities and everything else. So when I’m not at work, you’ll find me on the field helping to coach lacrosse or field hockey, which just helps balance out all the things we do at work. And I’m happy to be here and represent McCormick. McCormick is a 136-year-old company with iconic brands both on the consumer and the flavor side. We flavor a lot of products that you love and enjoy that you may not even know McCormick is flavoring.

And we are a global company and we are still growing, and it is such a pleasure to be part of this growth stage of McCormick because the part that really energizes me the most is the end-to-end connectivity across all of the functions. No one team can deliver results, and it’s all about how we build capabilities to remain agile and resilient to the ongoing chaos that we deal with all over. So yes, all the things that these lovely women have also added, but it’s — if you like to thrive in chaos, supply chain is the place for you, and it’s all about building those capabilities to navigate it as effectively and efficiently as possible.

[00:11:14] Karin Bursa: So I love that. Thriving in chaos, right? Or being comfortable in chaos, at least at a minimum. Let’s say Sylvia Wilks, you are with Lamb Weston as Chief Supply Chain Officer, and Lamb Weston may not be a brand folks recognize quite as much as some of the others we’ve talked about, but I bet your products are really familiar. So I also understand, Sylvia, that you enjoy cooking and have been perfecting your sourdough bread recipe. And Sylvia, I want to volunteer as the taste tester if you need that done, just let me know.

[00:11:52] Karin Bursa: But tell us a little bit about yourself and about Lamb Weston and really where your passion for supply chain comes from.

[00:12:01] Sylvia Wilks: Yeah, thanks Karin. So yeah, I’m Chief Supply Chain Officer at Lamb Weston, which is a leading global supplier of frozen potato products, including french fries — or chips depending on where you are in the world. We’re about an 8 billion public company, and we are celebrating 75 years in business this year, which is awesome. We’re known for innovative products and sustainable agricultural practices as well. And we’ve got something like 27 plants around the world and we’ve got a presence in multinational chains. I won’t mention any names, but you’ll see many of them on the high street that we serve. And obviously food service, restaurants and so on, and retail. Our brand’s actually probably more well known in EMEA than in the US today.

I’ve been with Lamb Weston for just one year — literally one year — really enjoying my time here. It is a challenging time, and I think the word of the day might be transformation. I heard Stephanie use that and I think Tamera used it as well. And I think for us, we’re going through a supply chain transformation as well at Lamb Weston. My passion is really about solving problems through teams and through people. We’ve all got the same problems at the end of the day around improving our customer service, improving productivity, managing our inventory, cash flow, et cetera. But you can only do that through great teamwork and collaborative efforts with people.

And so managing talent is always a passion of mine, and it’s all to the goal of enabling fabulous business results. So I loved what Whitney said about working in a more integrated fashion. I think that’s the key to it as well. The unlock is really an integrated value chain. So that’s my passion. And yeah, my other passion: I do love to cook — hence coming back into the food industry. I do love to cook, and I wasn’t an early adopter with my sourdough in COVID times, but I’m getting there. I’m getting there.

[00:13:55] Karin Bursa: Alright, well let’s talk about turning points or inflection points in your careers. We’ve all had kind of defining moments, if you will. If you look back, I want to know a moment that shaped you as a leader, something that made you think, I can do this. I’m in the moment, I’m in the strength of what I could bring to the conversation. And Tamera, let’s start with you. What was that defining moment, one moment that you could share with us?

[00:14:26] Tamera Fenske: Yeah, I would say when I first stepped into a manufacturing plant, that’s when I realized this is what I want to do. It goes back to that — how things are made and the curiosity that I love. And somebody took a chance on me. So my career before Kimberly Clark was actually at 3M for 22 and a half years, and my ultimate goal was to be a plant manager. And I started out as an environmental engineer. So if you think about that, there’s probably not as many environmental engineers that go this path, but that’s the cool part about big global companies — you have that flexibility and that opportunity to advance if you really push yourself.

And so somebody took a chance on me first to be a supervisor, a frontline supervisor, and then I worked my way up to a plant manager. And I would say being a plant manager is one of the most humbling responsibilities because you have a really high accountability not only to the safety and health of all the team members of the plant, but their families, the community, the environment. You’re certainly making sure that everyone’s happy and healthy for the short term, but your goal is to make sure that plant is viable and sustainable for decades.

