Supply Chain Now
Episode 367

Episode Summary

On this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott and Greg cover the top news in supply chain for the week of May 26th. This episode also features special guest Jon Davis, Chief Meteorologist with Riskpulse.

Episode Transcript

Intro – Amanda Luton (00:00:05):

It’s time for supply chain. Now broadcasting live from the supply chain capital of the country, Atlanta, Georgia, heard around the world. Supply chain now spotlights the best in all things. Supply chain, the people, the technologies, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. And now here are your hosts.

Scott Luton (00:00:30):

Hey, good morning, Scott Luton and Greg white supply chain. Now welcome back to the live stream, Greg. Good morning. How are you doing? I’m doing great.

Greg White (00:00:38):

Energized after a long weekend. It’s great to be back a lot happening weekend. There’s a ton

Scott Luton (00:00:46):

and you know, uh, this is a special edition of the supply chain buzz where we, we tackle some of the industries, you know, key developments and news and stories and you name it. We typically do this on Monday, but of course here in the States, Monday was Memorial day. Uh, and so we’re doing it here Tuesday morning, a special episode with a special guest. Greg. Pretty excited. Excited about that.

Greg White (00:01:07):

Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to, because we’re coming up on yet another potential supply chain disruption with weather, particularly in the Northern hemisphere now. So, um, I think valuable information as we go into the hurricane and typhoon season.

Scott Luton (00:01:24):

Absolutely. And you know, whether poses a huge risk to global supply chains. We’ll touch more on that here momentarily. Uh, as we look to use this informative discussion to raise your supply chain. Accu. So, Hey, real quick programming note, if you enjoy the live stream, be sure to check out our podcast today we published ward Richmond with cars are national but more but equally as important supply chain real estate.com, right? How many people

Greg White (00:01:51):

specialize in supply chain? Real estate and ward is really started with real estate, but recognized quickly that to understand the dynamics of the marketplace, he really needed to study supply chain. So he does that very, very diligently in his supply chain IQ, very, very high.

Scott Luton (00:02:11):

Oh, he, he, he, he could have a, um, a well rounded holistic conversation with the best of them. So to your point, not many folks. I would, I would assume I’m not real estate Maven specialize in supply chain, but, uh, enjoy that time. We publish that episode today via podcast. You can check that out wherever you get your podcasts from. Be the supply chain now channels. Okay. So Greg, what is today’s date? I’m a little bit lost.

Greg White (00:02:35):

That’s a great question. I bet a lot of people are a little bit lost. It’s May 26th, 2020 in case anyone has forgotten 2020 the greatest year that ever was.

Scott Luton (00:02:47):

That is right. So let’s talk about this day in history, right? That’s kind of like where we live, where we like to start these, these uh, buzz broadcast. So on may 26, 1896, Charles Henry Dow calculates and publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones industrial average. Who would’ve thunk? Wow. So in case you don’t know, I don’t know a whole bunch about the DG I a but basically stock market index that measures the stock performance of 30 large, large cap companies that are all listed on stock exchanges of the U S it’s reported on daily, maybe hourly in many cases. And it’s tracked by millions of folks, especially savvy stock savvy investment savvy folks like our own Greg white. However, some say it’s not quite as accurate because how it’s structured and, and other folks enjoy using the S and P 500 index or the Russell 3000 or some of the other indices out there.

Scott Luton (00:03:46):

But back to the founder, this Charles Henry, Dow gentlemen, Greg, did you know he also found that the wall street journal, I didn’t know he founded it. I knew that they were associated, but I assumed that they had wanted bought the other at some point, but that is really impressive. So effectively defined the, I mean arguably the Dow Jones industrial average is still the premier index for four American stocks and the premier media right here. Well for the stock market. Pretty impressive. It is really impressive. Uh, so here’s a bit of an overachiever between the Dow Jones industrial average, which, uh, he founded with Edmond or Edward Jones, who is also a well known brand know, uh, uh, his company advises lots of different folks on their real estate, on their investment overall investment strategies. So, uh, founding that and the wall street journal. Very interesting. Um, all right.

Scott Luton (00:04:45):

So also own this, uh, date in 1951 born on this date, 1951 was Sally ride and Greg, we all celebrate Sally ride. She was a true pioneer. The first American woman in space. Uh, on June 18th, 1983 she was part of NASA mission STS seven, a board. The challenger, uh, in fact, Sally ride was a board of the challenger and two missions prior to, of course, January, 1986 when we unfortunately lost that shuttle and all seven astronauts, um, post NASA shisha says she was a pioneer in, um, in, in, uh, space, but she was also upon ear in that post NASA career. Do you know one of the, her greatest legacies, Greg was founding our co founding a company in 2001 called Sally ride science. And the whole mission of that organization is to make science fun and engaging for all young students, but also, but especially young girls, to get them engaged and, and of course get them into engineering and, and other technical and math related, um, uh, career tracks.

Scott Luton (00:05:54):

So what, yeah, what an impact ride made. Um, never forget it. I remember it vividly when it happened. Yeah. It w in our, in my time you watched it on television in school, right. You watched these things happen on one of those big old carts they rolled into the classroom. And I remember it vividly, um, that and 1986, of course, that was such a great moment. And I wonder if if, um, her initiative was not sort of the precursor to STEM. Right. That’s a great question. We need to get someone on from the Sally ride science organization maybe to address that a bit. Um, you know, the way you paint that picture, I can, I can relate to that because throughout the eighties, um, that was, that was like a, um, a regular occurrence, elementary schools across the country. And, and I’ll tell you why I love seeing, um, the NASA return to space man space, which I think is gonna happen next day or two in conjunction with space X.

Scott Luton (00:07:01):

Right. But putting that, those launches as routine as they ended up coming across as in the eighties. Right. And that, that was a, that’s the public’s fault, right? Cause this is not, there’s nothing routine about, you know, blasting off, uh, above, uh, a board, a complex, uh, uh, aircraft that thousands of systems have to work. Let me say it’s a very dangerous rod, but, um, you know, that inspired a whole generation of, of engineering and math and space enthusiasts. You name it. I’d love to get that back front and center in our elementary schools in the years to come. We’ll see how that goes. Unfortunately, Sally ride lost a battle of pancreatic cancer, uh, in 2012 so, but she will be long remembered for her huge impact she made, um, both within the NASA program and in that, uh, post NASA role. Okay. So let’s talk about some of the other, um, news around the world.

Scott Luton (00:08:00):

Today is independence day in two countries. The Republic of Georgia, Georgia. The country of Georgia is always there. They’re celebrating something every day. It seems like they hit our buzz every week. Uh, Guiana, you to love a place that celebrates. Amen. Uh, Ana, uh, also is celebrating independence day in Poland. It’s mother’s day. That’s important. All the way we should be celebrating our mothers and every country around the world. No doubt it is national paper airplane day here in the States. And I gotta tell you, I am ill prepared, I don’t have a, you know, a prop to use here. Uh, and in Australia finally it is national, sorry day and not the board game, Greg, but the apology. So, uh, sorry for any confusion. See what I did there. Oh, but Hey, no, no shortage of celebration and there’s shortage of good news and I’m really excited about the stories you’re going to be covering from a retail standpoint cause we’re going to wrap that, those two stories up on some good news and then we’ll dive into our special guest here momentarily. So with all that being said, let’s dive into the first store. We’re going to take a deeper dive into the world of retail, right, Greg?

Greg White (00:09:15):

Yes. And this is going to be a murky, murky dive. Um, you know, what I’ve done is sort of, I’ve sort of recycled an article from the first part of may, um, where, uh, retail dive, all of the industry dive publications are fantastic publications, so you can always count on them for just news and that’s great. Um, but as retail is a significant part of supply chain and we’ve experienced a lot of change and disruption in retail and the retail segment of the supply chain, I just thought I’d bring this back. So there are risk ratings. One is the frisk rating and, and Moody’s and S and P speaking of of stock markets and, and other things have ratings that evaluate the financial risk of, uh, companies. And in this case they’re focused on retailers. So in may, on May 4th, they showed that there were about 27 retailers that are at risk of bankruptcy.

Greg White (00:10:17):

I’m going to look at some notes here. Um, uh, strangely, uh, on the, on the Moody’s list, the one that was the number one risk has not yet filed bankruptcy, but these are companies, you know, GNC, JC penny, which just filed bankruptcy, Neiman Marcus, which recently filed bankruptcy, J, crew peer one who filed last year and Modell’s, which makes me wonder what the Yankees are going to have on their signs. Right, right. In Yankee stadium because Modell’s is liquidating, they filed chapter seven, they are out of business forever and are going to sell all of their intellectual property. So, you know, a lot of these are pandemic catalyzed or accelerated. Mmm. Many are, um, we’re coming for quite a while. Honestly, I have to confess that after the Apple guy left pennies, I wasn’t even sure that Penney’s was still in business. I mean there, there are some of these companies and there are many, many others that um, our or will, uh, be in trouble because not only of the pandemic but because of their, uh, they’re business issues. So,

Scott Luton (00:11:32):

Hey, real quick, Greg, on that note, yeah. One of the reasons, cause I’m, I’m guilty of that as well. You know, you lose some of these retailers on your radar. You know, I think one of the reasons why that that is, is because you think of back, uh, in the eighties and nineties when television dominated how we consume media. So naturally all the commercials that came with that, right? All those commercials that keeps a lot of retailers on your radar. But now as we’ve shifted and worked and, and folks around the world are consuming your media in different, different manners and that they don’t care that those same commercials, whether it’s YouTube or you know, online or you name it, you don’t get those little 32nd reminders of, Hey, we’re here, come visit and come, come, come by, you know, this, this or that or the other. Yeah.

