FORGING LINKS

SUPPLY CHAIN’S DIVERSE CHALLENGES KEEP SIOBHAN CHINNERY ENGAGED

For Siobhan Chinnery, much of the satisfaction she gets from her time in supply chain has come from the teams she has worked with and the relationships she has built along the way. She has worked at several organizations and stayed in touch with many of her colleagues from those different organizations, which include Petro-Canada and Sanjel. The members of one of those groups that are still in touch with each other called themselves ‘The A-Team.’ To this day, Chinnery looks for opportunities to work with former colleagues whenever possible.

“For me, one of the highlights when I look back is the teams I’ve built – the teams I’ve had that have really come together – and those friendships and relationships,” she says. “I think that would be a highlight for me.”

Chinnery is now vice-president, supply chain, Canada, at Finning, based in Calgary. The company is the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer and sells, rents, and provides parts and service for equipment and engines to customers in var- ious industries such as mining, construction, petroleum, forestry, and a wide range of power systems applications.

While Chinnery is now based in Calgary, she grew up in Saskatoon before moving to Canada’s East Coast. She lived there for about eight years – in both St. John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia where she earned a Bachelor of Commerce at Dalhousie University (she also earned an MBA from the European University in Brussels, Belgium) – before moving to Vancouver, British Columbia. She and her husband got married in 1994 before relocating to Prince George, where Chinnery worked for Canadian Forest Products (Canfor). They stayed there for 10 years before moving to Calgary, where she has lived since.

Like many, Chinnery’s route into supply chain was anything but direct. She took several accounting courses while pursuing her degree at Dalhousie University. When she graduated, the economy was in a recession and there weren’t many jobs available. Yet she discovered that she could work in accounting if she pursued her designation, the Chartered Management Accountant or CMA, in that field.

She was also awarded the Supply Chain Management Professional (SCMP) designation when she was named to the 100 Influential Women in Supply Chain in 2019 by Supply Chain Canada, as part of the honour of being on the list.

“That’s how I started off, was in accounting,” Chinnery says. “And then, frankly, I would quickly get bored, and I’d asked my boss for more work or new challenges or something in accounting. So, she asked me to go on this special project. It was a strategic sourcing project, and that was the late 90s. And so that’s what kind of got me started.”

The project lasted two-and-half years. When it finished, Chinnery decided that she did not want to go back to accounting. She opted to stay in supply chain instead. That first supply chain job was as manager, sourcing and supply, at Canfor.

She enjoyed the position, which provided a varied routine and new challenges. The variety was a welcome change from accounting, which proved routine and repetitive. She continued that position for about 10 years, before Petro-Canada recruited her in 2004 and she moved to Calgary for a position with that company.

While she didn’t lead a team at Petro-Canada, she was responsible for more spend at her new position. Chinnery was quickly promoted into leadership roles. She held several different positions at the company, eventually leading all of the supply chain and international offshore natural gas and corporate services.

Sanjel Corporation, an energy services company, eventually approached her with a job offer. She became vice-president, supply chain, for the organization in 2011. After four-anda-half years there, she took a position at DB Schenker, a logistics company, eventually rising to vice-president, global projects/oil & gas, Canada. After almost three years there, she moved into a consulting role at PwC Canada.

“I was travelling back to Toronto almost every week, and that’s when my husband was ill,” she says of the role. “I wanted to be home. So, I took the role with PwC, and I was able to be at home more, and then I took a leave of absence when he was really ill. And then, when I came back after he passed, it was pretty quiet. There wasn’t a lot of work going on in Calgary.”

Chinnery ended up parting ways with PwC Canada because she didn’t want to spend as much time travelling as the position demanded. She then worked for Superior Propane during the COVID-19 pandemic. She did a brief stint in consulting for a company called Slalom Consulting before finally ending up at Finning in July 2022.

Finning’s business operations consist of three regions – Canada, South America, as well as the UK and Ireland. Chinnery is responsible for Canada, which is the company’s largest business unit. The team she is responsible for is the sales and operations (S&OP) team, which is also known within the industry as the integrated business planning team.

“Our team is accountable for working with sales and understanding the demand signal from our customers for parts and equipment,” Chinnery says. “And then they plan how we’re going to meet that demand. So, we have teams that work specifically with Caterpillar because Finning is a Caterpillar dealer. The majority of our purchases are from Caterpillar direct, and we get all the equipment and parts from Caterpillar.”

Chinnery also leads another team responsible for non-Caterpillar purchasing such as safety supplies, MRO supplies, consulting contracts and so on. Even within that category, that spend can include parts used in service operations. Within that, there are category management and procurement functions.

Another team looks after transportation, warehousing, and customs compliance. Finning has several large, regional distribution centres as well as branches across Western Canada. Each one has a warehouse with parts to support customer demand and service operations.

“We work on our customers’ equipment, so we have parts at the sites to do that,” Chinnery says. “We also sell parts to our customers who do their own service. Selling parts, moving parts, is a huge part of Finning’s business. We look after that, the warehousing and transportation, getting the parts to our distribution centres and to our customers.”