So I would say I carry that with me. I have a huge appreciation for everybody in the supply chain. And so if you think about what brings products to life, we just get to represent all the great work of everybody on the team. There’s over 24,000 folks in the Kimberly Clark supply chain that wake up every day making the products that everybody uses. And so all those humbling experiences and learnings I had really in the plant — and we talked about disruption and change and chaos and every day is something new and different — but super energizing and exciting to see the livelihood of the folks and the product that you’re making that’s ultimately going to get into consumers’ hands. And I would say I just, like I said, carry that with me. So those experiences were invaluable, and my care and appreciation for everybody that brings the supply chain to life just resonates throughout everything I do.

[00:16:23] Karin Bursa: Yeah, absolutely. I know in those manufacturing environments you really get the feel for just the synchronization that has to occur as raw materials are coming in and problems occur during the production process, but also as finished goods are rolling off at the end of the line. So thanks for that. Eliza, what was a defining moment for you that really sparked your passion for leadership in the area of supply chain?

[00:16:51] Eliza Simeonova: I must say you put a challenge on me when you said define one moment, and I started looking through international assignments, one big project — but at the end I decided actually to pick one simple but very powerful moment. And it was really, really early in my career because I wanted to share an example of mindset change. We are going back here 20, 22 years ago when I relocated. I was at Procter & Gamble at the time, relocated from Germany into Switzerland into a newly established role, new scope, new line manager.

So as a good supply chain person, I start to draft already my five pages of what I think the role should be. And this guy — this is the moment where I clicked — this guy reshaped my thinking in that very first conversation. He basically looked through my 5, 6, 7 pages and said, okay, time now to file the paper plans and start crafting real value here. I have one expectation for you and for the role: you’ll find ways to return five times the value of your compensation and your relocation cost, in cost savings or in sales. You can choose yourself.

And I will say that was not intuitive at first, but it nurtured me to that growth mindset and the importance of creating value in everything you do, no matter how junior you are and no matter how routine the task is. This assignment actually was pivotal in many ways because it shaped my mindset not only in how I approach the planning processes, but how you leverage multifunctional collaboration, how you influence, how you start to shape supply chain solutions very, very early before they hit the manufacturing facilities.

I coach my people actually until today: you have to know what value you add and how you add that value. You have to be ahead of the game and design rather than just be part of the process. It’s not only about efficiency, it’s about delivering smart design solutions.

[00:18:49] Karin Bursa: Yeah, man, that’s very — we could continue talking just about that. Whitney, I saw you nodding your head and smiling a bit too. Did you have a similar moment, or what was your inflection point?

[00:19:00] Whitney Shlesinger: I’m going to have to share two because in my career I have hit two wide spectrums of the corporate world. But to echo Tamera, I spent my first two years in a manufacturing plant when I was in a supply chain manufacturing rotational program at Unilever. And until you’ve experienced leading people in a plant, you really just cannot have the depth of respect of what it takes to bring these products to life and how hard they work.

But at my second rotation, I was the night shift supervisor, and I was 23 and in charge of the plant. There was no other management and leadership there. And so a lot of amazing people, leadership, and having to learn how to trust in myself as I was my main resource at that time every night, working with the team to make our fantastic products.

And then the other part that was really a big — I don’t know if I can do it — but I was at New Balance Athletic Shoe up in Boston for six and a half years, and during one of those years I had the opportunity to move to Charlotte and be a sales account manager. And so I was calling on one of our main customers at the time, and it was a really big deviation from the supply chain career I’d had in the past. But coming back after that, really to have the respect of our customers and what our customers need — and we’re here to build products that our consumers and customers want — and that has been, between the manufacturing and sales experience, knitting together that end-to-end supply chain for the ultimate goal of delighting our customers, has been incredibly valuable for me in a supply chain leader role. Being able to manage both spectrums and pull them together.

[00:20:36] Karin Bursa: Great insights, and I love the variety of products that you guys are all representing here today because certainly similarities across market, demand, profitability, customer service. But as you know, those products, raw materials, the sourcing networks are vastly different. Sylvia, you’ve been in a variety of different types of companies as well. What was that turning point or inflection point where you knew supply chain is where you wanted to build your career?

[00:21:06] Sylvia Wilks: Yeah, thanks for the question, Karin. I think I was with Starbucks Coffee for 16 years and, like some of my colleagues here, I was a plant manager early on in my career and loved manufacturing. I was enjoying a role at the time, in this particular moment, running the end-to-end supply chain for Starbucks in the Americas region. And my boss at the time asked me if I would assess the business case for insourcing soluble coffee — instant coffee.

