 All right. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Sugathri Kalluru, Manager Emerging Technologies at Digital Supply Chain Institute. I'm thrilled to welcome you all to this session. For those of you who are new to DSCI and the Women Leading Digital Supply Chain Transformations Initiative, this is all about advancing and transforming future of women leadership and supply chains. And through events like this, we aim to bring forward women leaders to share the success stories and experiences. For this session, we have Julie Hamilton, who is the Global Chief Commercial Officer at Diageo. Diageo is a British multinational beverage alcohol company with its headquarters in London, England. It operates in more than 180 countries and 140 sites. Julie, it's a pleasure to have you and thank you very much for joining us. It's great to be here. Really looking forward to the session and thanks so much for inviting me and having me and look forward to hopefully a good interactive session where it's not just me talking in the middle. It will truly be a fireside chat. Awesome. Quick notes on housekeeping. Duration of the session is 30 minutes. Thank you very much for all of you who sent your questions beforehand. We will have the chat activated. As Julie mentioned, we want to make this chat interactive. So please comment on anything you find interesting and please feel free to type your questions in as well and we will try to fit them in. All right. Let's get started. Julie, you've been a champion of women in business and a prominent leader in the global drinks industry. Can you give us a brief summary of your 20 plus years of career path and your current role at Diageo? Great. Happy to. So I am currently the Global Chief Commercial Officer at Diageo. In that role, I have responsibility for the corporate function of global sales and commercial that encompasses everything from really what we call our growth initiatives, which is all about revenue growth management to how we execute, how we work with customers, and how we innovate to create a commercial advantage in the market. We have about 6,000 associates across all of our markets that are part of our sales function. So it is a very interconnected group, but very diverse and geographically spread pretty wide. Prior to joining Diageo, I joined about 18 months ago. So I got about eight months pre-pandemic, which was a great opportunity. I'm really glad now that I spent a lot of that time traveling and getting out to markets because who knew it would actually shut down for the last year. But it's been a really great experience. We have launched a five-year transformation strategy. Our overall purpose and vision for the company is to be the best performing, most respected CPG company. And so we recognize that we cannot be that unless we have a commercial advantage and we must be excellent in all areas of commercials. So I've really been focused on driving that transformation across our markets. Before being at Diageo, I spent 23 years at Coca-Cola. Most recently at Coca-Cola, I was the global chief customer and commercial leadership officer. A very similar role to what I'm doing at Diageo, but probably a little bit more focused on customers because of Coca-Cola's broad portfolio with quick serve restaurants, etc. And grew up really in the Coca-Cola system in sales, in marketing, in customer management, led our global Walmart business and really had the opportunity to travel and visit more than 100 different countries. And that was also a great experience, but I was really intrigued by Diageo. It's a great company, a great brand portfolio, some of which you see behind me. And the challenge of really driving that transformation did spend a little bit of time on the ad agency side and at Anheuser-Busch before joining Coca-Cola. So I like to think that I have a really wide range of beverage experience. So everything from in-house spirits to beer and sparkling non-carbonated drinks. So I've got that all covered. It's amazing. What an amazing career. Thank you for sharing with me. So the Distance Supply Chain Institute we're working for is all about emphasizing and researching the importance of supply chains to a successful business and how supply chains can lead the transformation of business models, especially in today's world. Can you offer a few of your impressions of supply chains from your career, both good and bad, and that is, where do they make a positive difference and where do you think they can hold an organization or a company or a division back? Great. What I would say is, for me in particular, one of the key things we're finding is that we have to break down the silos and that working and being successful today requires much more of the ability to work cross-functionally. So even if you asked 18 months ago when I first started in this role, how much of an interaction I had with supply chain, I'd say, well, I know my point people and I understand how it fits in and I understand where I need to do the strategic work about our wrap to market and our wrap to consumer. But the nitty-gritty of supply chain I didn't spend a lot of time on. And particularly with the pandemic, it's really forced us to collapse those barriers between the two and be much more integrated. And I think that those actions that we've taken to get much closer, to have shared objectives, shared visibility, both good and bad because let's face it, sometimes in supply chain you want to put the positive on it, it's coming, the product's going to get there. But we've really worked on having much better transparency, much better linkage. So really taking an end-to-end approach that is regardless of what function you're in, it's recognized to be seamless. So I think you're going to see more and more of that. So I know we'll probably get into a little bit about the digitization of the supply chain and the work that we're doing there. But I think that it has all started with the fact that no longer can supply chain be a standalone kind of siloed function. It has to interact not only with commercial, but we're getting much, supply chain is working much closer with marketing on how will we supply product, what are the right products, what are the right supply lines. And then also to our sustainability and our sustainability goals and it's really, really critical. So you really see supply chain becoming not a standalone entity, which in our case, since we distill a lot