Greg White (00:12:15):

Well, and so many of the companies that are at great risk are mall based, old-fashioned mall based. Um, whatever we call those just mall, I guess our mall based retailers, Sears, JC penny, Neiman Marcus, um, companies like that. Even Nordstrom is struggling. Nordstrom, okay. Arguably the greatest retailer ever known. Mmm. In terms of selection and operation and customer support, customer success. Right. And model that companies with a world over in every industry have modeled their customer support and customer success, um, efforts on, but you know, the pandemic has struck particularly hard at retail because retailers run very tight margins, three to 5% net margins, and they run very, very high debt. And if they can’t, if they aren’t generating cash, which of course two months of closed stores limits and they don’t have a strong E commerce channel, which seems to be the universal theme among a lot of these organizations also baffling. Right? Um, but those, those are the companies at, at greatest risk. And there, there are many, many more of them who are teetering on the brink. Um, but you know, at the beginning of, or just after the, the pandemic and the seismic societal disruption where we essentially shut down commerce, um, May 13th or so a S and P down 13th, right? Yeah. March 3rd, it seems like March of last year.

Greg White (00:14:00):

Mmm. S and P downgraded a third of the retailers that they follow. So they, they are expecting impact. And of course they’re getting it, the keys to success. And we’re going to talk a little bit about this in the next, um, in the next article, but the keys to success are cash, cash, cash, and I think we’ll start to see companies maintaining better cash, uh, or liquidity on their balance sheets if it’s not cash. Yup. Reduction in minimization of debt, um, resiliency plans and recovery plans and things like that are going to be necessary. And of course, digital transformation, whatever that means to you. In the case of many retailers, it means getting online and even just supporting yourself in the interim with e-commerce. Mmm. Or, or updating systems and processes that bring you into the new era of retail. To me it’s a little bit tragic, but to have the greatest mail order companies of all time will likely go away this year. Sears, [inaudible] and JC penny, and they didn’t have the ability with, in their mindset within their company to translate mail order into e-commerce, which is just an online, online catalog. Mmm. Is, is a tragic, uh, mismanagement, frankly.

Scott Luton (00:15:29):

Yup. Great point. Uh, real quick, you know, we jumped right into the bus cause we’re so excited about some of these stories and our special guests and we’ve ignored all of the folks that are tuned in. So let’s, Oh, there are people tuned in. That’s awesome. Uh, alright, so Claudia fried in here in a moment, she adds in a plan cash in the plants. Your comments there, which is the plans when the money recovery plans. Yep, that’s right. So wrath, exact word, maybe money flow is what he’s suggesting, which is good. Uh, and then let’s, let’s go back a little bit and, and, and say good morning to a few of the folks. Sidey good morning. Once again, thanks for joining us on today’s live stream and we appreciate your, uh, last last couple of live streams that you were a part of. Uh, Raul. Good morning via LinkedIn. Hope you’re doing well. Of course. We already mentioned Claudia is here. Uh, Claudia joined us for a live stream where she was one of our featured guests. Uh, last week with Chuck. Easily with Georgia tech home run conversation. It was tough to bottle it in an hour, wasn’t it Greg?

Greg White (00:16:33):

It was, but I’ll tell you it’s that one’s worth, I mean they all are, but that one in particular is worth going back two. If you are looking to get an education in supply chain, I would encourage you, even if it’s online, one class, take it from Chuck easily. He makes it sounds so easily. Um, he does make it so consumable because he’s an interesting guy in the way that he presents. It is fantastic and those who Claudia and, and Chuck playing off one another and their thoughts on the marketplace. Very, very

Scott Luton (00:17:08):

interesting. Homerun duo. Uh, good evening and nudge. Hope this finds you well. Hey, good morning memory. Well, good afternoon to you. Hope you’re doing well. Great to reconnect. Uh, last week or so, uh, Andy is tuned in from Indonesia. Andy, hope you’re doing well. Uh, let’s see here. We’ve got Sylvia who’s made a regular occurrence. I bet she’s going to weigh in or maybe some workforce issues where she’s one of our, our resident experts. They’re one of our fierce competitors from supply chain Benjamin and gold claim. Good morning to you

Greg White (00:17:41):

photo. Right. I think he had, I think he had an avatar before. Love that. Do

Scott Luton (00:17:49):

Jenny. Hey, good morning or good afternoon to you Jenny. So Jenny serves as the COO of say pics who we’re partnering with on June 3rd for our next supply chain tributes to Jenny. Hope this finds you well. You seal. Good afternoon via LinkedIn. And let me see one more here. Uh, omit omits to Nick quite a bit. He is in Turkey, so Ooma hope this finds you will sir. Uh, and we had one more comment I was going to share here. They’ve come in kind of fast and furious here. Uh, Greg, uh, Emilio. Greetings from Chile. Hope this finds you well. And finally Kevin Bell, Kevin who was on the labs remote, we got a late breaking news story coming in there. Greg played story breaking. Hold on. So, so Kevin was on the left.

Greg White (00:18:36):

What’s the story?

Scott Luton (00:18:38):

Oh,

Greg White (00:18:38):

my car warranty is

Scott Luton (00:18:40):

Isabella. Let’s talk later. That’s right. Hey, that is the buzz here on a Tuesday morning. So Kevin is tuned in be live stream. Now Kevin, your ears may have been burdened for weeks because one of, one of the things, one of the many things you contributed in your live stream was you can be, uh, you can find opportunity without being opportunistic during the pandemic. So Kevin well-stated, your ears have been burning. Folks have really enjoyed and appreciated that your commentary there. Okay. So we’re going to try to get to the rest of the comments here. Um, in the next few minutes maybe before we bring our guest speaker on, but we’ve got one more kind of a bookend story to the first story related to retail and this one more on e-commerce, right Greg?

Greg White (00:19:24):

Well, I mean it’s a, it is, it is more uplifting. So at least companies who are, who have e-commerce are um, are taking advantage of it. So just to give you an idea, a 28% increase in non store sales. Um, most, most non store sales are e-commerce. Honestly that the only other things that would typically consist of would be kiosk and, and other things like that. Even though retail overall was down 16.4% or 17.6% whether you use the industries [inaudible] uh, numbers. So, um, non store sales have have a made up of a portion of

Scott Luton (00:20:19):

Oh and just like that Murphy’s law is alive and well on Tuesday morning. So it looks like we have lost Greg’s feed. So we’ll give Greg just a minute to pop back in and we’ll pick it back up on story two. And if we have a problem we will move right along to our special guests. So it looks like we’ve got Greg back. So a Murphy’s law is alive and well. Correct Greg?

Greg White (00:20:43):

Wow. Yeah, it was like the story out. You dropped out. I was there then. Wow. But we’re back. Hey the internet people, this is why e-commerce works. I’m sorry. So what I was saying was non store sales making up a 19% proportion of total retail sales, whereas the average over the past two years has been 12% so will they hold on to all of that? We don’t know. But chances are good that sales are going to gap up in e-commerce. You know, even as stores open and here in the States, I don’t know what the situation is for everyone around the world, but here in the States, um, even as stores reopened, 60% of shoppers are wary of that, uh, [inaudible] of going back too soon into the marketplace physically, right? So that will probably maintain some digital traffic, digital traffic there. There are all kinds of stats in this thing and I’m just going to spit them out and then we can kind of talk through them. Digital traffic up 30% year over year, social media rotten brought 89% more traffic to e-commerce year over year this year, over last year in April. Okay. Mmm. Some of the, some of the Mmm rebound effect of this I guess is what you would say is because of this incredible gap up in [inaudible], uh, volume. And also because the, Oh, here we go. Ooh.

Greg White (00:22:27):

The volume was, was sometimes in unexpected areas. Mmm. Margins went down, um, volumes flagged. Um, even though earnings went up in several companies. So to give you an idea of margins went down as I believe last mile continues to vex retailers. Yup. We saw earnings at Mmm, at Amazon. We saw earnings at home Depot and Walmart, um, earnings at, uh, or at least costs were up at home Depot and at Amazon of course, because of e-commerce, strangely at Walmart who seems to have, have found the formula, both, uh, sales, we’re up 74% in e-commerce and earnings were up in their last earnings reports. So it’s interesting to see what’s going on with some of these companies. Wayfair had, uh, you know, had, uh, increased costs, but part of the issue was fulfillment volumes flagged. I think everyone has experienced that and lead times to consumers lengthened. Um, because some goods were deprioritized as non-essential, particularly at Amazon workforce had limited capacity because of people being ill or social distancing require fewer requiring fewer people handling goods.

Scott Luton (00:23:54):

Yep. Uh, no shortage of things to dive in there. It’s just tough to get it all in and with some analysis and 10 minutes. But Greg, you do a very nice job. I saw an article over the weekend about Amazon. Of course those costs are, are have skyrocketed even though, you know, they’ve done a lot more business but it’s opened up the door for more and more competition. So we’ll keep our finger on the pulse of that as well. So, Hey, real quick, Greg, one of our favorite go to resources for news and, and and really practical analysis is supply chain dive and their sister publication retail dive is where we found these two stories and they do a lot of good work over there. You know, you know the thing that,

Greg White (00:24:35):

the thing that I think you can count on with the industry dive brands of publications is that there, these are not editorials or advertorials or whatever. These are not articles written by some sales rep or you know, business development rep who’s

Scott Luton (00:24:55):

yep.

