Champions for Change - Women Leaders in Supply Chain Management

Announcer:
Welcome to MIT Supply Chain Frontiers from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. Each episode features center researchers and staff who welcome experts from the field for in-depth conversations about business, education and beyond. On today's episode, Katie Date, who leads the center's women in supply chain initiative speaks with Julie Van de Kamp of US Express and Tricia Brannigan at the Hershey Company about how leaders can be champions for positive change within their organizations. Recorded on International Women's Day, the three share insights and challenges that used to anyone who manages a team. Take it away, Katie.

Katie Date:
Thank you for joining our International Women's Day leadership panel: Supply Chain Champions for Change. With us today, with Julie Van de Kamp and Tricia Brannigan. Tricia Brannigan is the vice president for global procurement for the Hershey Company. In this key leadership role, she is responsible for all aspects of procurement, as well as the responsible sourcing strategies and practices, which support the company's sustainability priorities. Tricia has more than 25 years of experience spanning procurement engineering and R&D at Kraft Foods, Dean Foods, and White Wave. She is the chairperson for Hershey's Children's Miracle Network fundraising, and is the leader of the company's Women in Supply Chain and Technology mentoring and development program. Julie Van de Kamp is the vice president of customer experience at US Express where she manages the team, which she handles all customer facing interactions. In a nutshell, Julie and her team creating experience customers have with the organization, which spans across booking freight, service exceptions, collaboration, and coordination with brokerage and OTR, operations team, and many other daily touch points.

Katie Date:
Again, thank you to everyone who is joining us today. My name is Katie Date. I'm the leader of the Women in Supply Chain Initiative at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. We aim to create knowledge and tools for people interested in creating more gender balance in their organizations. So first, I will go to Tricia. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your career?

Tricia Brannigan:
Absolutely. Thanks, Katie, for the introduction. And a pleasure to be here with Julie and yourself. I started my career after a chemical engineering degree, and I joined Kraft thinking, "Okay. I'm going to do engineering probably for my career." So if you had asked me 20 plus years ago if I would be in a procurement role, I would have definitely had a lot of questions about that. So it's been quite a journey after working in engineering, process and share product development for some time, I really wanted something different, something that provided me greater exposure to a broader base of the business and really gave me broader exposure to the global operations as well.

Tricia Brannigan:
So I landed in procurement. I moved over. I did a capital equipment procurement, which was kind of like a nice fit and maybe an easy segue for me to get into the function, thinking that again, it would be a cross functional assignment. I would do this. I would learn a ton, and then I could bring all those learnings back. That was my intent, and I loved it so much. I just kept finding different roles and different ways to provide high impact within the function. Thrilled to be here at Hershey, have been here now seven years and have recently taken this role leading our procurement organization last summer. So thanks for having me.

Katie Date:
Thank you, Tricia. We're so happy to have you. Julie, if you can tell us a little bit more about yourself and your career?

Julie Van de Kamp:
Thanks. So I actually started out in transportation and in trucking while I was still in college at the University of Wisconsin. I grew up around it and I spent my summers and Christmas breaks interning at a trucking company, doing anything that needed to be done. When I say anything, I mean making delivery appointments. This was as we were transitioning to paperless; so scanning driver logs as their packets came in everyday, and scanning their fuel receipts and scale tickets, and filing paperwork, whatever needed to be done. After that, I swore I would never be in transportation or trucking. I was not into it. After I graduated from the University of Wisconsin, I actually ended up taking the job right out of college at US Express in our pricing group.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Still pretty determined that it would be applicable to any industry, so that I would try that out and then take those skills somewhere else. Had no intention of doing this longterm. Pretty immediately, really fell in love with it, and not just with US Express and with trucking, but with the industry as a whole, with the pace of it, with how I could see how it really affects our economy and our lives. So spent about five years in our pricing group here at US Express, helping to evaluate and update and create some of the new tools that our group used. Then I was really lucky to get the opportunity to go over to our brokerage group and focus on business development. That was a really fun time in my career. It was a relatively new part of the company and it was growing very quickly.

