Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

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Leading with Perseverance and Giving Voice Leading with Perseverance and Giving Voice to Supply Chain Community to Supply Chain Community

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

CEO Let’s Talk Supply Chain (LTSC)

The 10 Most Influenal Women in Supply Chain, 2022

Since the start of the pandemic, the supply chain industry has been facing issues such as an onslaught of shortages, disruptions, and delays. But competent leaders in this industry are continuing to navigate challenges in the supply chain industry by using their knowledge and experience. Female leaders in the supply chain industry continue to emerge and make an impact in the industry with good momentum and adopting best practices. By building robust supply chains and reforming the supply chain sector, women leaders in this sector are fueling innovation in this industry. They are creating a brighter path for the success of the supply chain community. It is important for the supply chain community to communicate their message to a larger audience about their services. Through Let’s Talk Supply Chain, Sarah Barnes-Humphrey is building a platform that gives a voice to the supply chain community, sees the visual impact of diversity and inclusion, and finally creates safe spaces for everyone to feel heard.

Sarah has spent the past 20 years in the logistics and supply chain industry learning everything she can. Perseverance led Sarah to become one of the top women leaders in the Supply Chain Industry. She doesn’t believe in giving up. She runs “Let’s Talk Supply Chain (LTSC),” and it is the hottest supply chain podcast on the market. She is obsessed with the supply chain and believes that “Collaboration is the future of business”, and we can all win together.

Introducing Stories of Women in Supply Chain

In its Let’s Talk Supply Chain Women in Supply Chain series, LTSC introduces the female leaders who are dominating the supply chain now and unleashing better, smarter outcomes. LTSC shares the obstacles these woman leaders have conquered, giant leaps of faith, and the beginnings that ultimately brought them where they are today, leading businesses across the global supply chain.

Focusing on the Work that Needs to Be Done

Sarah worked for the family business for 20 years, took courses online while she got hands-on experience in logistics working in operations, sales and then ultimately ended her career there as Director of Sales and Marketing. Being the oldest, she overcame jealousy from employees because she was the “Boss’ daughter”, she had trust issues as everyone she met had an agenda or wanted something from her as the “Boss’ daughter”. The ultimate challenge came from the day her father closed the doors of the business. She felt for all company’s employees and customers. She felt so much loss, including the fact that she wanted to run the company one day, ever since she was 16, and that day was the worst day of her life.

Sarah had already started the podcast and had clients counting on her, so every day thereafter, she just kept everything going. She learned social media, graphics design, website design, and editing and woke up every day by focusing on the work that needed to be done.

Communicating Value Proposition of Supply Chain Brands

LTSC features brands within that sector of the supply chain on the podcast, and now it is lending its platform for brands to have their own shows with a built-in audience. Sarah believes that it is very important for brands in the supply chain sector to tell their story and really communicate their value proposition for those they can help. Supply chain professionals know what is out there, and LTSC brings that to the market.

Being a certified Women-Owned Supply Chain community facilitator, LTSC values diverse perspectives. Being openminded, leaning in to understand, always learning, and trusting each other to want what needs to be done for everyone’s success is how it drives the organization forward and stays innovative.

We use tech whenever and wherever it makes sense, always looking for new ways that we can support the brands in our industry to tell the best story and give the best information to our audience and our listeners.

Being Focused on Diversity, Inclusion, and Collaboration

LTSC’s Non-Profit – The Blended Pledge is working hard to see the visual impact on stages in audiences at industry conferences and in digital content, so it is very focused on Diversity and Inclusion. Through its second podcast, called the Blended Podcast, it brings 5 people from different walks of life together to talk openly and authentically about various DEI topics. LTSC is also focused on Collaboration being the future of business, bringing the players in the industry together to bring more transparency, visibility, and cohesive chain.

Being Part of Change by Building Learning Platform

Sarah states that organizations will be looking at where they want to have risks in their supply chain in the future. They will base their future strategies on competing on supply chains against their competitors, not just product marketing. LTSC is preparing to be part of that change by building the platform for voices to be heard so they all can learn from each other's mistakes, challenges, and successes. Sarah envisions building more, creating more, and being change agents in the industry.

Staying Motivated, Flexible, and Pursuing Goals

Sarah advises budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Supply Chain Industry to buckle up because she says that it is quite the ride. She suggests them to choose something that they really enjoy because she believes that success in this industry doesn’t happen overnight, and they need to overcome doubts, unwanted advice, naysayers etc. She advises them to believe and love what they are doing that will keep them motivated.

Sarah herself has started and stopped many ventures from getting where she is today. She suggests budding entrepreneurs, “Stay motivated, don’t quit, take small steps toward your goal every single day and stay flexible/open minded.”

Shimon Gowda

A Passionate Leader in the Supply Chain Space

For the last few years, the supply chain industry has witnessed women taking up leadership positions and thriving in their roles. Women have steadily advanced within the logistics and supply chain sector with their passion, talent, and knowledge. Today, many women are playing a significant role in shaping the future of the industry.