Finally, Chinnery leads a team that rebuilds and remanufactures engines and components, mostly for large mining trucks (and the construction industry) for customers at a large, 900-person facility in Edmonton, Alberta. Overall, there are about 1,700 people within Finning that Chinnery oversees.

“First and foremost is making sure that everybody goes home safe every day, so that’s a big part of my day as well,” she says.

Among the accolades that Chinnery has received during her career, being named among the 100 Influential Women in Supply Chain by Supply Chain Canada stands out, she says. The recognition was especially meaningful since it focused on influence within the profes- sion and how she has given back to the supply chain community.

“I was also very much involved with a group called Women in Supply Chain, and we did a lot of great work in getting women together and talking to them about supply chain as a career,” she says.

Challenging Times

Among the challenges that Chinnery sees supply chain professionals facing recently is the shift towards digital transformation. Before the pandemic, when she worked in consulting, Chinnery says she would speak with clients about the importance of a digital transformation within supply chain. When the pandemic hit, many organizations digitized. Those transformations happened practically overnight, simply because they had to.

“They were suddenly working from home and so it was like ripping the BAND-AID off,” she says. “A lot of organizations were really hesitant about getting more digital, more virtual and that type of thing, but then COVID really escalated, and moved a lot of organizations forward, which I think was needed.”

Those working in the field also face challenges surrounding risk, Chinnery adds. And the longer the supply chain, the greater the hazard. That became even more apparent during the pandemic, as extended supply chains saw their exposure increase.

“Suddenly, how long your supply chain was became really, really evident,” she says. “A lot of organizations really struggled.”

Even now, three years after the pandemic first took off, enormous challenges remain, Chinnery notes. For example, demand outstrips supply in many areas. The further ahead you can plan, and the further ahead you can get customers to commit, the better your overall planning, the more accurate your forecast will be, and the more likely you are to secure supply, even in a tight market.

“Integrated business planning is critical. Being digital is critical,” Chinnery says. “A lot of companies want to go digital, but they don’t have the backbone or the ERP system to support it. You have to start at the basics and get your data and your system in place so that you can be more digital because, frankly, you know your customers want to be able to deal with your company like they deal with an Amazon. They want to be able to order it and have it tomorrow. They want to be able to track the shipment online.”

The need to digitize spills into other areas of the business, including recruitment, Chinnery says. Recent university graduates are used to operating in a digital world. A slow, cumbersome purchase order process may discourage many of them from working for organizations that haven’t yet embraced digitization.

Having worked at Finning for the past year or so, Chinnery says she remains excited to be part of the company. In a way, her work there feels like returning home. It’s a great organization, she notes, and she feels as if it’s a good fit for her. Her future plans involve working for Finning until retirement, perhaps in about a decade. Until then, her focus remains on getting the most from her career, she says.

Outside of work, Chinnery also volunteers with the Calgary chapter of an organization called Dying With Dignity Canada. Her interest in the organization stems from her husband having taken advantage of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program when he was ill, in order to end his suffering.

“I also got involved because navigating the process was really, really challenging,” she says. “And then when you’re in a very, very stressful moment in your life, it should be easier.”

Chinnery has two grown daughters who also both graduated from Dalhousie University –Daimhin, 26, and 22-year-old Hannah. She also has two dogs, both of which are Corgis. One of the two, which is actually a Corgi cross, is a 13-year-old rescue dog from Mexico. The second one, a year-and-a-half-old purebred, is what people now call a ‘COVID dog’, she says.

A Great Career

Like many in the profession, Chinnery is quick to recommend supply chain to anyone interested in going into the field. The job is different each day, which helps to keep one interested and challenged. There’s always something happening, and whether the market goes up or down, supply chain is always busy. That’s one of the reasons that she enjoys the field so much.

To advance your career, Chinnery advises finding a mentor or sponsor to help you get ahead professionally.

“But you have to knock it out of the park to become interesting to someone, so they become your sponsor,” she says. “It’s really going that extra mile and really exceeding expectations. So, you stand out and then you have your sponsor, who will find you and people will help you in your career if you really stand out.”

Many people have in mind a clear, traditional career trajectory in front of them, Chinnery says. Yet, one thing her own career has taught her is that sometimes, you take sidesteps. Along her own path, she has stepped out of supply chain at times, then stepped back in later. Each experience became a tool in her professional tool kit. For those who stay open to opportunity, resilient and able to bounce back from setbacks, it’s possible to keep moving in the right professional direction.

Throughout it all, it’s important to stay aligned with your values, Chinnery stresses. When her children were young, for example, she declined any roles that would see her travel extensively, because she didn’t want to be away from home for long periods.

“I had a supportive spouse who would have totally handled it,” she says. “It was a personal thing. I just didn’t want to, so I probably missed opportunities because my values were saying that I needed to be a mom and I needed to be at home more.”

It was only when her children grew older that she began travelling for work more.

“And that’s just a personal choice. But could I have been way farther ahead in my career if I had been willing to put my values second and my career first? Probably. But I probably wouldn’t have been happy. I think that if you stick with your values, you will always be exactly where you’re supposed to be.” SP