Greg White (00:24:55):

In the end really pitching their company these, these are real news stories and really strongly focused on the respective industries that they represent.

Scott Luton (00:25:05):

Yep. Agreed. And Greg, we still might be having a few technical difficulties with your connection. So we’ll just, we’ll just just make you aware. I’m seeing it.

Greg White (00:25:15):

Uh, I’m seeing you kind of drop out periodically. I’m not sure if it’s just me or

Scott Luton (00:25:20):

Oh, the internet. Well, Hey, we’re fighters, not lover, so we’re going to fight through these, these technical challenges

Greg White (00:25:26):

time to time. Okay,

Scott Luton (00:25:29):

Nelly. Alright, so let’s, um, I’m gonna try before we go to our special guests today. Big smile on your face that time. That’s right. Hey, uh, real quick. Uh, Greg, I want to pose, you know what we need to do, Scott, we need to encourage, uh, all right. And just like that we lost Greg. So this is a great time, I believe, to bring in our special guest, uh, John Davis, chief meteorologist for risk. Paul’s close. Bring him in. Hey John, how you doing? Hey Scott, how are you doing? Doing great. Great to see ya. Uh, really enjoyed our work together and where we interviewed you and your colleagues. Sharina Kemal a few weeks back, uh, on the kind of a coming attractions, so to speak for the 2020 hurricane season and what to expect there. You’ll do such a great job of, of really, I love how you, um, take whether your passion marry that with data analytics, which we have, y’all have, especially more at your fingertips than ever before. And, and use that to really prep companies and supply chain leaders on how to best mitigate risks. So y’all do an amazing job, John.

Jon Davis (00:26:43):

No, well thank you very much. It’s a exciting arena right now to say the least.

Scott Luton (00:26:48):

So, um, with that being said, we want to bring you back, uh, and kind of give our audience the latest and greatest kind of insights on these next few weeks. We’ve seen a major weather event, uh, last weeks. We’ll touch on that. But for starters, before we dive into your, all of the day that you brought, which required I think about three trucks and a couple of forklifts. Uh, let’s get no, you just a little bit better. So tell us about yourself, John. Sure.

Jon Davis (00:27:12):

Um, I grew up in the Chicago area to college in Madison, Wisconsin. Uh, all I’m urology all the time and then went to work on wall street or worked for city group for 20 years and became chief meteorologist for a city group. Then went the next 10 years to Chesapeake energy. Um, and then since then, then I’ve been at risk Paul. So what I do is applied meteorology. So I take weather and climate and then relate that to things out there kind of in the marketplace.

Scott Luton (00:27:46):

We, you know, uh, a lot of folks don’t. Risk mitigation and risk management has, uh, been growing influence in the boardrooms and sea levels of companies for years now. Um, and so it only makes sense why supply chain leaders need to put their finger on the pulse of weather much more often, especially in these, in these times of, um, seems like more weather events and, and more powerful weather weather events. So, um, before we move to your data, John, I’m going to see if we can bring Greg back in here really quick. See if Murphy’s law, Hey Greg, how you doing? I think I’m doing well. Okay, that’s good. We’re going to make sure that we don’t have any bandwidth pirates around our house, our home studio here. We’re looking into that now. Uh, but regardless, I think your timing’s good. We just kind of laid out, uh, John’s background and the fact that he’s doing what he’s wanting to do since five years old, right? All about weather and help helping others better understand the weather. So Greg, now we’re going to shift over to, uh, the data he brought for our audience. So, uh, Greg, uh, John, where do we want to start here?

Jon Davis (00:28:54):

Well, why don’t we go through and begin to look at areas of the globe that have a tendency to have tropical systems. And when we talk about tropical systems, we’re talking about hurricanes in the Atlantic basin and typhoons in the areas of the West Pacific and then cyclones in the Indian ocean. It’s all the same storm out there. So this map that we’re looking at is called a frequency map of tropical activity for any location on the map. This is the frequency that any location will have tropical systems. And this is using 40 years of data. A couple of interesting things here on this map. Number one, the West Pacific is the area that tends to have the highest frequency of Trump selectivity. The other area that’s high frequency is the East Pacific, often close to Mexico. For those listeners that have been to Cabo San Lucas or [inaudible], that’s a very active tropical area. But most of those storms tend to move in a westward direction away from Mexico. And other than disruptions and shipping lanes, they don’t tend to have major impacts across the region. And of course the Atlantic basin is a one that we’ll probably talk about most today.

Scott Luton (00:30:16):

Yup. So that runs kind of counterintuitive to what I think Greg and I both thought w um, you know what I was thinking as we see, um, the jet stream, I think and, and, and John, I’m gonna use all the weather terms I’ve got, which aren’t many, but so as, as we see weather patterns kinda in the States move, uh, you know, kind of West to East, um, uh, I was thinking that the, the tropical activity was, see off the, um, the East, the East Pacific coast there moves East as well, but, but that, that is not true at all runs West. That was surprising to me. At least.

Jon Davis (00:30:54):

That’s correct. And so in all of the tropical basins, the storm systems tend to go from East to West. Think of the waves that come off of Africa and then eventually move to the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and toward the East coast and all of the zones of the tropics, North of the equator. The general trade when is East to West ed is the mean flow of overall systems.

Scott Luton (00:31:21):

Gotcha. Okay. Alright. So moving right along from this, this frequency data, we’re going to move into, uh, some ocean temperatures, right?

Jon Davis (00:31:31):

Yeah. So as we look at the upcoming season, and again, we’re really talking about the season in the Northern hemisphere. The Southern hemisphere season is pretty much come to a close now. So we’re interested in the Pacific and the Atlantic and the Indian ocean. So one of the things that we tend to look at to begin to get an idea of if a season is going to be very active or inactive and all of the various basins out there is sea surface temperatures. How warm are the oceans out there in the various areas, tropical systems who was warmth in the oceans as fuel. And so as we look at this, then the areas that have a very warm bias, higher level of risk than other areas. So we’ll look at a couple of different areas. So the Atlantic basin, you know, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, what we call the tropical Atlantic, that strip that goes towards the Gulf of Mexico is very warm, well warmer than normal, and has been that way for the last couple of months. That is a red flag when we’re thinking about the upcoming tropical season. The Indian ocean where we had a major system last week was also on the warm side. That’s a red flag. But in air, because of the West Pacific, off the coast of China, for example, it’s not as warm as some other year. So that is a starting point when we begin to look at risk and what areas that we’re concerned about to have a higher level of risk going into the season.

Scott Luton (00:33:08):

Hey, just so John, we have our first question from our audience, and this is from our friend Claudia freed and, and you know, we won’t have a probably enough time to really fully address this, but, but when you hear this question, what’s one of your first thoughts here? So how do businesses plan for asset planning based on climate disruption? Is there a, uh, just a quick initial thought or two you have around this question?

Jon Davis (00:33:31):

Absolutely. Well, this is a climate issue and so that’s kind of different than the tropics point. You’re thinking about climate for example, extreme events and how extreme events in some areas of the globe are increasing at a rapid rate. There are areas that we can look at on a global basis where we know that that risk of extreme for example, is higher than another areas and companies need to know about that risk and what areas tend to have a higher level of that risk as we go toward, you know, either tropical season or other seasons kind of out there. But that’s a whole other area is looking at climate mitigation in areas of climate extremes for example, and how that affects overall risk management. By the way,

Scott Luton (00:34:20):

great question, Claudia. I really appreciate that. Uh, and, and John, thanks for, for taking that and reader’s digest version. Hey real quick before we move, I think this is a good point here to, to make sure our audience knows, uh, before we move to these next, last two slides, you have cause w what does risk pulse do? Tell it. Tell spore in a nutshell, how do you help companies navigate through this these times?

Jon Davis (00:34:42):

Well, what we do is not only weather climb but we help companies navigate risks. Whatever that risk is by using data analytics. So in other words, our platform, we ingest of credible amounts of data and that data overall is used by the client to look at overall risk out there, whether you’re talking about specific assets or lanes, whether those are rail or road or shipping wounds and what areas, you know, short term longterm tends to have the greatest risk out there.

Scott Luton (00:35:16):

Yep. Risk can come in all types of manners and fashions and, and look. So, but whether it’s a big one, whether it’s a big one. So let’s keep driving. Uh, cause we’re going to talk about the big weather event that happened just last week, right?

Jon Davis (00:35:30):

Yeah. So there was a huge storm in the Bay of gull and it hit India. That was last week and this storm was screaming unique in many ways. Number one, it became the strongest, you know, psych clone in the Northern Indian ocean ever recorded. And we have really good data that goes back 50 plus years across that region. Now. It didn’t hit the coast at these extremely high levels. It reached winds of 165 miles per hour sustained in the middle of the Bay of Bengal. It hit the Indian coast right near Bangladesh. And this was the track for camp Sam last week. And I guess the, one of the other unique things about that, it went right over the city of Cokato 15 million person a city in India. I mean, think of that would happen in areas of the us incredible population. The center of the storm went right over that city and then it moved up in affected areas of Bangladesh and Butan to the North and Northern Miramar. And so again, it was one of the most impactful storms in that area to people, humanitarian issues to the supply chain. And the effects are still going on as we speak.

