Jul 13, 2026 · 12 min · 8 segments
Supply chain is no longer a hidden career path. It is where strategy, technology, operations, consumer behavior, product management, data analytics, and resilience meet. In this episode of the Supply…
Sherry HinishHost
Wonderful, and you know, one thing that's interesting is even in how you've described your origin story, you mentioned a lot of different areas, and so when people say supply chain, it could actually mean 20 things.

And so why do you think that actually focusing on supply chain can be a real unlock and open a lot of different career opportunities for women and then other diverse voices in our domain?
I think that if you're part of a company that delivers a product or a service, in today's world you're part of the supply chain.
It may not have felt like that in the past, but definitely after 2020 and COVID, we saw how impactful and how important the supply chain is in every organization.
Early on in my career, I was given the advice that you really have to pick a specialty area to be your expertise and that they hadn't seen it done any other way, and I really struggled with that advice because I wanted to be successful, but I like to learn new things.
And supply chain was the perfect starting point for my career, being in traditional transportation operations, because it is such a connector field.
If you wanna learn new things, you wanna try out different areas of the business and gain experience, supply chain is the connector through all the fields, so it's a great way to set yourself up for a diverse career with tons of opportunity.

There's also a, a new thread emerging around, um, how you pair supply chain with other domains of expertise.

Well, the thesis that came out of that discussion was every job is a sustainability job.

Every job is a technology job, and I think you see those elements also appearing in some of the more traditional supply chain roles.

And so it's really interesting how picking something as broad as supply chain, you can actually have the opportunity to zig and zag, whether it's data and analytics and it's more technical concepts, AI, exponential tech, or on the other side you can get into very sector specific, like retail.

Supply chain and, you know, energy supply chains, they're very different, but it's still supply chain, so super, super exciting time for anyone in this space right now.

Wonderful, and you know, one thing that's interesting is even in how you've described your origin story, you mentioned a lot of different areas, and so when people say supply chain, it could actually mean 20 things.

And so why do you think that actually focusing on supply chain can be a real unlock and open a lot of different career opportunities for women and then other diverse voices in our domain?
I think that if you're part of a company that delivers a product or a service, in today's world you're part of the supply chain.
It may not have felt like that in the past, but definitely after 2020 and COVID, we saw how impactful and how important the supply chain is in every organization.
Early on in my career, I was given the advice that you really have to pick a specialty area to be your expertise and that they hadn't seen it done any other way, and I really struggled with that advice because I wanted to be successful, but I like to learn new things.
And supply chain was the perfect starting point for my career, being in traditional transportation operations, because it is such a connector field.
If you wanna learn new things, you wanna try out different areas of the business and gain experience, supply chain is the connector through all the fields, so it's a great way to set yourself up for a diverse career with tons of opportunity.

There's also a, a new thread emerging around, um, how you pair supply chain with other domains of expertise.

Well, the thesis that came out of that discussion was every job is a sustainability job.

Every job is a technology job, and I think you see those elements also appearing in some of the more traditional supply chain roles.

And so it's really interesting how picking something as broad as supply chain, you can actually have the opportunity to zig and zag, whether it's data and analytics and it's more technical concepts, AI, exponential tech, or on the other side you can get into very sector specific, like retail.

Supply chain and, you know, energy supply chains, they're very different, but it's still supply chain, so super, super exciting time for anyone in this space right now.
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