So if you think about the Via sticks and obviously Frappuccino base that goes into all of Frappuccinos around the globe, that was outsourced at the time. So I assessed the business case for insourcing, took the business case to the board of directors, got approval for a large sum of money to go build a facility, a process plant, where we actually decided to build it in Augusta, Georgia. Built the plant, hired the team, got the team trained up and working well, and started to deliver products into our stores around the globe and really proving out that business case.

For me that was a little bit of a turning point in really understanding how an integrated supply chain in practice can deliver great business results. And so that was a little bit of a defining moment for me, I think.

[00:22:25] Karin Bursa: Yeah, absolutely. I can see how bringing all of those elements together and kind of that moment of truth — I imagine the first time you walked into a Starbucks retail location and saw your product sitting there, that is kind of an exciting feeling too, knowing all of the elements that brought that together.

[00:22:43] Sylvia Wilks: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:22:45] Karin Bursa: Stephanie, I know that you’ve had a variety of experiences as well, and if you had to choose a single career milestone or an inflection point for you that just made you really lean into those opportunities, what would it be?

[00:23:00] Stephanie Beal: Listening to everyone, it has been delightful. I think I started in manufacturing, so I had purposely wanted to go into manufacturing in my career, and I said I grew up in Unilever because I really learned some valuable, valuable lessons about supply chain in Unilever. But if I was to draw in on one inflection point, I think it’s when I transitioned into my first international assignment.

And it was a global role, and then you suddenly realized that your sphere of influence and your impact changes dramatically. You’re on a global playing field versus a local manufacturing location, and it’s really learning how to show up as a global leader. But I thought I’m just surrounded by some really incredible talent, and I think one of the challenges in that first role is building processes that could actually be scaled globally.

And I just thought that first international experience was eye-opening in understanding the big world of — it happened to be Unilever at the time — the big world of Unilever. And tapping on what Eliza said, it’s a mindset shift. All of a sudden you realize you have to think broader and more impactfully and more inclusively. It’s geography, it’s culture, it’s et cetera, and how to create solutions that will work in multiple settings. And so that was a huge learning for me in that first assignment that I carried with me.

[00:24:50] Karin Bursa: Absolutely. I think it’s remarkable, and it’s remarkable the variety of people and the diversity that can bring these products to life and solve some pretty complex problems to make sure that we are producing efficiently, effectively, and at a profit for the overall business, with products that are highly differentiated in the marketplace.

And as we talk about the future of supply chain, I want to talk a little bit about artificial intelligence and where you see it happening and helping in your supply chains. Gartner research tells us that 73% of chief executive officers believe that artificial intelligence will have the most significant impact in our industry over the next three years. I don’t know what they think is going to happen after that, but these next three years, Gartner says, are really pivotal.

However, most CEOs believe that our current operating models just are not ready — that we can’t embrace it, we can’t effectively leverage it — but we need to push forward in trial and practice and looking at use cases that can really help propel the business. I know we can’t solve that whole conversation today, but I’d like to know from each of you what excites you about artificial intelligence and how it’s going to help your teams or your businesses really change supply chain performance in the future. And Eliza, let’s start with you. What excites you the most about AI and where do you see maybe a use case that’s going to be meaningful to your business?

[00:26:40] Eliza Simeonova: Thank you, Karin. I must say I come from the corner of people who have seen way too many planners do their planning on an Excel sheet or on a paper and pen and then feeding the system with a plan. So I am really, really keen on how artificial intelligence actually can show people the potential of what’s possible in terms of efficiencies, but also loss elimination so we can really, really adopt the system. And I think your point is brilliant around how we adapt our operating model and our process to use artificial intelligence to its objective.

I’ll split my answer into two. One, I think everybody in the meantime is clear that even the best algorithm cannot deliver value if it’s not fed with clean data. So one point of my excitement is — I see it already — AI starts to force operational discipline, which we as leaders actually try to do through continuous improvement, operational excellence, but now the system tells you: if you don’t feed me with the right data, then I’m not going to deliver value for you.