Scott Luton (00:36:48):

Yeah. What a tremendous disaster. Um, so, uh, certainly present best wishes to all those folks, uh, that were impacted by that. And, and, and, you know, that’s the most important thing, but, but then from the all the businesses and the supply chains and the shipping, uh, that could be disrupted. It’s a, uh, just an incredible event, especially as, as you spoke to in our podcast, uh, in this pandemic environment, uh, tropical, the tropical season is going to be more unique perhaps than anything we’ve seen in history in history. So, um, with that in mind, let’s kind of wrap on, on, uh, other risks that keep on our radar. So tell us about the slot here.

Jon Davis (00:37:30):

Sure. So I guess we’ll talk about two things on this slide. Number one, for the season of coming, you know, what areas have the highest risk? So we do think that the Atlantic basin, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Atlantic have the highest level of risk, will be the most active basin in the Northern hemisphere as we go through this season. Combination of warm water temperatures and event called Alinea vent, tick and shape, and the Pacific ocean. Those are red flags that overall certainly look to the Atlantic base and being one of the most active spots here this year and all individuals within the supply chain need to very closely watch the Atlantic basin as we go through. But what about the short term? You know, what, what day to day do we things do we look at here to begin to anticipate storms so that then clients of ours can mitigate risk are coming up?

Jon Davis (00:38:28):

We have no imminence right now. However, there are two areas where we do expect some tropical development over the next weeks. Timeframe. One is off the Mexican coast, that kind of area that’s very active and we expect development over the next four to five days. That storm that develops off the Mexican coast, you know, near Acapulco or near Cabo San Lucas. That will likely move in a westward direction away from that zone. So that should not be a big disruption in the supply chain. The Aero are watching is again the Indian ocean, not in the big bang go, we’re Amphenol fan wet but in the rabies and see in other words on the West side of VR, there’s pretty strong consensus in the computer guidance that another clone will form in that zone in move northward up into the Arabian sea, possibly of the West coast of India. This time a much more sensitive area from a standpoint of supply chain and ports or up into areas of Pakistan and that region. So short term wise, we’re looking at these two areas in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico and again in the Indian ocean.

Scott Luton (00:39:42):

Yup. Outstanding information. Very practical information. We’ve got one of question here I want to pose to you, John, uh, from Severna, uh, and, and she asks about how shipping companies are using this information, uh, to avoid extra transportation lead time, I guess, as as maybe they go around or try to go around some of these storms. Have you seen companies use this information? So

Jon Davis (00:40:04):

what happens is, you know, obviously there’s plans here from a standpoint of shipping routes and shipping lanes, but if there’s any indication of any disruptions in that you can change course, you can change timing over an overall, you know, cargoes and ships will tend to leave a port or arrive at a port. So there are ways to mitigate this and yes, we do have clients from a shipping standpoint that use this to mitigate risks, delaying shipments, moving around the specifics of a storm system and also engine, you know, ports and things like that. If we have a major issue like what happened in Amsterdam last week.

Scott Luton (00:40:43):

Yep. Um, I’m going to pose one more. John, you’re being such a good sport and taking, taking the punches as they come. Here’s a, here’s a tough, a tougher question I’m sure you get all the time and it’s about, uh, the accuracy, you know, forecasting anything is, is incredible challenging, incredibly challenging. Prenup asks about how accurate these weather predictions, I’m sure you get that question a lot. H what are your thoughts around accuracy?

Jon Davis (00:41:09):

Accuracy comes down to it’s a function of timescale is we’re sitting here in late may, we can’t go and say, well, in the first week of September we’re going to have his system move from key West to new Orleans. Right not to be done. However, in a timescales of a week or 10 days with the kind of ability that we have computer guidance, we have a very idea of the zones of risk that will tend to be anywhere across the globe and most of the computer models tend to be global in nature, so in short timeframe. Then we have a good idea of overall risks. There are some stories that are easier to predict than us. That’s tough to always a situation out there and that kind of information is communicated then to our clients and in the daily reports that we tend to put out, but short term wise, we can get very specific on timing, intensity, what kind of ports or is will be impacted. The further you go out of let’s say in think about July for example, you can’t get specific. You can talk about the macro situation. If July looks active in a specific area, but you can’t talk about the details. So it’s a great question. But in answer to that question, it all comes down to the timescale that you’re dealing with right now. And like demand forecasting. That’s right.

Scott Luton (00:42:34):

That’s it. That really is right. And, and despite all the gains that we’ve made, whether it’s demand forecasting or you know, as a weather reporting consumer, you know, clearly when we get storms here in the States, I find that fascinating, especially on YouTube. John, you have folks are passionate much like you about weather and how they’ll use all these radar charts to get really specific in terms of where the threat is. And it seems like, um, the weather industry in general has gotten, uh, they’re using technology to get much more accurate and give these targeted areas at the, you know, the, the zones at risk, much more actual information. That seems like as a bystander to the industry, John,

Jon Davis (00:43:18):

no question. The science has gained incredible amounts of accuracy over the last, you know, two to two and a half decades. It doesn’t happen in a year and a half, but when you look at things and five year, 10 year, 15 year increments, the what we can to now from a prediction standpoint compared to what we could do at the turn of the century is the difference between in day life and death. Literally in some cases. Exactly right. Exactly. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:43:48):

So John loved information. We’ll have to have you back on the podcast you did with Sherina Kemal, your colleague was very well received. Um, the, um, the weather, I mean, we talk about the, the curve balls and having to look around corners and supply chain, gosh, with weather, I am not envious of your, of what you do, um, cause all the constant change. But it’s great, great to know that not only has the industry gotten better, um, but supply chain leaders are, are paying more attention, not just to risk, but to weather in general in this era of global supply chains. Right,

Jon Davis (00:44:24):

right. No, no question. And again, we’d go back 30 years ago and you could not have done the level that you can do now. It’s different world.

Scott Luton (00:44:32):

That’s right. Yep. So Greg, you know, one of the things that we like about risk pulse and the sister organization resilience three 60 is just how easy it is for folks to plug in and get information. Like, you know, we, we, we, John had 10 minutes and, and as always he delivers, but they have webinars, uh, weekly webinars, email intelligence reports that go out regularly. I mean, y’all, y’all risk pulse does a lot of different things to really share this information with the market, right?

Jon Davis (00:45:01):

Yeah, exactly. And so it’s almost on a daily basis of the kind of information that we put out there again, to manage the supply chain and help our clients begin to mitigate risks. And really from a standpoint of, you know, either company, which, you know, not we’re merging, but whether it’s risk postdoc, Tom or resilience three sixty.com, there’s a lot of information on each, you know, a platform that can help individuals out.

Scott Luton (00:45:28):

You know, one other comment, uh, and not, and I’m an earnest fan. I’ve had the great fortune of getting to know a variety of your team members going back months. And, and you know, Greg, to that end, one of the things as undeniable is how risk poles and resilience three 60 was on the front end of reporting on coronavirus, especially here in the States because as we all saw it impacted globally before we really felt it. You know Greg, you mentioned that March 13th timeframe right after mode X when the world here in the States started to change where they were reporting on Hey warning signs, you know, before a lot of companies, right?

Greg White (00:46:06):

Yeah, they were. And I mean I think that look that whether it’s accurate is not really the point if it’s even just indicative of the risk at a, at a good distance out, that’s helpful, right? You’ve got to think about this from a, from a practical perspective, right? When you’re thinking about something weeks or even months out, it’s indicative that there is a risk then it’s assessive of of the level of risk and then it is prescriptive in terms of the proximate nature, nature of the risk. Right. I come from the tornado belt, I’m from Kansas, right? So I have been, I have been both caught off guard and well informed by these sort off seeing the impact of this kind of thing in my, in my real life. So, um, the, the value that they bring, the um, again, the risk assessment and the risk realization nature of what they do is really, really valuable in today’s supply chains and not just ocean freight. I mean it doesn’t impact ground freight as well. Absolutely. Right.

Scott Luton (00:47:17):

Alright, so John you started to share of course risk pulse.com is a great clearing house, great resources there. Um, how can folks connect with you?

Jon Davis (00:47:26):

Feel free to email me in my is very easy.

Greg White (00:47:30):

I’m jail when, so jail when. Dot att.com

Scott Luton (00:47:37):

outstanding John dot Davis at risk, pulse.com. John the chief meteorologist for risk pulse. Thanks so much for joining us here today. We’ll make sure, I think we published your LinkedIn URL as well in the show notes and I really appreciate your insights here today. Uh, you stood and delivered as always.

Greg White (00:47:58):

You guys have the show off. John David. Hey Josh. Thank you so much. I really thank you for having me.

Scott Luton (00:48:07):

Thanks John. Appreciate it. John Davis, chief meteorologist with risk pulse. Good day. All right. Back with us. I think is mr Greg white, my, uh, partner in crime. Greg, how are you doing?

Greg White (00:48:23):

I am doing well. Uh, the net impact of, uh, I think use using wifi for connection. So as soon as I wired up I was fine.

Scott Luton (00:48:33):

Well, you know, uh, if it’s not one thing, it’s another, uh, you know, as we’re still in this work from home studio era, which we’re hope we’re seeing some, some signs breakthrough, we hope to be back in the new studios and, and current continuing the current studios maybe in July, right? Yeah,

Greg White (00:48:51):

yeah. And look like many things, we had just upgraded to gig speed internet, so I’m not sure that our current router can handle it. Sort of like what we described with e-commerce and some of these retailers stumbling because the level of volume increase that they saw. It is one of those times where people, everything is moving so fast that you know, that sometimes the infrastructure can’t support it.

