60 Seconds with Nancy Nix, AWESOME

Title: Executive director emeritus, AWESOME (Achieving Women’s Excellence in Supply Chain Operations, Management & Education) 

Location: Des Plaines, Ill.

Experience: 35 years in supply chain, including 17 years in industry and 18 years in academia. She has worked with AWESOME for four
years, first as executive director, now as executive director emeritus.

Modern: How did you get started in supply chain management?

Nix: I started as a first line supervisor in manufacturing when there was no such thing as supply chain management.

Along the way, I moved into an organization that managed our contracted distribution, and from there, I spent time in customer service, procurement, contracted manufacturing and logistics planning—almost every facet of supply chain. After that, I began my academic career.

Modern: Was it unique to be a woman in the field back then?

Nix: Like most women from my era, I was accustomed to being the only woman in the room. Back then, we didn’t think about connecting with other women because there were none.

Modern: Did that create challenges?

Nix: Well, yes. I was fortunate to work with good colleagues along the way, but I can tell you I learned early on that if I said something to my troops and one of my male colleagues said the same thing, the reaction was different. It was difficult to break through.

Modern: What led to your interest in women in supply chain?

Nix: When we were starting a supply chain program at Texas Christian University, we wanted a good mix of students, and I did a lot of recruiting of women. They didn’t see themselves in a supply chain career.

I’d tell them about the benefits of the field—you get to see a big picture perspective across the company and outside the four walls. International business and global supply chain can open a whole new world. There are so many opportunities, it’s always innovating and it puts you where the action is.

Modern: How did AWESOME come about?

Nix: In 2012, Ann Drake, who was the CEO of DSC Logistics, became the first woman honored with the Distinguished Service Award at CSCMP. Standing on stage, she said something about how the field had changed for women and realized she was speaking to a room made up predominantly of men.

So in the spring of 2013, she launched AWESOME. Ann and a few of her colleagues invited all the senior women we knew to the first AWESOME Symposium. We ended up with maybe 100. The energy from that first event came by virtue of the fact that most of us had no way of connecting with other women in the field.

The organization developed from there. The good news is there are more women now. The bad news is there are still not enough in our industry.

Modern: What is the state of women in logistics today?

Nix: Based on research we did with Gartner, women are still only about 37% of the total industry workforce. We asked how to get more women into supply chain roles, and the dominant thing heard was that we needed to market the impact and value of these careers.

In our research, we have seen some movement at the topmost levels, but none at VP and director levels. I believe as we get more women in senior level positions, there will be a trickle down effect that results in a more diverse industry, but we haven’t seen it yet.

Modern: Why does it matter?

Nix: It matters for several reasons. There’s all kinds of research that says a diverse team is more innovative and gets better results than a group think team. Secondly, if you have women at senior levels, you can better recruit and retain them at all levels.

If a young woman comes in and doesn’t see anyone like her, she’s likely to leave. Finally, the third leg of the stool, we need talent in the supply chain and 50% of the population are women.

Modern: How does a reader get involved with AWESOME?

Nix: The core of AWESOME is that we’re a community of senior women leaders in supply chain. If we can engage senior leaders, we can leverage the strength of that group to make a broader difference. So, first visit the website, awesomeleaders.org, where you can see the criteria for membership and how to connect.

If you don’t meet the criteria, you can still sign up for our weekly alert. And, we’re active at supply chain events where we are able to interact more broadly, so look for us there.