And I see that shift, I see that shift of promoting the right parameters, the right clean data in the system so AI can do its job. The second part of my answer is something actually which we have started shaping now within Mars Pet Nutrition, and I had framed it under the overall umbrella of supply chain synchronization. But what I mean by that is: how can AI really align the parameters of supply chain along the elements of, or each element of the supply chain — suppliers, factories, warehouses, customers — and how all of those are synchronized.

There is no software on the market which can do that right now. We are shaping use cases which can tell you how you can actually go and define your manufacturing patterns in accordance to your key suppliers’ manufacturing patterns and trade of delivery and batch quantities and so on. We’re doing the same on the customer side. Very, very heavy work, but exciting actually, what comes out of it in terms of loss elimination and in terms of efficiencies.

[00:28:45] Karin Bursa: Great points, and I agree with you on this issue of data. The data is really our opportunity to almost replace inventory with data if we can really unleash it in new ways. Right. Whitney, where do you see AI making a positive impact in the McCormick supply chain?

[00:29:05] Whitney Shlesinger: Yeah, I mean Eliza, you pretty much hit on most of the key points really thoroughly. But yes — data, data. We need to have really clear data structures, data governance, and we need to educate and enable our team members to successfully manage the data so that we know that our tools that we’re investing in and building are going to be able to work for us.

But for me, the excitement is the opportunity to finally be able to do something really positive for our employees. We hear so many times through our employee engagement surveys, like, “I’m just stuck doing all this non-value-added work. I don’t have the tools that I need. I want my job to be more efficient.” And so taking it from the angle of how we enable our employees to have more time to do strategic work, how to spend time doing whiteboarding sessions and thinking and adding that value in a different way to the organization, for me, is the thing I’m most excited about.

We are talking about transforming the work that people do and allowing people to have the opportunity to do work that aligns more to the core values of their growth statements. So there’s a long journey to go and there’s a long possibility list of where we could see AI go, but how it’s going to help transform a positive experience for our workforce is the thing I’m most excited to see.

[00:30:20] Karin Bursa: Yeah, that’s interesting. Nobody’s asking for more spreadsheets. “Can you give me another spreadsheet to work in?” Right. So I think there’s a real opportunity to use those cognitive and creative capabilities as well. Sylvia, how about in your business? What are you seeing in the Lamb Weston business and the opportunity to really leverage artificial intelligence?

[00:30:43] Sylvia Wilks: First, I love what Whitney said. I think more automation of non-value-added work to elevate the work that our people are doing and for that to be more core to the business is critical, and it drives engagement and retention of our people as well. So I think that’s a big benefit through AI in our manufacturing plants, where we’ve got then data and analytics that can help us with continually improving our processes.

But I think in addition, for me, optimizing our inventory management, improving our demand forecasting, and optimizing inventory management is going to be a big thing for Lamb Weston. How can we improve our cash flow? How can we improve our working capital? And I think AI can be a big enabler, a big unlock for us in that respect.

[00:31:31] Karin Bursa: Absolutely. And one thing all five of you do very naturally that I just want to call out for our audience here today is you instinctively make that transition from volumetric aspects of supply chain to value or financial aspects of it. And so if any of our listeners are with us today who may be early in their careers, I want you to start thinking about the financial aspects, not just the volume of what is to be produced, but what that means in terms of top line revenue, bottom line profitability for your businesses.

Because as you engage in more and more of those conversations and your career expands in new areas, that will be an element that is important in conveying — especially with executives in your organization — the value of the work that you’re doing. So just one encouragement. You have all done that just very naturally as a part of your roles and conversations today, but I wanted to give a shout out on that. Stephanie, if you can fast forward in three years and you see AI improving decision making, where do you think it’s going to get traction in the Hasbro business?

[00:32:45] Stephanie Beal: Well, at Hasbro right now — I guess I’ll start with right now — we opened up ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot actually to all of our employees so that they can start to use it to improve their own personal productivity. And I think that’s been a huge unlock for us. And so the adoption of those tools across the organization has been phenomenal.

And we’ve also had some executive AI immersion workshops to help us as leaders also get fully immersed. And we’re also spotlighting — I think we want to encourage people to learn from each other. So we’re spotlighting individuals, their use case applications, giving them an opportunity to share with their peers.

Right now we are using and starting to use AI modeling in our demand planning, and we think that’s going to fundamentally be a game changer for us. I actually think there are numerous use cases for AI across the supply chain. I think it’s going to fundamentally, as we apply it in our supply chain control tower, fundamentally change that in terms of our predictive capability.