Scott Luton (00:49:17):

Agreed. I like how you tied that back. You’re, you’re a real pro Greg. I saw what you did there. That was good. Hey, so I didn’t, you know, we were kind of running out of our time that we had with John and really appreciated his, um, his take on the three or four questions we got including that tough one of how accurate is this data, which I’m sure whether folks get quite well where the professionals get quite a bit. Um, so ed ask an interesting question and I’m not sure if we want to weigh in on this or not, but I wanted to pose it to you because I love how you connect weather forecasting with demand forecast and because, gosh, there’s so many, um, uh, relevant aspects of that. So he was talking about how a predicting predicting side are well advanced, but when it comes to how the, how to deal with it, data is really poor. Um, so you know, let’s obviously neither you nor I can speak to that from a weather standpoint, but let’s, let’s think about a demand forecasting because yeah, the technology has come a long way. But if folks don’t know how to use the data, what the bother.

Greg White (00:50:26):

I think you have to do scenario modeling to do, to be able to do that. Even if, um, even if the, and I think Saudi, what you’re talking about is some sort of knowledge base of what do we do if X happens or what do we do with X and why happens? Or if only Y happens. So let’s, let’s go down that path. Assuming we’re on the right path there. If we do, if we do scenario planning, then we say, okay, if X X happens, here’s what the impacts could be and here’s how we ought to respond to that. And, and, and that’s a really, really important thing for us to think about in supply chain in life, frankly. But in supply chain in particular, because the plans, you know, to quote the great Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, right? Right. And, and this seismic societal disruption has punched everyone in the face all at the same time. And so those with plans and with the, the wherewithal to create plans that being the people, the talent, the, the goals and the capital to do so, those people with plans and those people with the capacity to create plans are fairing much better than those people without plans and the data to support decision making. Hmm. Great. Um, when a disruption occurs,

Scott Luton (00:51:52):

great point. And that Mike Tyson quote is getting more airplay than it has probably in years. Yeah. It’s so relevant to today’s environment. Okay. Varna talks about how global warming is con continues to impact the, the globe, uh, more and more. And she talks about how important it is to use digital all past digital things digital to, to ready, uh, let’s see here. To help people to, to help predict, but also get the information out in the actual manner to people. So that’s a great comment there, Shavasana and appreciate your earlier question. Thanks for joining us here today. Okay. I think we’re ready to move on to RFR I didn’t mean to let you down today. No. Hey, this is Nate. We all know the internet is being used more than I, I’d love to see a study that measures overall bandwidth consumption and see what it is. Last couple of months I’ve looked like versus historical. We’ll leave that to the, um, we’ll have to bring those folks, whoever does whoever monitors that on a future bus. Alright, so let’s talk about one of our favorite topics. Uh, the Gartner supply chain top 25 just came out, uh, I believe a week or two ago they released the rankings. We’ve got a big webinar, Greg coming up this Wednesday featuring Mike Griswold with Gardner, who’s the quarterback. He’s the MC behind, uh, these rankings. Um,

Greg White (00:53:20):

some great news here, first of all, and, and very responsive as well. I mean, this is, this is an analysis that occurs over a great period of time. And yet I read the report. This is what I do for, for leisure folk. I read this 45 page report over the weekend and Mmm. And what struck me significantly in this report is the discussions around the impact of the pandemic and this seismic societal disruption around resiliency. And, um, and responsiveness in regard to this and it actually changed the rankings of the, of the supply chain, top 25, based on how people were, how companies were equipped to adapt to this disruption. Talk about the proof in the pudding, right. You’re in the middle of doing an analysis and then the world changes and you get a real world view of how resilient and responsive these supply chains truly are.

Greg White (00:54:27):

Yep. And again, the cream rises to the top Cisco number one. Um, and, and a number of the top performers always near the top Johnson and Johnson supply chain. Yup. If it’s not legendary, it should be, if you study supply chain, um, you know, they’re a great example. And of course the five masters I think remained unchanged. Is that right Scott? That is true. Yep. And in fact, Cisco systems was a number five in the 2019 version. They jumped up to the top, as Greg pointed out. Uh, and according to the report that was based on a variety of things, but especially revenue growth at Cisco ESG strength, which you can look at that category here, which we’ve got all this, some gardener societal governance. That’s right, right? So basically being a good corporate citizen puts this coat from five to one, right? Right. But also Cisco is well recognized in, uh, the industry’s view of their leadership and their industry leadership and their thought leadership around driving real action around ESG and many other things.

Greg White (00:55:35):

So that was an interesting, uh, comment in the report and we’ve seen that firsthand with Jack Allen show a couple of times. He’s been part of the Cisco organization for over 30 years. And, uh, when Jack comes on, uh, his passion just exudes from to, to make a real impact. So, uh, and you know, not to, not to have too much of a love Fest for Cisco, but there’s a reason why they were ranked one of the world’s most admired companies a couple of years ago. And it’s not really surprising to see some of that carry over into how Gartner evaluates their supply chain organization. Well, as we expected, we saw the ESG, the increase in the weighting of ESG, um, caused some tumult in terms of the rankings here. That’s right. Yep. So the top tens, they’re lurking

Scott Luton (00:56:24):

just outside the top 10 was Walmart at number 11. And you know, as we’ve talked about on previous live streams and podcasts, keep your eyes on Walmart. They’ve taken the punches for a long time. They’ve just rolled out their, their competitor to Amazon prom here, which they sped up that timeframe because of the pandemic environment. And you know, I bet it’s not too long before they’re cracking, not just the top 10 but the top five. Great. What’s your take?

Greg White (00:56:53):

Well, you know, a company that has the level of sales that Walmart does that makes money and makes a substantial amount of money is always a force to be reckoned with. What I find, what I find somewhat, I don’t know if it’s ironic but notable is, is think about how long ago it was that we were all afraid of Walmart and people didn’t want a Walmart store in their neighborhood. And Walmart was, you know, destroying the small retailer and that sort of thing. And we’ve managed to find an equilibrium among Walmart and physical retail. And, and now Walmart is almost thought of as an underdog, which is laughable. Almost thought of as, as an underdog competing with Amazon. Yep. It’s a, it’s a really interesting dynamic, but of course, um, you know, they started, they started supply chain initiatives. I mean, they’ve virtually invented CPFR collaborative, right?

Scott Luton (00:57:55):

Collaborative

Greg White (00:57:56):

forecast, planning, forecasting and replenishment. Right. So inner enterprise connectivity play ages ago. Yeah. In the nineties

Scott Luton (00:58:07):

I thought you were about to quiz me on supply chain acronyms, which I wasn’t prepared for this Tuesday morning. What I was really hoping you would think of what he stood for because

Greg White (00:58:17):

even though that was, you know, I founded a company planning, forecasting and replenishment,

Scott Luton (00:58:22):

I forgot what the piece did. Hey, that’s, that’s been on a couple of exams. I’ve taken two. So there you go. Um, so all of this information, uh, you can find the gardener. In fact, we’ve got the direct link to sign up and download the report that, that Greg and I both reference, uh, as, uh, over to the right side of this chart here. Uh, we do have the five masters. The masters category was created in 2015 after all these companies dominated and really clustered up, up at the top. And you know when you do, when you have that you don’t leave enough room for new companies to break in. And they had six companies break into the, uh, supply chain top 25 for the first time in 2020 this year, um, and the 16th edition. So they create this masters category, all five as, as Greg alluded to, Amazon, Apple, McDonald’s, P and G and Unilever all, uh, retained that masters ranking. That’s always interesting. Um, and we’ll see. We’re going to,

Greg White (00:59:17):

yeah, so these are companies that seven of 10 years have been the top five.

Scott Luton (00:59:22):

They get pulled out. But if at any time they fall out of the top, out of the top five, four, seven of 10 years, they go right back into the ranking so you can watch them. Um, go right back to the top and then back into the matters, the, the masters category category. Hey, you know that, um, uh, and we’re going to find out with Mike Griswold, we’re going to get the insights and takeaways and kind of nitty gritty behind these rankings and, and, uh, behind all the exhaustive research that came out. Uh, and you can join us for that webinar tomorrow. I know it’s webinar heavy season. Everybody’s doing webinar, but I promise you Mike Griswold, this will be a practical, Hey, here’s how you, uh, mr or miss business leader, whether you’re in a small company, medium company, or a large company, how, here’s your, here’s your key takeaway from all this, all this data.

Scott Luton (01:00:16):

Hey, our friend, you can see there, Adam Robinson with turbo, uh, has joined us here on LinkedIn. Lisa portion, Adam, great to catch up with you last week. And you know, Hey, if I’m an acronym ACE, I’ll take that. I’m going to put that on my LinkedIn profile and get a tee shirt. Maybe, I don’t know, but I’m ready to do it cause it is tough and it’s a gift. Let me tell you, Hey, quick note from Malcolm. So Malcolm doesn’t only speak to Scott in case anyone was wondering. Um, Verizon network report, uh, reports 19 per cent spike in network usage, a large chunk of that being Netflix, Hulu, Disney and others, uh, streaming services. Uh, some, some IPS report running hot, but the internet won’t break. So we have, we can have faith that neither the supply chain or the internet we’ll break. And you know, and in truth it is the last mile of the internet that is often, often the difficulty and we are definitely last mile where we live.