of products and they age and we have huge production in that side and to be much more integrated into the day-to-day of the business. I'm glad you mentioned cross-function and collaboration and shared objectives, because all through our works at ESEI, one thing especially we have been observing is when we launch, whether any product, project related to digital supply chains, these are the key elements for the success of the project. It doesn't matter whether which community you are in, the shared objective is the key driving factor which enables you to experiment in which types of supply chains. And looking forward to hear more of your stories at the IGF from that end. All right. So let's talk a little bit about the topic of this are women in supply chains. Julie, in fact, you mentioned that you've traveled to 100 countries and that's amazing. I personally love travel and I was jealous for a moment over there. But the supply chains have historically been a position filled mostly by men. Do you believe that is still the case or have you seen a change from your experience traveling to different countries? So what advice do you have for organizations to address this gap and promote women leadership and supply chains? Yeah. So I would say as I think, first of all, we're seeing really great progress and I'll share a couple of anecdotes about that. But I think supply chains have moved from being much more production focused and shipment focused to being much more strategic and an integral piece of the business. And that lends itself to people with more diverse skills and it requires, I think, a broad range of expertise. And that, I believe, is helping recruit women into supply chain because it doesn't feel very production-centric or shipment-centric. There's much more science and technology and collaboration and customer focus that goes into it. And I think that that's really, you know, and the cross-functional connections are really helping broaden the appeal of the traditional supply chain career to people. Now, my couple of anecdotes very interestingly at Diageo, we've, my primary context that I work with in supply chain and I do have a supply chain person in my team, but on the real supply chain function side are both women. And it's kind of unique to sit in a supply chain meeting and have more than half of the room be female. And I think Diageo's made a purposeful choice to try to recruit both gender and just diversity in general. And finding women who can bring in those skillsets and then really assigning them the task of bringing along the next generation. So beneath them, they're actively recruiting, trying to be very engaged in the industry from a supply chain standpoint. And we're really seeing success in that because I think a lot of women are feeling comfortable saying, I don't need to go do a stint in supply chain. I can build my career in supply chain. There's enough here. There's enough growth opportunities. There's enough innovation in supply chain that I can really learn and grow. My second anecdote is that and I, some people here may know the organization and if not, I encourage you to particularly if you're in Europe, but there is the lead organization and it's leading executives in advancing diversity and it's really made up of CPG and retail organizations. So your Carrefour, your Migros, Turk, Unilever, Coca-Cola, other companies. And several years ago, they started a supply chain, kind of support group almost for women in supply chain. And literally when that started, it was about four or five people. And they would get together and connect to try to help each other. And that has now grown to 30 or 40. And it's really having an impact. And so I like to use that as a proof point that there's momentum here and that more women are choosing to make supply chain a career and a great opportunity for them to learn and grow. And I think the more and more integrated it becomes to the business, the more varied and diverse skillsets that it requires, the better it will be to just bring in more people with more backgrounds. Both if it's women, men, you know, just bring diversity into it. And you're really seeing some great things happen from that. Awesome. That's very encouraging to hear. Let's talk a little bit about the pandemic. So as a chief executive responsible for the commercial strategies, can you share some of the major challenges you've faced during the pandemic, both personally and your company? How was the agio impacted? And how were your distributors and stakeholders and supply chain impacted? Definitely. Well, like everyone else, we were impacted. And I'd say, you know, with the agio, it's been very varied across our system. So you have markets like the US where the business on the retail off premise side just really took off exponentially. You have other markets, whether that's India or South Africa, Kenya, that were completely shut to any spirits or alcohol sales. We have markets that are beer led that are heavily on on premise oriented from a channel mix. And those were really impacted. So we had some markets, Australia, US just booming. And then other markets where we were prohibited from selling anything. So that was a very interesting thing to work through really required a market by market approach. And our supply chain team worked really closely to move inventory. So the US was out of stock and India had too much and some of it's not the same products. They really worked to try to find all those opportunities of where could we shift things from, you know, one market to another? How could we really, you know, leverage it as best as possible. So that was one area. And then I'd say we early on identified that not only in the short term, but in the longer term, this was going to have an impact on us in three areas. The first was really how we work. So this was all about a quick shift to, you know, not making physical sales calls, but making virtual sales calls. Having the teams that used to sit and look at where's inventory, what's our forecasting? What is our supply orders? Had to shift that to being much more dynamic because one day something was closed and the next day it was open and then it was closed again and had to really change the routines that we did there. We had to change how we sell. So we had to get much more where we could be flexible. It was no longer a set route of customers on a day, you know, shifting it to virtual sales calls, leveraging