Millennial Managers: How Today’s 30-somethings are Re-energizing the Supply Chain Profession

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the July-August 2016 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

July-August 2016

What’s the difference between us and our competitors? Our people!” I can’t think of an organization that doesn’t publicly state that its people are its most important asset. Yet, anyone who has been in the workforce for any length of time knows that when the rubber hits the road—or something else hits the fan—people are usually the first casualty of cost cutting. It’s far easier to free up your talent for “other opportunities” than it is to close a plant or sell a fleet of trucks.

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What’s with the Millennials?

That peevish question is often behind the headlines deploring America’s shortage of skilled labor: The implication is that Millennials—the 20- and 30-somethings who should be easing employers’ help-wanted headaches—have a different attitude toward work than did their elders.

While they are regularly characterized as bright, collaborative, creative and digitally savvy, Millennials are also described as entitled, mercurial and self-centered individuals. Both perceptions are generalizations at best, and neither should inform practical hiring plans or retention programs.

To get a first-hand look at how Millennials in our profession think and act—and to give today’s supply chain leaders a feel for their eventual successors—Supply Chain Management Review interviewed four up and coming 30-something managers from varied backgrounds and supply chain specializations.

What did we find? Yes, some have indeed job-hopped; yet others have been with one employer all of their working lives. They are digitally savvy, but they are also business savvy and highly engaged. They are ambitious, but realistic. Perhaps most notably for the health of the profession, they exhibit strong streaks of outreach and collaboration and a commitment to supply chain management.

Meredith Marsico: Paying it forward
Not yet 32, Meredith Marsico is paying it forward for the next generation of supply chain leaders. In her spare time, she co-chairs a breakfast speakers program that often attracts 100 students at the Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned her MBA. “It’s great to see students get excited about supply chain topics,” she says.

Of course, Marsico is not that far removed from those students, having launched her career with a management consulting firm some nine years ago. Marsico says the job, which required a great deal of interaction with customers, prepared her for her current position as director of solution design at DHL Supply Chain, where she is part of a 40-strong solutions design team responsible for everything from the design and implementation of a solution to the ongoing operation of the resulting network, if the customer requires such outsourcing. “My overarching role is to provide a solution that addresses a customer’s pain points, whether it involves distribution, transportation or reverse logistics,” she says.

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