Scott Luton (01:01:23):

That’s right. Alright. So, uh, uh, but good to know. They’re great job. Malcolm has always owned the money, uh, bringing the data to us. Uh, portal internet servers. They have been worked out hard his last few months. Uh, Adam, great to see you. Uh, uh, Greg, not sure if you saw, uh, Kevin Bell weighed in and said, Hey, that Mike Tyson quote has always been relevant and has maybe never more relevant than it is today. So good stuff there, Kevin. Great to have you with us here today. Um, alright, so finally, let’s give folks an action item. You know, don’t just take our word for it. Join us for the webinar tomorrow at 12 noon. Well, we’re, you’re going to hear straight from the quarterback, the leader behind these rankings, right? Greg, the curator, the top, top banana, whatever you want to call them. But that’s a new one for me, a practitioner before an analyst, and, uh, let’s say more than two of practitioner

Greg White (01:02:20):

experience. So, and quality experience, right? Length of experience is not, not necessarily an indicator, but very quality experience. Mike is an authority, unequivocally.

Scott Luton (01:02:32):

I agree. And I agree, Kevin, he should be on every show up to get Kevin, if you’ve got some holes, we need to have an attorney, a negotiated contract

Greg White (01:02:44):

under contract. That’s really it.

Scott Luton (01:02:48):

Okay, Kevin, great to have you. Uh, alright. So, uh, registration is still open, uh, for the webinar tomorrow. So you can go to supply chain now, radio.com to join up, uh, join us for that and trivia supply chain trivia. Who would have thought that we would have seen as much fierce competition as we’ve seen for the supply chain trivia. So our third edition, our Eastern hemisphere additions coming up next week, June 3rd at 9:30 AM Eastern daylight time. I believe Claudia was asking for that specific timeframe. Coby cannoli, our current champion will be defending his title, uh, uh, their title. Uh, perhaps we’ve got to confirm their attendance, but Coby is first place from the last go round. Antonio, Tony Rivera came in second and of course every day came in third. We’ll see if they all come back to defend their, uh, top rankings from the last episode. Right.

Greg White (01:03:44):

Well, and also if we had a masters list, mr inventory, Demetrius cannulas would be on that as well as he finished first in the first round and fifth in this last round. So

Scott Luton (01:03:58):

I like that we need a master’s list. That’s an idea.

Greg White (01:04:01):

I am still and I’m doing it live on the internet. Chris Gaffney, chief supply chain officer for strategy for Coca-Cola. You had it man, you had it, you know you’ve got it. Get out there. Again, I don’t care what this board of directors or the CEO says, get out there and show your stuff.

Scott Luton (01:04:21):

So join us June 3rd at 9:30 AM Eastern daylight times. We partner with any Froome and to say pics organization to, to conduct the trivia in a better timeframe for that side of the globe. Uh, so looking forward to that and where can they find information on that Greg?

Greg White (01:04:39):

They can find it at right here where you see it. Supply chain now, radio.com you can find it on LinkedIn follow supply chain now or on Twitter. SCN radio or Instagram at supply chain. Now

Scott Luton (01:04:54):

love that right on the money as always. Greg. Hey, quick shout out again to John Davis and the great folks over at risk poll so you can visit them at risk, pulse.com great stuff there. That’s John. Second time on the show. As I mentioned, we did the podcast not too long ago with a he and Sharina Kemal and they make quite a one two punch. Yeah, no doubt. And the information they provide is so valuable. Lots of companies using it as the backbone of their systems to help them do risk assessment, resiliency testing, and build those kind of plans that we’ve been talking about. That’s right. And with all that said, we’re at an hour and five minutes technical challenges or like 35 matter.

Scott Luton (01:05:40):

Well, Hey, a great episode, a special episode. Thanks for everybody for joining us on this Tuesday morning for the supply chain buzz on behalf of Greg white and Scott Luton and the whole supply chain. Now team, uh, you know, there’s going to be much brighter days. Lie ahead. Hope we’ve seen signs of that here, at least in the Southeast here in the States. And we hope that our listeners, wherever you may be, are seeing some of the same signs. So, uh, but that said, join us next time on supply chain now and y’all have a wonderful week. Thanks everybody.

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Watch Scott and Greg as they share the top stories in supply chain in the Supply Chain Buzz, and welcome Jon Davis with Riskpulse.

Featured Guests

Jon Davis is based in Barcelona, Spain. Jon brings over 35 years of experience and is widely considered one of the foremost experts on the impact of weather and climate on global commodities (energy and agriculture) and supply chain logistics. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in meteorology, he spent 18 years on Wall Street in the commodity divisions within Citigroup focusing on risk management in agriculture, energy, and the financial sectors. At the end of Jon’s tenure, he was Chief Meteorologist at Citigroup. At Citigroup, he was recruited by Chesapeake Energy in 2003 and spent 10 years as Chief Meteorologist responsible for monitoring global weather/climate and its impact on energy and agriculture. Since 2014, Jon has been Chief Meteorologist at Riskpulse. In 2015, Jon was given the prestigious Award for the Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology at the national AMS (American Meteorological Society) meeting for a distinguished career in applying meteorological and climatological knowledge to the energy, industrial, and agricultural sectors. In 2017, Jon was awarded the Kenneth C. Spengler Award for outstanding vision to advance to role of meteorology in the new energy economy and outstanding leadership of the AMS Energy Committee and its conference. Jon was founding member and first chair of the AMS Energy Committee starting in 2004.

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Demo Perez

Host, Supply Chain Now en Espanol

Demo Perez started his career in 1997 in the industry by chance when a relative asked him for help for two just weeks putting together an operation for FedEx Express at the Colon Free Zone, an area where he was never been but accepted the challenge. Worked in all roles possible from a truck driver to currier to a sales representative, helped the brand introduction, market share growth and recognition in the Colon Free Zone, at the end of 1999 had the chance to meet and have a chat with Fred Smith ( FedEx CEO), joined another company in 2018 who took over the FedEx operations as Operations and sales manager, in 2004 accepted the challenge from his company to leave the FedEx operations and business to take over the operation and business of DHL Express, his major competitor and rival so couldn’t say no, by changing completely its operation model in the Free Zone. In 2005 started his first entrepreneurial journey by quitting his job and joining two friends to start a Freight Forwarding company. After 8 months was recruited back by his company LSP with the General Manager role with the challenge of growing the company and make it fully capable warehousing 3PL. By 2009 joined CSCMP and WERC and started his journey of learning and growing his international network and high-level learning. In 2012 for the first time joined a local association ( the Panama Maritime Chamber) and worked in the country’s first Logistics Strategy plan, joined and lead other associations ending as president of the Panama Logistics Council in 2017. By finishing his professional mission at LSP with a company that was 8 times the size it was when accepted the role as GM with so many jobs generated and several young professionals coached, having great financial results, took the decision to move forward and start his own business from scratch by the end of 2019. with a friend and colleague co-founded IPL Group a company that started as a boutique 3PL and now is gearing up for the post-Covid era by moving to the big leagues.

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Mary Kate Love

VP, Marketing

Mary Kate Love is currently the VP of marketing at Supply Chain Now focused on brand strategy and audience + revenue growth. Mary Kate’s career is a testament to her versatility and innovative spirit: she has experience in start-ups, venture capital, and building innovation initiatives from the ground up: she previously helped lead the build-out of the Supply Chain Innovation Center at Georgia-Pacific and before that, MxD (Manufacturing times Digital): the Department of Defense’s digital manufacturing innovation center. Mary Kate has a passion for taking complicated ideas and turning them into reality: she was one of the first team members at MxD and the first team member at the Supply Chain Innovation Center at Georgia-Pacific.

Mary Kate dedicates her extra time to education and mentorship: she was one of the founding Board Members for Women Influence Chicago and led an initiative for a city-wide job shadow day for young women across Chicago tech companies and was previously on the Board of Directors at St. Laurence High School in Chicago, Young Irish Fellowship Board and the UN Committee for Women. Mary Kate is the founder of National Supply Chain Day and enjoys co-hosting podcasts at Supply Chain Now. Mary Kate is from the south side of Chicago, a mom of two baby boys, and an avid 16-inch softball player. She holds a BS in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Joshua Miranda

Marketing Specialist

Joshua is a student from Institute of Technology and Higher Education of Monterrey Campus Guadalajara in Communication and Digital Media. His experience ranges from Plug and Play México, DearDoc, and Nissan México creating unique social media marketing campaigns and graphics design. Joshua helps to amplify the voice of supply chain here at Supply Chain Now by assisting in graphic design, content creation, asset logistics, and more.  In his free time he likes to read and write short stories as well as watch movies and television series.

Donna Krache

Director of Communications and Executive Producer

Donna Krache is a former CNN executive producer who has won several awards in journalism and communication, including three Peabodys.  She has 30 years’ experience in broadcast and digital journalism. She led the first production team at CNN to convert its show to a digital platform. She has authored many articles for CNN and other media outlets. She taught digital journalism at Georgia State University and Arizona State University. Krache holds a bachelor’s degree in government from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of New Orleans. She is a serious sports fan who loves the Braves. She is president of the Dave Krache Foundation. Named in honor of her late husband, this non-profit pays fees for kids who want to play sports but whose parents are facing economic challenges.

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Vicki White

Controller

Vicki has a long history of rising to challenges and keeping things up and running. First, she supported her family’s multi-million dollar business as controller for 12 years, beginning at the age of 17. Then, she worked as an office manager and controller for a wholesale food broker. But her biggest feat? Serving as the chief executive officer of her household, while her entrepreneur husband travelled the world extensively. She fed, nurtured, chaperoned, and chauffeured three daughters all while running a newsletter publishing business and remaining active in her community as a Stephen’s Minister, Sunday school teacher, school volunteer, licensed realtor and POA Board president (a title she holds to this day). A force to be reckoned with in the office, you might think twice before you meet Vicki on the tennis court! When she’s not keeping the books balanced at Supply Chain Now or playing tennis matches, you can find Vicki spending time with her husband Greg, her 4 fur babies, gardening, cleaning (yes, she loves to clean!) and learning new things.