Julie Van de Kamp:
So I was lucky to have the opportunity to really look around and just see what needed to be done, and empowered to be able to jump in and do those things and create new processes and work with our sales team and our operations team to bridge a lot of gaps, that kind of a new quickly growing part of the company needed. Then in October 2019, moved into this role, created this new customer experience group and have been managing it since then. That is a little bit about me.

Katie Date:
Thank you so much. As you both know, we collected questions, and one of the questions that kept coming in was why a career in supply chain? Why would I want to go into supply chain? I'm wondering if either one of you have any thoughts about that.

Tricia Brannigan:
One of the reasons I really entered into procurement and then of course, had exposure to broader supply chain work is just really the breadth and impacts that it has on really, any organization. So if you think about the key processes of buy, make, ship, sell, we're three of the four. The breadth and the complexity, and also the rate of change, I think, has been what's really kept me interested and very curious to stay engaged and involved on many levels. There's technology. It combines the people skills and the influencing and negotiating and the innovation, and there really isn't anything that it doesn't cover. So I think anyone who's considering it will, I think, find a lot of opportunity and breadth within the supply chain function to really grow and develop their skills.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Yeah. I agree with a lot of those things, that it is integral to our economy and our way of life. One of the things I love the most about it is that it's fast paced and we're really in a opportunity right now, particularly either transportation side of it, where it's ripe for innovation and disruption. It's new every day. It's a new challenge, a new problem to solve. It's relatively complicated in that there's so many facets to it, which keeps us all interested and on our toes.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Then I think just the scale of it, that you sort of alluded to as well, Tricia, that it really opens up a lot of opportunity to lead, to affect people's lives and career goals, help your team develop because it is so broad reaching and there's so many different facets of it. You don't necessarily think about how much it affects our everyday lives and all the things that keep us going and everything that you purchase and all of the materials that went to the manufacturing facility to create all the things that you purchased, that all of that is involved in that and it's necessary for all of us to keep going. So when you step back and think of it that way a little bit, it's pretty rewarding.

Katie Date:
So switching gears a little bit, I'm wondering if each of you could tell just a short story about how having an ally or a mentor throughout your career kind of help bolster you to that next level?

Julie Van de Kamp:
I don't necessarily have one specific story, but I do kind of... I'm very lucky that I'm on a team right now where my counterparts, who run sort of the other portions of our customer sales, marketing, pricing group, and I have a really good working relationship and can trust each other and can give each other really candid feedback. I think that that's a really important part of your career, right? It's not all negative feedback. It's not all positive feedback. It's constructive. Sometimes it's like, "Gosh, that was a great point in that meeting," or, "Hey, I see your team's doing this. If you did it this way, would it be better?" And I think it's really important to be able to surround yourself with people who can give you that constructive feedback. It's not always easy to take. But if you truly do want to continue to grow personally and professionally, it's immensely important.

Julie Van de Kamp:
I think it's also important to have allies and learning from the people that you work for and then in the team that works for you as well, if you're lucky enough to be in a leadership position, and that's what you enjoy, that they should be an ally for you as well and they should feel like you are for them. I want feedback from my team personally and professionally, and they expect it from me. I think that that's really an important part of being allies with someone in the workplace is that you can give open candid praise and critical feedback. Then I think it's important to have allies in your career outside of just your actual workplace.

Julie Van de Kamp:
I'm very lucky to have a very supportive husband who's an ally in my personal life and my career. I'm very lucky to have a mother-in-law who I admire hugely and can ask for advice, and my parents, and then other people I've worked with along the way who might not necessarily work still in the exact same industry or within my organization, but who I can still reach out for and get kind of a non-involved opinion when necessary. So I think it's not necessarily important to just have one specific ally or one specific mentor for your entire career, but kind of a network; both within your organization and in your current role, and then within your life outside of work that you can lean on as well.