And it’s also really tremendous on using it for supply chain research and strategy development. For example, I took our supply chain strategy and I asked for a critical evaluation of it, and got a very humbling response back — 65 pages of a response back tearing apart my supply chain strategy. But I mean, the power of that is just so tremendous. I think it’s going to become really, really integrated in not only our everyday life, but the way our supply chains operate and help us integrate much more effectively.

[00:34:42] Karin Bursa: I love that, and I love getting that feedback or the blind spots or things we haven’t considered as we look at the plans we put in place and moving those into execution or into action. So I love that. So we’ve talked about personal productivity, we’ve talked about inventory optimization, improved demand planning, looking at strategy and reviewing that. Tamera, where do you see AI helping to boost supply chain performance in your team?

[00:35:13] Tamera Fenske: Yeah, thank you, and great answers from everyone. It’s hard to go last, but I would say the supply chain is so rich for AI and it’s really everywhere, whether you’re on the demand side, the supply side, and I’m excited about how we’re bringing a tremendous amount of use cases to life. And I think it already is working — I know it’s working.

I appreciated the comments on data because I believe everybody’s been really doing a lot of work on data integrity, tech stack. And I think the reason why people are saying the next three years are going to be so pivotal is because I think everyone’s kind of right at the cusp of unleashing what is next. So it’s kind of painful to get that core foundation ready. But I’m excited. We had a leadership team conversation just a couple of weeks ago that we literally have everything staged and ready now. It’s kind of unleashed across the board.

And I would say we’ve done a ton to connect our data, create the data lake, the control tower as Stephanie mentioned. But I think the next stage is really an agentic AI — not only being able to see things, but it actually being able to ingest the data and give you a best known way and offer alternatives and what should you be doing. And I think it will allow your teams some additional space to even be more creative, think at a higher level, be more strategic.

And ultimately I think what AI does is really drive speed, scale, and efficiency, which obviously all our supply chains need. And just one quick example that seems really trivial but has been a huge change agent for our teams out in the plants is we took all of our structured and unstructured data for decades of tissue manufacturing.

And we used to have this gentleman — those of you that have worked at KC know Frank Kata, he’s a tissue expert — and if there was ever a tissue problem anywhere, he would get on a plane and fly. But we were able to take all this data, put it into a big repository, multiple languages, and you can literally search — it’s a search engine, I can’t, I always say it’s blank like Google — but you could literally ask it any question and it will give you the KC answer. So it’ll give you decades of experience.

And so if you think about knowledge management, how people learn, and having accessibility at your fingertips as opposed to the old way of trying to find someone somewhere in the organization, or someone waiting for someone to show up at your plant — hugely powerful. And so we’ve taken that as our benchmark use case and then applied that, I would say, more broadly across the board. But it’s fun to see — I always say knowledge is power — the speed at which AI can give you that, and then the creative, awesome things our teams can do with it.

[00:37:40] Karin Bursa: Great example. Alright, let’s get personal for a minute, ladies. I want to know — if you could go back to your early days, what advice would you give your younger self? What is the one lesson you wish you knew maybe from the start of your career or much earlier in your career? How would you coach yourself? And speaking of coaching, Whitney, let’s start with you. What one piece of coaching would you give yourself?

[00:38:07] Whitney Shlesinger: I wish I could go back and give my younger self the assurance that it was going to be okay and it would all work out. I was very career-focused. I moved eight times in 10 years for my career, which was pretty turbulent when you’re in your twenties and trying to navigate life. So that reassurance would’ve been good.

But I think Eliza hit on this and it was a core skill that I learned in my rotational program with Unilever. At the end of every year we had to give a presentation that said, “What value did I provide this year?” And it was used for criteria on if you stayed in the program or if you moved off the program. And so you became very skilled at saying, “I did this, but I delivered that.”

And continuing to hone that skill is something that I would tell my younger self: continue to work on that, because your value proposition is for you, and it’s for you to be able to leverage to build your personal brand through your mentorships, your sponsorships, and in your organization. But that’s a really core skill, and it lets you not let other people set limits for yourself. Believe in yourself, have the confidence that you’re going to figure it out, and you can add value.