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Katherine Hintz

Creative Director, Producer, Host

Katherine Hintz, MBA is a marketing professional who strives to unite her love of people with a passion for positive experiences. Having a diverse background, which includes nonprofit work with digital marketing and start-ups, she serves as a leader who helps people live their most creative lives by cultivating community, order, collaboration, and respect. With equal parts creativity and analytics, she brings a unique skill set which fosters refining, problem solving, and connecting organizations with their true vision. In her free time, you can usually find her looking for her cup of coffee, playing with her puppy Charlie, and dreaming of her next road trip.

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Kim Reuter

Host, The Freight Insider

From humble beginnings working the import docks, representing Fortune 500 giants, Ford, Michelin Tire, and Black & Decker; to Amazon technology patent holder and Nordstrom Change Leader, Kimberly Reuter has designed, implemented, and optimized best-in-class, highly scalable global logistics and retail operations all over the world. Kimberly’s ability to set strategic vision supported by bomb-proof processes, built on decades of hands-on experience, has elevated her to legendary status. Sought after by her peers and executives for her intellectual capital and keen insights, Kimberly is a thought leader in the retail logistics industry.

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Kristi Porter

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Kristi Porter is VP of Sales and Marketing at Vector Global Logistics, a company that is changing the world through supply chain. In her role, she oversees all marketing efforts and supports the sales team in doing what they do best. In addition to this role, she is the Chief Do-Gooder at Signify, which assists nonprofits and social impact companies through copywriting and marketing strategy consulting. She has almost 20 years of professional experience, and loves every opportunity to help people do more good.

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Sofia Rivas Herrera

Host, Supply Chain Now en Espanol

Sofia Rivas Herrera is a Mexican Industrial Engineer from Tecnologico de Monterrey class 2019. Upon graduation, she earned a scholarship to study MIT’s Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management and graduated as one of the Top 3 performers of her class in 2020. She also has a multicultural background due to her international academic experiences at Singapore Management University and Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg. Sofia self-identifies as a Supply Chain enthusiast & ambassador sharing her passion for the field in her daily life.

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Katherine Hintz

Sales and Marketing Coordinator

Katherine is a marketing professional and MBA candidate who strives to unite her love of people with a passion for positive experiences. Having a diverse background, which includes nonprofit work with digital marketing and start-ups, she serves as a leader who helps people live their most creative lives by cultivating community, order, collaboration, and respect. With equal parts creativity and analytics, she brings a unique skill set which fosters refining, problem solving, and connecting organizations with their true vision. In her free time, you can usually find her looking for her cup of coffee, playing with her puppy Charlie, and dreaming of her next road trip.

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Kim Winter

Host, Supply Chain Now

The founder of Logistics Executive Group, Kim Winter delivers 40 years of executive leadership experience spanning Executive Search & Recruitment, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Corporate Advisory, Motivational Speaking, Trade Facilitation and across the Supply Chain, Logistics, 3PL, E-commerce, Life Science, Cold Chain, FMCG, Retail, Maritime, Defence, Aviation, Resources, and Industrial sectors. Operating from the company’s global offices, he is a regular contributor of thought leadership to industry and media, is a professional Master of Ceremonies, and is frequently invited to chair international events.

He is a Board member of over a dozen companies throughout APAC, India, and the Middle East, a New Zealand citizen, he holds formal resident status in Australia and the UAE, and is the Australia & New Zealand representative for the UAE Government-owned Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), the Middle East’s largest Economic Free Zone.

A triathlete and ex-professional rugby player, Kim is a qualified (IECL Sydney) executive coach and the Founder / Chairman of the successful not for profit humanitarian organization, Oasis Africa (www. oasisafrica.org.au), which has provided freedom from poverty through education to over 8000 mainly orphaned children in East Africa’s slums. Kim holds an MBA and BA from Massey & Victoria Universities (NZ).

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Adrian Purtill

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Adrian Purtill serves as Business Development Manager at Vector Global Logistics, where he consults with importers and exporters in various industries to match their specific shipping requirements with the most effective supply chain solutions. Vector Global Logistics is an asset-free, multi-modal logistics company that provides exceptional sea freight, air freight, truck, rail, general logistic services and consulting for our clients. Our highly trained and professional team is committed to providing creative and effective solutions, always exceeding our customer’s expectations and fostering long-term relationships. With more than 20+ years of experience in both strategy consulting and logistics, Vector Global Logistics is your best choice to proactively minimize costs while having an exceptional service level.

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Kevin Brown

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Kevin Brown is the Director of Business Development for Vector Global Logistics.  He has a dedicated interest in Major Account Management, Enterprise Sales, and Corporate Leadership. He offers 25 years of exceptional experience and superior performance in the sales of Logistics, Supply Chain, and Transportation Management. Kevin is a dynamic, high-impact, sales executive and corporate leader who has consistently exceeded corporate goals. He effectively coordinates multiple resources to solution sell large complex opportunities while focusing on corporate level contacts across the enterprise. His specialties include targeting and securing key accounts by analyzing customer’s current business processes and developing solutions to meet their corporate goals. Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

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Jose Miguel Irarrazaval

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Jose Manuel Irarrazaval es parte del equipo de Vector Global Logistics Chile. José Manuel es un gerente experimentado con experiencia en finanzas corporativas, fusiones y adquisiciones, financiamiento y reestructuración, inversión directa y financiera, tanto en Chile como en el exterior. José Manuel tiene su MBA de la Universidad de Pennsylvania- The Wharton School. Conéctese con Jose Manuel en LinkedIn.

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Nick Roemer

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Nick Roemer has had a very diverse and extensive career within design and sales over the last 15 years stretching from China, Dubai, Germany, Holland, UK, and the USA. In the last 5 years, Nick has developed a hawk's eye for sustainable tech and the human-centric marketing and sales procedures that come with it. With his far-reaching and strong network within the logistics industry, Nick has been able to open new avenues and routes to market within major industries in the USA and the UAE. Nick lives by the ethos, “Give more than you take." His professional mission is to make the logistics industry leaner, cleaner and greener.

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Allison Giddens

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Allison Krache Giddens has been with Win-Tech, a veteran-owned small business and aerospace precision machine shop, for 15 years, recently buying the company from her mentor and Win-Tech’s Founder, Dennis Winslow. She and her business partner, John Hudson now serve as Co-Presidents, leading the 33-year old company through the pandemic.

She holds undergraduate degrees in psychology and criminal justice from the University of Georgia, a Masters in Conflict Management from Kennesaw State University, a Masters in Manufacturing from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Certificate of Finance from the University of Georgia. She also holds certificates in Google Analytics, event planning, and Cybersecurity Risk Management from Harvard online. Allison founded the Georgia Chapter of Women in Manufacturing and currently serves as Treasurer. She serves on the Chattahoochee Technical College Foundation Board as its Secretary, the liveSAFE Resources Board of Directors as Resource Development Co-Chair, and on the Leadership Cobb Alumni Association Board as Membership Chair and is also a member of Cobb Executive Women. She is on the Board for the Cobb Chamber of Commerce’s Northwest Area Councils. Allison runs The Dave Krache Foundation, a non-profit that helps pay sports fees for local kids in need.

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Billy Taylor

Host of Dial P for Procurement

Billy Taylor is a Proven Business Excellence Practitioner and Leadership Guru with over 25 years leading operations for a Fortune 500 company, Goodyear. He is also the CEO of LinkedXL (Excellence), a Business Operating Systems Architecting Firm dedicated to implementing sustainable operating systems that drive sustainable results. Taylor’s achievements in the industry have made him a Next Generational Lean pacesetter with significant contributions.

An American business executive, Taylor has made a name for himself as an innovative and energetic industry professional with an indispensable passion for his craft of operational excellence. His journey started many years ago and has worked with renowned corporations such as The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) leading multi-site operations. With over 3 decades of service leading North America operations, he is experienced in a deeply rooted process driven approach in customer service, process integrity for sustainability.

A disciple of continuous improvement, Taylor’s love for people inspires commitment to helping others achieve their full potential. He is a dynamic speaker and hosts "The Winning Link," a popular podcast centered on business and leadership excellence with the #1 rated Supply Chain Now Network. As a leadership guru, Taylor has earned several invitations to universities, international conferences, global publications, and the U.S. Army to demonstrate how to achieve and sustain effective results through cultural acceptance and employee ownership. Leveraging the wisdom of his business acumen, strong influence as a speaker and podcaster Taylor is set to release "The Winning Link" book under McGraw Hill publishing in 2022. The book is a how-to manual to help readers understand the management of business interactions while teaching them how to Deine, Align, and Execute Winning in Business.

A servant leader, Taylor, was named by The National Diversity Council as one of the Top 100 Diversity Officers in the country in 2021. He features among Oklahoma's Most Admired CEOs and maintains key leadership roles with the Executive Advisory Board for The Shingo Institute "The Nobel Prize of Operations" and The Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME); two world-leading organizations for operational excellence, business development, and cultural learning.  He is also an Independent Director for the M-D Building Products Board, a proud American manufacturer of quality products since 1920.

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Lori Sofian

Marketing Coordinator

Lori is currently completing a degree in marketing with an emphasis in digital marketing at the University of Georgia. When she’s not supporting the marketing efforts at Supply Chain Now, you can find her at music festivals – or working toward her dream goal of a fashion career. Lori is involved in many extracurricular activities and appreciates all the learning experiences UGA has brought her.