One such woman is Shimon Gowda, Manager, Supply Chain Design at Chainalytics and the Founder of Supply Chain Unified, a networking platform for like-minded people and peers who are in the first decade of their career and are exploring what their true ‘mojo’ is.

Let us unveil her journey as a business leader.

An Invaluable Learning Journey

As Shimon looks back and ponders her journey up until now, she sees and realizes how every experience has been invaluable learning and steppingstone. The current situation is also a learning experience and a window of opportunity of what she hopes to achieve, contribute, and give back to society and continue inspiring the way she has been inspired.

She expresses, “A career in supply chain was not by accident for me. As it is rightly said, family is the first school of every individual. Many of our career aspirations are strongly influenced by the envi-ronment in which we are brought up. My father, a doctor and a son of a farmer balanced his pro-fession well and took care of our agricultural land perfectly. As a kid, I would keenly observe the processes involved in running our estate. My initial brush with Supply Chain Process was when I saw how the milk from the cows was stored and diligently transported to the dairy for pasteuriza-tion, where it undergoes various processes before it is sent out to stores for sale. I was always inspired and awed by this mechanical yet very efficient chain of supply. This inspired me to develop a penchant towards Supply chain and the various processes governing them.”

Having a bachelor's and a master's degree specialized in Supply chain exposed Shimon to the essentials of supply chain almost 9 years ago. She has come to realize that optimization of the supply chain is a cyclic process. The principle of Lean Six Sigma that states, "there is always scope for improvement and potential to reduce costs", fuels Shimon’s eternal passion in this field.

Besides, Shimon’s educational background and professional exposure have taught her to have a keen eye for optimization of process, labour, infrastructure, and distribution network including all nodes of supply and demand to increase the three "R's": Revenue, ROI and Relationship building.

Adversities Along

Like numerous other immigrants who leave behind their hometown and move to a completely different land to see a better future for themselves, Shimon is yet another aspirant who traveled to the United States; first time abroad to pursue her higher education. This was her very first challenge.

Shimon met wonderful new people from different cultures, saw the world from a different perspective, and became more appreciative and grateful for her own culture and

I hope to continue learning and constantly thrive towards making a “ positive impact.“

upbringing while respecting others and learning every day. She asserts, “Life is not easy being an immigrant on a visa and an aspirant who was particular in having a career of her choice. When you are on a visa, your time and clock is always ticking and there is a constant urge to accept any opportunity that comes your way to stay afloat. I think that was one of the major challenges to me. The zeal and thirst to fight and wait for a career opportunity that you are passionate about. I cannot underplay the impact of a perfect combination of hard work and luck, that has bought me down the path.”

The second challenge for her was being a woman in a man’s world! She puts. “No matter how progressive the times are, I cannot emphasize the number of times I have been the only woman on the table. Having and choosing a career in supply chain also more often means you are inside a warehouse, factory and amongst trucks observing and auditing to perform root cause analysis of issues. It is not always a very glamourous profession. I have been fortunate enough to have worked with wonderful set of colleagues and cultures where gender equality is of the utmost importance and have felt indifferent despite being the only female in the room.”

Thirdly, one of the greatest adversity or challenge Shimon most recently faced was when she had to make a very tough decision to leave the United States, as she did not get ‘lucky’ in the lottery-based work visa. But she believes that borders cannot stop you if one really wants to make an impact. She notes, “I feel more confident now because most companies are now global and the physical presence or location of a person cannot stop you from solving a problem, work in collaboration across na-tions and truly make an impact on what you are passionate about.”

Shimon owes her current success and position to all the mentorship and guidance from some amazing people she has met. She says, “The essence of being in consulting is, every project feels like a new learning phase. There are numerous business nuances that you learn and are constantly awed by.”

Imparting Wisdom

Talking about the next big change in the supply chain industry, Shimon believes that there should be the acceptance and adaptation of more companies and supply chain professionals to keep a broader mind and attitude towards learning, accepting, and implementing AI/ML technology and algorithms. She marks, “This is to simplify and automate monotonous jobs and not to take away any jobs. Human intervention will still be required in our industry at large. But by automating several tasks, we can now focus on innovation, empowering mental well-be-ing of workforce and all value to our everyday task without having to feel mechanical or redundant in our tasks.”

Encouraging Companies to Leverage Data

We asked Shimon if given a chance, what change she would like to bring to the supply chain industry, to which she said, “I would encourage more small and mid-sized companies to educate themselves to understand how using data and seeking help from supply chain professionals can truly add to the bottom line and optimize their process. Secondly, increase awareness about the advantages of collaboration, not just within the organization but with all your partners across the organization involving suppliers, freight partners, 3PL and warehouse partners, retailers as well as customers.”