Tricia Brannigan:
Julie, I would just add to that. And I love the way you were thinking about it in terms of the kind of this whole group of people that help support you throughout your career. Early in my career, I think one of the big leap forward moments that I had was where someone really took a risk on me, put me in a role that I didn't necessarily have 100% of the qualifications to do, but took a chance and really then provided me the support within that role. So it's one thing to take a chance on someone else and then kind of throw them into the mix, but then also, really provided me the support. Gave me tremendous exposure. So this was a leader within our organization. It was a critical time. There was a specific initiative at the time that had really company-wide exposure, and this individual, he would literally bring me to these meetings with our senior executives.

Tricia Brannigan:
I was five years into my career and the job, and I was like, "You sure don't want me to come? I'm going to really stand out in that crowd." But it was probably one of the biggest changing moments for me where I really was able to... There was no pressure on me. I was just able to observe and listen and understand the thinking and how people were looking at the situation and then the recommendations to go forward. So that is a moment for me that really has left an impression and one that I want to make sure that I can also do for other people. I want to just echo what she said and then also, always kind of think about are those small moments that to you might be just an everyday normal part of your role, but could really have a significant impact on someone else if you were to bring them along?

Katie Date:
Great. Thank you. So I'd like to kind of twist that question a little bit. Both of you are in leadership roles. So if there were women in your organization, which I'm sure there are, that are looking up to you and are like, "How do I get Tricia or Julie to be my mentor?" what advice would you give to them? Because I always tell people that it needs to be something that happens naturally.

Tricia Brannigan:
Yeah, totally agree with what you said, that you have to have a natural connection and really that can't be forced. But I would always encourage people to first think of what do you want? What do you want out of the mentor relationship? Is that the best person to help you with that? And maybe that's where you start, is just a really kind of informal conversation or a meet and greet and a connection. It's not so much an ask of, "Hey, will you be my mentor?" But it's an ask of, "These are things that I'm really curious about," or, "I'm trying to figure out what the most effective leader looks like," and then letting that sort of lead to really, a natural dialogue.

Tricia Brannigan:
I think most often, you will see that people are very, very willing to help. So if they're understanding where your needs are and if they feel like they can refer you to someone who might be the best person to do that. So that's what I have found effective, is just starting with what do you want? And then having a conversation with others who might be able to provide you a perspective on how to find that out.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Yeah, I totally agree. If what you're looking for is career advice, or development feedback on what you need to work with to get a certain place, know where it is that you want to go. It doesn't mean that you want a specific role. I think very often when I'm talking to people, they're like, "Well, how do I be the next you?" or, "How do I get to be the next [inaudible 00:13:59] executive?" Or, "I want a VP title. I want a director title." I would never approach it that way personally. I would make sure that you're always approach it in what attributes do you want in a job that are going to be fulfilling and make you happy? What are you working towards as a career goal? Because you don't even know what roles may become available and what is out there.

Julie Van de Kamp:
I was kind of trying to think of it and look at it that way as well. Do you want the opportunity to continue to manage and lead people and grow in that regard? Do you really want something that's especially strategic, or analytical? What part of the roles are fulfilling to you that you want in your future career opportunity versus working towards a specific job or a specific role? And ask for feedback on how to develop those things to get you there. I think that that's the most important thing when you're thinking about career growth and what you want to do term is what attributes of a role do you really want?

Tricia Brannigan:
I love how you brought up too, Julie, the idea of moving forward and sort of the skill sets and competencies more so than the role itself. I have heard from people say, "But I don't know what I want," and I actually hear that maybe more often than you might guess, "I don't know what I want" Okay. So maybe you need to explore what that looks like or what it could be. So in those situations, I really advised people to just sit down. It doesn't have to be this intense discussion where you're sharing your resume and trying to sell somebody on you. It could be a very simple discussion on, what do you think makes people successful in this organization? Or what have you seen others do really well and are there pitfalls to just to me that I should avoid? Maybe that just starts it. Maybe you just start to learn and meet with different leaders all on this quest of learning versus trying to achieve something. So if you are in that place of, "I don't know what I want. I want to figure that out," that might be a place to start.