technology to allow our customers to order 24 seven through, you know, an e-commerce type site. And then the last area that we know is really changing. And this is to your question is all around our route to market. So we know that there will be, you know, we've got a lot of markets where we work with multiple wholesalers and distributors as our primary path to our customers. And we're seeing, you know, huge impact there, seeing channel shift with on-trade closing. I've seen people struggle to stay in business and some of the big getting bigger and the small getting smaller. Also local and smaller providers in some cases doing very well. So that real dynamic shift in the supply chain and our route to market. And we've stepped back and said, let's take a couple year horizon on this and recognize that this actually gives us a unique moment in time to say, are we fit for purpose for the future? You know, we're a company that might be only around as an entity, you know, 20 plus years, but we've got brands that Johnny Walker just was 200 years old. So we've got a lot of legacy supply chain out there. A lot of legacy how we go to market. And we've really said, let's not waste this crisis and look at it to say, how do we leap frog and really set up a fit for purpose supply chain and a route to consumer that may look very different from today. And we're doing that work now in many of our markets, which is exciting. And that's where really, you know, putting supply chain becomes much more front and center than it used to be. Awesome. I just want to build off on a couple of things you said. So let's take a little bit into how these challenges you mentioned, whether it could be related to work, you know, the way you're changing the selling channels. How did these challenges shape the agio strategies? What do you see changing about the agio supply chain strategies that has been accelerated or altered as a result of the pandemic? What would look different going forward? And do you see increasing investments related to digital transformations or, you know, data analytics or emerging technologies in general? Yeah, definitely. So we did a presentation to our board really focused on those kind of three trends that I mentioned. And well, what I'd say is that while we had plans to do these things, the current situation, the pandemic has really accelerated the need to and given the catalyst to really prove out that we've got to do it now. And we don't have the luxury of doing this over the next three to five years, we've got to do it now. So we've embarked on a huge digitization of our supply chain. You know, we had a very, I wouldn't say antiquated, but very, because it worked well, but it would have been very manual supply chain. You know, in certain cases, we would air freight and ship overnight product to places to cover it. We didn't have full visibility through any kind of tool where we could each look and see where inventory was throughout our system. Where was it moving, you know, with all of our whiskeys, scotch whiskeys being made in Scotland, couldn't see when they were, they were, when they were arriving and we didn't have one picture of the truth. So in a very short time, we've really reworked that rolling out a great tool in the markets that it's gone into. We can already see the impact, but it just gives us that that visibility of the inventory real time. It lets everybody see the same version of the truth. So if you're in sales and you're waiting to have to have a discussion with your customers about where your product is and your inventory, you're seeing the same thing as the supply chain who sent it out is and who's ordering as well as our commercial finance team so that they know where those investments and costs are. So big investment there. We've also made a large investment in the how we sell piece. So really digitizing our sales force. We had done a lot with sales force automation already, but this has really driven the need to do it quicker, faster, get more markets on board because we see markets where we head rolled this out were much easier to pivot and adapt to the new environment. And we're seeing a dramatic difference in performance in general between those markets, both in efficiencies and effectiveness and growth. So we're continuing that investment. So I'd say it's really accelerated what we're doing versus changed. So we were pleased that we felt we had the right strategies in place. We were just way too slow. So this is really said, we've got to do this quickly. And then on the things that didn't require investment is really changing a lot of the processes. So from a supply chain standpoint, supply chain now has seats at the table with our customer discussions. They have, you know, in the US, where we have control states, which means, you know, the government basically is your customer. We actually have supply chains sitting in the meeting so that the salesperson supply chain and the customer can understand where inventory is what's coming in. You know, are we going to be short on Don Julio Tequila because there's such demand and it'll be showing up in two days instead of a salesperson just saying I have no idea. So really changing those processes has been very, very helpful and not cost any money. That's just been a change in how we do things. Awesome. I'm just curious. So are you considering as the Agio strategy pursuing any supply-based ships or is it, are you okay with the current way it is set up? On what? I missed the part. Supply-based ships? We are taking a look at all aspects and knowing that we need to really, I'd say modernize and move from being what was an efficient and effective supply chain that worked adequately to being a very modern supply chain. We recognize that it's no longer going to be as simple as you go to a liquor store or grocery store or a bar, that there's going to be all these other digital channels and intermediaries and whole sorts of different brands. So we're really trying to start with what does it look like in three years, five years, 10 years out and then make those decisions backwards. So we're testing a lot of different things with the whole plan of we've got to just continue to drive the digitization and the things we've done so far we're really seeing and that's been primarily right now that's really out in the market fully rolled out is that the transparency of the inventory using some really great digital tools. Awesome. Great