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Chantel King

Social Media Manager

My name is Chantel King and I am the Social Media Specialist at Supply Chain Now. My job is to make sure our audience is engaged and educated on the abundant amount of information the supply chain industry has to offer.

Social Media and Communications has been my niche ever since I graduated from college at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. No, I am not a West Coast girl. I was born and raised in New Jersey, but my travel experience goes way beyond the garden state. My true passion is in creating editorial and graphic content that influences others to be great in whatever industry they are in. I’ve done this by working with lifestyle, financial, and editorial companies by providing resources to enhance their businesses.

Another passion of mine is trying new things. Whether it’s food, an activity, or a sport. I would like to say that I am an adventurous Taurus that never shies away from a new quest or challenge.

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Trisha Cordes

Administrative Assistant

Trisha is new to the supply chain industry – but not to podcasting. She’s an experienced podcast manager and virtual assistant who also happens to have 20 years of experience as an elementary school teacher. It’s safe to say, she’s passionate about helping people, and she lives out that passion every day with the Supply Chain Now team, contributing to scheduling and podcast production.

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Clay Phillips

Business Development Manager

Clay is passionate about two things: supply chain and the marketing that goes into it. Recently graduated with a degree in marketing at the University of Georgia, Clay got his start as a journalism major and inaugural member of the Owl’s football team at Kennesaw State University – but quickly saw tremendous opportunity in the Terry College of Business. He’s already putting his education to great use at Supply Chain Now, assisting with everything from sales and brand strategy to media production. Clay has contributed to initiatives such as our leap into video production, the guest blog series, and boosting social media presence, and after nearly two years in Supply Chain Now’s Marketing Department, Clay now heads up partnership and sales initiatives with the help of the rest of the Supply Chain Now sales team.

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Amanda Luton

Vice President, Production

Amanda is a production and marketing veteran and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience across a variety of industries and organizations including Von Maur, Anthropologie, AmericasMart Atlanta, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Amanda currently manages, produces, and develops modern digital content for Supply Chain Now and their clients. Amanda has previously served as the VP of Information Systems and Webmaster on the Board of Directors for APICS Savannah, and founded and managed her own successful digital marketing firm, Magnolia Marketing Group. When she’s not leading the Supply Chain Now production team, you can find Amanda in the kitchen, reading, listening to podcasts, or enjoying time with family.

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Constantine Limberakis

Host

Constantine Limberakis is a thought leader in the area of procurement and supply management. He has over 20 years of international experience, playing strategic roles in a wide spectrum of organizations related to analyst advisory, consulting, product marketing, product development, and market research.Throughout his career, he's been passionate about engaging global business leaders and the broader analyst and technology community with strategic content, speaking engagements, podcasts, research, webinars, and industry articles.Constantine holds a BA in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA in Finance & Marketing / Masters in Public & International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Mary Kate Soliva

Host, Veteran Voices

Mary Kate Soliva is a veteran of the US Army and cofounder of the Guam Human Rights Initiative. She is currently in the Doctor of Criminal Justice program at Saint Leo University. She is passionate about combating human trafficking and has spent the last decade conducting training for military personnel and the local community.

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Kelly Barner

Host of Dial P for Procurement

Kelly is the Owner and Managing Director of Buyers Meeting Point and MyPurchasingCenter. She has been in procurement since 2003, starting as a practitioner and then as the Associate Director of Consulting at Emptoris. She has covered procurement news, events, publications, solutions, trends, and relevant economics at Buyers Meeting Point since 2009. Kelly is also the General Manager at Art of Procurement and Business Survey Chair for the ISM-New York Report on Business. Kelly has her MBA from Babson College as well as an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and she has co-authored three books: ‘Supply Market Intelligence for Procurement Professionals’, ‘Procurement at a Crossroads’, and ‘Finance Unleashed’.

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Enrique Alvarez

Host of Logistics with Purpose and Supply Chain Now en Español

Enrique serves as Managing Director at Vector Global Logistics and believes we all have a personal responsibility to change the world. He is hard working, relationship minded and pro-active. Enrique trusts that the key to logistics is having a good and responsible team that truly partners with the clients and does whatever is necessary to see them succeed. He is a proud sponsor of Vector’s unique results-based work environment and before venturing into logistics he worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). During his time at BCG, he worked in different industries such as Telecommunications, Energy, Industrial Goods, Building Materials, and Private Banking. His main focus was always on the operations, sales, and supply chain processes, with case focus on, logistics, growth strategy, and cost reduction. Prior to joining BCG, Enrique worked for Grupo Vitro, a Mexican glass manufacturer, for five years holding different positions from sales and logistics manager to supply chain project leader in charge of five warehouses in Colombia.

He has an MBA from The Wharton School of Business and a BS, in Mechanical Engineer from the Technologico de Monterrey in Mexico. Enrique’s passions are soccer and the ocean, and he also enjoys traveling, getting to know new people, and spending time with his wife and two kids, Emma and Enrique.

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Kevin L. Jackson

Host of Digital Transformers

Kevin L. Jackson is a globally recognized Thought Leader, Industry Influencer and Founder/Author of the award winning “Cloud Musings” blog.  He has also been recognized as a “Top 5G Influencer” (Onalytica 2019, Radar 2020), a “Top 50 Global Digital Transformation Thought Leader” (Thinkers 360 2019) and provides strategic consulting and integrated social media services to AT&T, Intel, Broadcom, Ericsson and other leading companies. Mr. Jackson’s commercial experience includes Vice President J.P. Morgan Chase, Worldwide Sales Executive for IBM and SAIC (Engility) Director Cloud Solutions. He has served on teams that have supported digital transformation projects for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the US Intelligence Community.  Kevin’s formal education includes a MS Computer Engineering from Naval Postgraduate School; MA National Security & Strategic Studies from Naval War College; and a BS Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. Internationally recognizable firms that have sponsored articles authored by him include CiscoMicrosoft, Citrix and IBM.  Books include “Click to Transform” (Leaders Press, 2020), “Architecting Cloud Computing Solutions” (Packt, 2018), and “Practical Cloud Security: A Cross Industry View” (Taylor & Francis, 2016). He also delivers online training through Tulane UniversityO’Reilly MediaLinkedIn Learning, and Pluralsight.  Mr. Jackson retired from the U.S. Navy in 1994, earning specialties in Space Systems EngineeringCarrier Onboard Delivery Logistics and carrier-based Airborne Early Warning and Control. While active, he also served with the National Reconnaissance Office, Operational Support Office, providing tactical support to Navy and Marine Corps forces worldwide.

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Tyler Ward

Director of Sales

Tyler Ward serves as Supply Chain Now's Director of Sales. Born and raised in Mid-Atlantic, Tyler is a proud graduate of Shippensburg University where he earned his degree in Communications. After college, he made his way to the beautiful state of Oregon, where he now lives with his wife and daughter.

With over a decade of experience in sales, Tyler has a proven track record of exceeding targets and leading high-performing teams. He credits his success to his ability to communicate effectively with customers and team members alike, as well as his strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.

When he's not closing deals, you can find Tyler on the links or cheering on his favorite football and basketball teams. He also enjoys spending time with his family, playing pick-up basketball, and traveling back to Ocean City, Maryland, his favorite place!

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Chris Barnes

Principal, Supply Chain Now
Host of Supply Chain is Boring

Talk about world-class: Chris is one of the few professionals in the world to hold CPIM-F, CLTD-F and CSCP-F designations from ASCM/APICS. He’s also the APICS coach – and our resident Supply Chain Doctor. When he’s not hosting programs with Supply Chain Now, he’s sharing supply chain knowledge on the APICS Coach Youtube channel or serving as a professional education instructor for the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistic Institute’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) program and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Center for Professional Education courses.

Chris earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from Bradley University, an MBA with emphasis in Industrial Psychology from the University of West Florida, and is a Doctoral in Supply Chain Management candidate.

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Greg White

Principal & CMO, Supply Chain Now
Host of Supply Chain Now and TECHquila Sunrise

When rapid-growth technology companies, venture capital and private equity firms are looking for advisory, they call Greg – a founder, board director, advisor and catalyst of disruptive B2B technology and supply chain. An insightful visionary, Greg guides founders, investors and leadership teams in creating breakthroughs to gain market exposure and momentum – increasing overall company esteem and valuation.

Greg is a founder himself, creating Blue Ridge Solutions, a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in cloud-native supply chain applications, and bringing to market Curo, a field service management solution. He has also held leadership roles with Servigistics (PTC) and E3 Corporation (JDA/Blue Yonder). As a principal and host at Supply Chain Now, Greg helps guide the company’s strategic direction, hosts industry leader discussions, community livestreams, and all in addition to executive producing and hosting his original YouTube channel and podcast, TEChquila Sunrise.

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Scott W. Luton

Founder, CEO, & Host

As the founder and CEO of Supply Chain Now, you might say Scott is the voice of supply chain – but he’s too much of a team player to ever claim such a title. One thing’s for sure: he’s a tried and true supply chain expert. With over 15 years of experience in the end-to-end supply chain, Scott’s insights have appeared in major publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and CNN. He has also been named a top industry influencer by Thinkers360, ISCEA and more.

From 2009-2011, Scott was president of APICS Atlanta, and he continues to lead initiatives that support both the local business community and global industry. A United States Air Force Veteran, Scott has also regularly led efforts to give back to his fellow veteran community since his departure from active duty in 2002.

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