Katie Date:
That's a great piece of advice. Megan Carr wrote in, and she is asking the two of you, "How do you rebalance personal and professional life components?"

Julie Van de Kamp:
Yeah. I don't know that there's a great answer for this, and I don't know that there really is a true balance if I'm going to be totally transparent. I think it's kind of a juggling act to an extent. And I think that it's a matter of one, hopefully working in a place that's supportive of your life. Our company has really looked at people as people, and I make sure that I really try to do that with my team as well. Obviously, there are certain roles that have to be eight to five, but the fact that we can do that from home now in this world makes a huge difference. Then I would also say that even more than work being supportive, you've got to have the right support beyond that. I'm very fortunate to have a husband who's very supportive and we share a lot of our household and particularly, the responsibilities of our children.

Julie Van de Kamp:
I'm very fortunate. I also work very hard at making sure that we have the right resources set up to help us support having the appropriate childcare for our kids, but you can't be perfect at everything. I might just have to go buy whatever it is to send with my kids to school, and I'm not going to be the mom that made cookies, and that's okay. I think it's a matter of sitting down and deciding what really matters, what has to be done, what has to be done well, and what doesn't really matter? Do I have to be in this meeting today? Or can someone on my team sit in for me who's equally as qualified who can give me a brief summary of it, which would likely be good career opportunity for them too, to sit on a meeting like this, so that I can go to whatever Halloween party that probably will matter to me in six months versus this meeting might not?

Julie Van de Kamp:
So I think it's really a matter of keeping perspective and then deciding what really has to be done and what's important because life is busy and crazy, and work is always going to be busy and crazy, and really prioritizing what's important and giving that some thought versus getting stuck in the whirlwind every day of all of the things that just have to be done.

Tricia Brannigan:
Yeah. I love it. One of the mantras that I have is the, and Julie was really hitting on this, is the, "do, dump, delegate," model. So being very choiceful, "This I need to do. Is it my 80%? Is it my 100%?" You can decide on all those things and when you need to get it done, this is something I've got to do. The dump, I would call it in two buckets. They may be the things that you're just not going to do, you're not going to do right now. It's just not going to happen. The stack of books on my shelf that needs to get cleaned out so I can put this kid's papers, it's just not going to happen. The dump is, in my opinion, less about what you're not doing, but more the permission you're giving yourself to not do it.

Tricia Brannigan:
My daughter came into my office at home the other day. I think it was like one or two o'clock or something. She said, "When are you going to be done?" I was like, "Okay. We have this conversation every day. And today, it's happening earlier. It's like one or two." I said, "It's not going to be for a while. I will tell you that." I talked to her and I said, "Look, I hope that this is actually setting a good example where you can see your mom working and really delivering," that hopefully, I'm setting an example by also setting the boundaries is what I'm trying to say. So sometimes, it's just giving yourself the permission, setting the boundaries, being okay with it, and then following through.

Tricia Brannigan:
And likewise, likewise, if there's two hours I might be able to sneak in the walk with the thought or taking Joe to his basketball game or whatever it may be, I'm not going to feel guilty about it at all, and giving myself the permission to just do it because I don't know when I'm going to get those two hours again. So just make it happen and take advantage of the moment.

Katie Date:
That's great. I'm hearing so many great themes coming out of this. The biggest thing I'm hearing is letting go of that need to be perfect and knowing that no matter what, we're doing the best we can. And like you said, putting great things out into the universe and setting a great example for your employees, setting a great example for your children, I think that's so important, to give everyone a little bit of grace and a little bit of flexibility.

Katie Date:
So moving onto the next topic. So I'm wondering if the two of you can share a story of a time either you've challenged yourself, or you've chose to challenge norms, or chose to challenge someone who has maybe pushed your boundaries a little bit?