[00:39:12] Karin Bursa: I think that focus — that outcome focus on where you delivered — is really important, and making that connection early is highly valuable for all of us. Sylvia, how about you? What’s one lesson you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

[00:39:27] Sylvia Wilks: Yeah, I kind of wish that — I mean, I’d had a lot of global roles as well, a lot of moves, a lot of different jobs. I lived in different countries and in different cities. And I think for me, looking back, I wish I’d maybe had a mentor earlier on in my career. I think it would’ve helped build my confidence earlier in my career.

Again, I love what Whitney said about telling yourself it is going to be okay. If I’d had that confidence earlier in my career, I think I probably would’ve gotten further faster, even though I’m happy with where I’ve gotten to and what I’m doing now. In the case that I cited earlier on — the instant coffee business operations that I was running for Starbucks — that was a really big role. And I think at the time I didn’t realize quite the enormity of it and quite the opportunity that was presented.

So I think if I’d been a little more confident in my ability at the time, I think I would’ve maybe tackled it a little bit differently, approached things a little bit differently, maybe led my team differently. I would encourage anybody who’s listening — if you don’t have a mentor or your sort of personal board of directors, I think that’s really important to do early on in your career, so that you can get a sounding board, people to run things by, and just build your confidence.

I think that’s always important. And so that plays out in my leadership of my team today — I’m always looking to build confidence in my team, get some early wins on the board, help people feel like they’re winning as a team, and grow from there as a company. So I think that would be my answer.

[00:40:59] Karin Bursa: No, that’s a great answer. And I think the reinforcing that we learn from our mistakes as much as our success. In fact, in my career, I probably learned more from my mistakes than I did from some of the successes. Stephanie, how about for you? If you were mentoring your younger self, what piece of advice would you give to guide your career?

[00:41:20] Stephanie Beal: Well, I think I’ve got to build on what Whitney and Sylvia have already said, and I thought, oh, it rings so true. I would say you’re really in charge of your own career and no one’s going to do it better for you than you. And just reiterating what Sylvia said — establishing mentorship relationships early in your career is really so valuable. And I don’t think I did that early enough, but I think those mentors that I’ve had have provided me with such really invaluable guidance throughout my career.

And so I encourage that as well, just reiterating how valuable those relationships are to you. And you’ll never be able to pay your mentors back — I’m just going to tell you that. But you need to learn how to pay it forward and become a mentor yourself for young talent because of the value it will bring to them. And I would also say just own your own decisions. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but failure doesn’t define you. It is learning what failure teaches you. That adage, “We are who we believe we are.” And you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to have to learn to live with it and what it teaches you.

[00:42:41] Karin Bursa: Yeah, great points, great points. Tamera, how about from your perspective? What advice would you give yourself?

[00:42:47] Tamera Fenske: I’m going to steal advice I was given that I wish I would’ve gotten sooner and given to myself earlier, but I agree with what everyone’s saying and I do believe mentorship and relationships are so important. I think EQ at times is as important as IQ, but you do need to be your own advocate.

And somebody told me later on in my career to be confident and be consistent and deliberate about what you want to do. What they were trying to say, especially if you think about the diversity of some of these big companies, is help other people help you. And then I would say trust your experiences and trust the guidance and the team around you and be comfortable being uncomfortable, because I would say every job I had was quite a stretch in my mind.

And you always wonder, can I do this? Is this the right next step? They were big moves. And at one point I had to actually — I did a two job grade bump and so I ended up with my team members were my bosses, which was a very interesting situation. But I would say you’re never in it alone. You have a ton of folks around you willing to help, and always be comfortable leveraging that, using that, and then helping. I like Stephanie’s comment on the give back — always help lift everybody else up too, because we’re all in this together. We’re stronger as a collective. I don’t think any of us got where we are by ourselves.

And so I would say that the consistent, deliberate though, and being an advocate for yourself is really the core that I try to make sure people are really taking to heart as I have those conversations with them on their future.

[00:44:15] Karin Bursa: I love that — comfortable being uncomfortable, right? You’re not being stretched if you’re not a little uncomfortable from time to time. For sure. Eliza, how about in your experience, what’s one lesson that you wish you could have coached yourself on a few years ago?

[00:44:30] Eliza Simeonova: I guess I’ll give you two, because I will lean a little bit on what everybody said before me. And I really want to say it because it’s important how you invest your energy in those first years of your career. And that first advice would be: give your best every day and everything else will fall into place. I wish I had that confidence back then, but once you have given it all, let go and trust that things will work out the way they’re meant to be.

I must say, after the experience of realizing that no matter how much I pushed towards an ambition or an idea, I realized that — with or without me pushing or losing sleep — things would have fallen exactly in the same way. So save your energy and put it into something more productive.

And the other thing, which I must say I discovered relatively late, but I would like to articulate it here for people in the first decade of their career: I had probably way too much drive for results and did not acknowledge the importance of the exposure and the opportunity that telling your story gives.

It’s important to know how to tell your story. It’s important to build that transition, or translation I would say, from our manufacturing or supply chain planning language into a business language, so you do not sound like Mandarin when you talk to your president or GM. And it’s important to balance. Of course, we all do not appreciate just pure storytellers, but being able to articulate that value that we talked about is very, very important. And I did not see it.

And P&G is an amazing environment. You are surrounded by mentors and people who know how to tell your story, but that might not be the case everywhere.

[00:46:07] Karin Bursa: Yeah, I love that — knowing how to tell your story. I think that that is really important. And to be able to do that kind of concisely in terms that people can understand without necessarily having to walk a mile in your shoes, I think is important. One piece of advice I did get early in my career was not to take myself so seriously. I’ll just leave that there with all of you at this point in time.

But it was a real important lesson for me to learn, and I am thankful that I did learn it early, because I was pushing a little hard on myself and my results and I wasn’t embracing failure at that particular point in my career. So I’m just going to share that with each of you.

This has been a really incredible discussion. I wish that we had more time, and I want to thank each of you for really just sharing a little of your personal journey, a little of what you see for the future with artificial intelligence, and some words of wisdom from each of us.

[00:47:06] Karin Bursa: Hearing your stories just reminds me that there are so many talented leaders in supply chain, and they come from lots of different areas, as you’ve expressed — from finance, from sales, from manufacturing, supply chain engineering, environmental engineering. All of these roads really lead to supply chain as companies who produce and bring products to market. And there are valuable lessons in each and every contribution area. So supply chain is where it comes together and where I believe leaders can truly make an impact every day. So thank you each for sharing just a little bit of what your experience has been.

Sylvia, how can our listeners get in touch with you?

[00:47:51] Sylvia Wilks: Anybody can find me on LinkedIn, Sylvia Wilks under Lamb Weston. So please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:47:59] Karin Bursa: Thank you so much and thank you again to each of you for giving back. I really see this conversation today as just an example of each of you investing in the industry and where our talent can take us in the future as well. Whitney, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

[00:48:18] Whitney Shlesinger: Yeah, same thing. Please reach out on LinkedIn. I’d love to connect, and if anybody has more to talk about on these topics, we can engage there.

[00:48:25] Karin Bursa: Great, thank you. And Eliza, how about for you? What’s the best way to reach out?

[00:48:30] Eliza Simeonova: I wish I could spice up the thread, but it’s the same. LinkedIn is normally the best way. All I would say though is just give a word or two — what’s the intent of the connect? If you want coaching, if you want advice — because there are too many, and it’ll be good just to channel the energy.

[00:48:49] Karin Bursa: A little context goes a long way, right, when folks are reaching out. And to our audience, if you do reach out to our panelists today, tell ‘em what a great job they did and how much you appreciate them spending time with us here on Supply Chain Now. Tamera, what’s the best way to reach out to you?

[00:49:04] Tamera Fenske: Same for me — LinkedIn. And yeah, let me know what’s on your mind, how I can help, or what you want to talk about.

[00:49:10] Karin Bursa: Great. Stephanie, let me guess — LinkedIn for you?

[00:49:13] Stephanie Beal: Yes.

[00:49:14] Karin Bursa: Yes.

[00:49:15] Stephanie Beal: Please reach out on LinkedIn and that would be great.

[00:49:18] Karin Bursa: Well, thank you all for being with us today, for sharing just a little bit about your journey and where you see supply chain going in the future. I also want to thank our production team — Amanda, Tricia, the whole Supply Chain Now crew. Thanks for helping to bring this together, the conversation and the engagement. I really appreciate it.

And all of you supply chain movers and shakers out there joining us today — remember that no matter the disruption, the pace of change that we see, it is a great time to be in supply chain. I’m Karin Bursa, and it’s been my pleasure to be the host for today’s session. And until next time, keep leading boldly, rewriting the rules, and thriving in this new never normal world of supply chain. I’m looking forward to seeing you again right here on Supply Chain Now.

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