Tricia Brannigan:
This is a daily event I think that all of us have, whether we're challenging a work norm, or challenging a project, or our own selves for that matter. So I work very closely with many of our suppliers in our supply base. Those might be materials, suppliers, service providers, the whole gamut. Through the course of the year, Hershey has an amazing inclusive culture and there's always room for improvement, but also being with third parties, I also see many other cultures and many other practices and behaviors. My example is when I was with one of my leaders in the organization, it was the first time I was being introduced to a specific supplier. We had a conversation. There are four of us. They were introducing me to kind of lead of this particular business unit, and the entire conversation, this man never once made eye contact with me and looked directly at the person who was his primary contact on my team. That person happens to be a man, but never even almost acknowledged my presence. The whole thing was so odd.

Tricia Brannigan:
I think these are all opportunities for all of us. So I went to the person on my staff afterward and I said, "Hey, did you notice that behavior by the way, at all?" "No," he didn't notice, didn't notice it at all. He was so wrapped up in the conversation and never even occurred to me. And I said, "No, it wasn't that you needed to necessarily do anything," but here's the moment. I think the moment is recognize I'm fine, I can stand on my own, and I will make sure that this relationship is off on the right foot.

Tricia Brannigan:
"You're a dad, you have daughters, you're a director in this organization and there are many other people in this group who may not have your title or the relationships that you do. So I would just ask, this is such a proud moment for you, I would just ask that you think about that when you're interacting with others." It wasn't a criticism in any way. It was just kind of this like heart to heart that we had afterward. I think finding those opportunities for the learning moments, and I love it when people do that with me as well, is probably the most impactful way we can challenge each other, especially in the spirit of equity and inclusion.

Katie Date:
Yeah. Did you notice any shifts in the next meeting that you were in?

Tricia Brannigan:
I really took it upon myself. So the next meeting, I've been introduced. I saw this dynamic sort of happening. So it's up to me right, then it's on me to really make sure, "Okay. I'm now educated myself on the business. We're beyond the introduction capacity, then I can create my own seat at the table." I think what hopefully has been more impactful with maybe less with the supplier, but more on my team member, to just continuing to sort of recognize that these are all possibilities, whether it's in a meeting with a third party or whether it's a meeting internally. So that, I think, Katie, is where it was most impactful.

Katie Date:
That's great.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Yeah. I love how additionally, you had challenged yourself to make sure that you are prepared and you made your own seat at the table then too. I think that that's an important point also, is honestly challenging the status quo, it really just means looking around and see what needs to be better and asking the right questions. So my current role, I started in October 2019. It was a new department that the organization decided we were going to create. I went out on maternity leave in May of 2019. Within a week of being home from the hospital, my boss at the time called me and said, "Hey, so I know this is crazy timing and I don't want to add stress on your maternity leave, but I also would never want to not consider to talk to you about it," which I found really fortunate that I was in the opportunity.

Julie Van de Kamp:
"How do you feel about coming back and considering this role coming out of maternity leave and the timing and all of that? I wouldn't want to sell your time away from work," and how fortunate that I was that they walked that kind of almost uncomfortable line of still considering me for the role, talking to me about it openly? I think that part of that story, really the important part to me is that I challenged myself then and thought, "Oh my God. Do I really want to do this at this time in my life with all that going on? But I thought vice-versa, if they'd called my husband a week after us having a son, there would be no question. This great job opportunity comes up and he would do it in a heartbeat, and I would support him doing it, and he was very supportive of me doing it as well.

Julie Van de Kamp:
So I think that you can undertake a lot. And I think that either way... And I gave it a lot of thought and I, like I mentioned earlier, have a really good family to bounce ideas off of. Basically, they came up with like, "You're going to work really hard, whether you're starting new department or whether you're in your current role because that's who you are. So no, it's not too much to take on with a brand new baby or coming back from maternity leave." So glad that I did challenge myself and make that decision.

Julie Van de Kamp:
It would have been really easy to just say, "No, there's too much change going on in my life right now. I'll stick with what I'm comfortable with because I want to adjust at home," but so glad that I didn't and that I continued to challenge myself personally and professionally at the same time and challenge kind of what people think you need to maybe be focused on when you first have a new baby, and you can challenge yourself and you don't have to think about what people expect of you at a certain time in your life, or how they expect you to manage your personal and professional life. You need to do what you can challenge yourself to do and feel comfortable with.

Katie Date:
Yeah, I totally agree. As you thought about, "What would my husband do if he was coming back from parental leave?" I think that's a great way to frame it. Actually, that kind of leads into another question that we got. They asked, "What are your suggestions for ladies who are preparing and upgrading to go back to work after a sabbatical?"

Tricia Brannigan:
I think that first and foremost, and we've sort of been heading in this direction is don't apologize. Don't apologize for being away. Don't apologize as if you've missed something. Actually, I would think of it all in terms of what has this done to enhance everything that you're now doing moving forward? Reposition it in your head that it's not a challenge or something you're going to have to struggle with, but it's actually an advantage. Now, having said that with that right mindset going in, I would absolutely be over prepared for anything and everything that could come your way. So that doesn't negate the need to make sure that you're up to speed, has anything changed? Have you networked? Have you looked at what's happening within your space, your field or your industry? Because that's also critically important. Your interviewer or your supervisor or whatever the case may be is going to want to make sure you're committed and you're in and you're engaged, and that's one way to demonstrate that.

Katie Date:
Thank you. So I have two questions that are specifically addressed to each of you. So the first one is for Julie, and they're asking, "So you've worked in a male dominated sector, transportation, for the majority of your career. Can you talk a little bit about how you developed the leadership skills to grow within your career?"

Julie Van de Kamp:
First and foremost, being a female in a male dominated industry has not in any way been a hindrance to me. If anything, I feel like it's been an asset. Part of it is... I guess I've never felt that there's nothing that I can't do as a woman within the industry, and I think that that's really important. But I think that there are some things that I can look back on that I kind of did develop and grow into through my career. Developing leadership skills and growing in your career, I think that you can learn from everyone around you and I think it's really important that you take every opportunity to do that.

Julie Van de Kamp:
I've gotten an opportunity to work for a lot of really amazing people and learn good and bad from each of them, right? As long as you can distinguish which is which and pick up some of the very best traits that each of them have, or some of the very best leadership styles or skills that each of them have that will work for you, then that's really important in developing your leadership ability as well, that you can learn from your colleagues, your counterparts. Get that feedback from your team and the people who work for you as you're learning to be a leader so that you can improve. Then also, really keep your eyes open and learn from the people who you get the opportunity to work for as well.

Katie Date:
That's great advice. Thanks, Julie. Procurement isn't as male dominated, Tricia, but I don't know if you have any thoughts on that?

Tricia Brannigan:
It really depends on the area though, Katie.

Katie Date:
Yeah.

Tricia Brannigan:
I think the function may not be, but then there's specific industries and verticals that are that we work with, especially agriculture, perhaps dairy. While they're still growing segments, so I would say I think part of what all of us try to do is to reach out and ways that we can connect and also bring others along. So that's what I personally try to do, whether it's women at dairy programs, or whether it's other venues and events where we can again, create those connections, create those networks and kind of raise all boats with the tide.

Katie Date:
Building on that, supplier, diversity and inclusion has taken kind of a front of the house stage over the last year. Can you talk a little bit about Hershey's program? Because I know you do a lot to source from diverse suppliers.

Tricia Brannigan:
Yeah, absolutely. We've had tremendous progress over the past four to five years. We've more than doubled our diversity spend. What's even more amazing is that women owned businesses in particular, have a pretty large stair of spend. So that could be because of kind of the types of work that they're in or it could be just that, that seems to be where we're able to create value mutually. But we've got to about a third of our total diversity spend is made up of women owned businesses. We have a long way to go. There's nothing perfect about this, and there still is room for growth. I think one of the things that we have found to be tremendously successful is to just start, and that sounds basic and simple. Actually, that's the beauty of it, is just to start. What gets to be difficult with a company of our size is that you're sending out bids and you're looking at proposals that are for pretty large portions of spend, and not all of the privately owned and diverse suppliers really have the scale to support a large portion of that or a smaller portion of that.

Tricia Brannigan:
So what we have found to work very, very well in building this up is one, just to start somewhere. It could be $500000 with a business out of the $20 million category. It could be a million out of the $50 million, but whatever it is, is to start to have the two of us, the two companies gain experience, really create those lessons learned and then build from there in a successful way. That way, sort of no one gets thrown in over their ski tips and is set up for failure. So I think that's one thing. The second thing is where there may not be opportunity, where we're working with really large public companies because of the type of product it is or the capital intensity nature of the raw material or something like that, we encourage those providers to be sourcing diversely. So maybe we can't necessarily in that specific vertical find a diverse supplier, but we certainly can influence our partners and expect more. This is yet another area where we continue to raise the bar and say, "We've all got to do more."

Katie Date:
That's great. Thank you so much. We did have another question. Any advice that you have for young women in college looking to enter this field? And then also, what would you tell yourself when you were back in the beginning of your career to help you to kind of focus and look forward?

Tricia Brannigan:
I think one of the most important things we can do for other women and for other groups who are underrepresented is be visible. It was important for me to show up today on International Women's Day. I'm thrilled to be a part of the MIT session with Julie, but I think part of it is really being visible. If I were to give myself advice, I think I would say continue to be open. I always took a philosophy of trying not to close doors, whatever that sort of looked like at the time and whatever decision that was. You certainly need to move on, but not shutting a door, such that it was locked forever.

Tricia Brannigan:
So what are the things and what are the areas where I can gain experience, but I'm not necessarily closing something off? And try to do that for as long as possible. One, I think it's a great way to gain experience. Two, you never know what you may find you truly have a passion around until you try it. Then three, gaining that breadth of experience is critical in supply chain. There's so many moving components as we talked about earlier in the complexity, and that's the great part of it. That's the fun, and giving yourself that room and that time to learn and grow and being open to that. So I hope that helps.

Julie Van de Kamp:
So I don't know that I have anything hugely profound to close on. Tricia, thank you for doing this with us. I honestly took notes on a lot of the things that you said. I agree with being visible and I agree with as you have the opportunity to lift others up, I think that's the most important thing we can do for any of our colleagues, but particular for other women who are we're coming out of school and who are looking for careers like this and wanting. The other advice I would give is in addition to the cliche things like work hard, I think be aware of your perception, but don't over question yourself. I think women have a tendency, and Katie, I think you even referred to it a little bit earlier, of shying away from stepping up, from speaking up, from doing a lot of those things and questioning kind of their reaction to everything. I would say that as long as you feel like it is a professionally appropriate reaction, don't over question everything that you're doing.

Julie Van de Kamp:
Other than that, I really think it's just a matter of use data to make your decisions in addition to your instinct. We have it for a reason. Like I mentioned earlier, I think for me more than a hindrance, it's really been an asset to use a lot of my natural abilities in being a woman and the way that I can look at things a little bit differently in a male dominated career and go with that and use it to your advantage versus trying to suppress it so much.

Katie Date:
Thank you so much. And thank you both. I hope that all of you take this beyond International Women's Day and really go out into your organizations. As Tricia mentioned, you'll lift kind of as you rise. So make sure that as you're going out there and kicking butt, that you're making sure that you're bringing somebody along with you and helping to support both the people above you and below you. So with that, thank you so much.

Arthur Brow:
All right, everyone. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this edition of the MIT Supply Chain Frontiers. My name is Arthur Brow, communications officer for the center. I invite you to visit us anytime at ctl.mit.edu, or search for MIT Supply Chain Frontiers on your favorite listening platform. Until next time.