to hear that Jim. So one of the elements you mentioned is about how the working models have shifted. And I've read about that you open a new U.S. headquarters in New York as just and to make it. So how did you now get the overnight work from home change? Yes. Yeah. So we built a beautiful office. I'm very, I'm very excited to try to get back into it. Three World Trade Center right above the monument in the memorial and moved from a long time office in in Norwalk Connecticut. So everybody got a couple weeks of being there was really great for connections and morale and energy. And then overnight that flipped off as it did in our London office and our other major hub offices. And Diaggio being a very social organization that connection and collaboration was very, very important. So we really outside of some of the policies of working from home, we've really embarked on a how to make people connected. How do you leverage the tools? One of the things we did immediately was really try to train people on how to use a lot of the tools. So imagine you're a salesperson and then suddenly, you know, everything you do changed and you've been doing it that way for 15 years. We really quickly and this was led by some of the team members on my group rolled out, you know, how to work from home, how to do an effective verbal call, how to do a non physical sales calls, what what's effective on that, what's different about it, what's the same and and really got a lot of that training built resources out to people. And I think, you know, we saw and we learned also from China. So early on, we had our China team get on a zoom, we had over 700 and something people that got on it just to hear their experiences and what they'd learned. So we were able to really leverage the globalness of our system to learn from each other. And then we continued that cadence. So we literally on three days, three, four days a week, we do a very quick Yammer post. So almost like a tweet that goes out with the best practice and a learning from our markets. And we started off, it was very COVID focused how to work from home, what are people doing, how are we managing through closures and opening in the dynamic environment. And now it's really gotten into how are people, you know, growing, how are people, what are they learning, how's work happening. And I think everybody's pretty, pretty used to now seamlessly working from home and pretty surprised that it works as well as it does. Awesome. And, you know, just a continuation to that, one of the effects of the pandemic, as we all are still getting adjusted to work from home is people can be isolated and pretty. And the agile being such a strong social organization. How do you keep your teams motivated and productive? And how do you keep that social elements still alive? Yeah, so we are a very social organization and a couple of things. Like anybody, we've been doing some Zoom happy hours. And we've really been leveraging some of our assets, whether in themed type interactions. So if we have brand ambassadors, so whether that's David Beckham or Ryan Reynolds, whose aviation gin and David Beckham represents our Hague Club, getting them on using them to engage employees. We've used some of our bartender ambassadors to actually teach people how to make cocktails. We'll have a theme each month around what that looks like. And so there's always something going on that's, I'd say, big and broad and then inside people's own teams really, really leveraging what that looks like. For our holiday party for my group, we actually played a version of Family Feud, which if you ever know, it's the one with the big strikes and you try to get it, a holiday version of that. And just trying to find it, we had costume contests and we do different themed things for our meetings to just try to keep people engaged. We also recognize that it's very stressful monotonous on people and have known that everybody's got to have the flexibility to do what works for them. So we've really instituted flex hours. My groups Global were, if you look at my direct team, not the 6,000, but the smaller corporate team, based in 15 different countries. So we're just very flexible about finding the time to work that works best for everyone. So we let people figure that out themselves. And as long as the work is getting done, I don't care what times they work. And as long as they need to be part of a collaborative team that they're part of that. But otherwise, really encouraging people to find what works for them. We did a virtual volunteer day. My assistant got shirts for everybody, shipped them around the world. We all wore shirts. Everybody chosen activity they wanted to do in their community, whether it was picking up trash or some people went and helped their elderly neighbors or took dogs for walks. And then we all got back on and shared. And that was a really fulfilling, great day that I think re-energized all of us. I know it did me. Awesome. Perfect. And one last question for us too, in this conversation. So in one of your recent posts, Julia, I've read in House of Rose Professional, you shared your personal principles and strategies. And I quote here, reaching down, reaching out, lifting as you climb. So could you talk a little bit about it? And what advice do you have for our audience here and women as aspiring to make it to the top of the organization? Yeah. So I like to look at it that the way I see it, we each have our career in our own hands, right? Because with your hand, you can reach down. And I think it's something we each should do, which is to bring those along who are coming behind you and to make that impact. So I'm a big believer that you do that, it will help your career. The more you surround yourself with people who can replace you, the people around you feel comfortable moving you to something new. So really reaching down and bringing those behind you up and forward as well. Then reaching across, because I'm a big believer that so much happens from relationships. The more people that you connect with, the more people you're able to build a relationship with, the more you'll learn. You never know where those contacts are going to take you or where those interactions will take you. But you'll always learn something and you'll always be better for it. So that broad base reaching across the people. And then reaching up. And that's, you know, you're never going to break the ceiling if you don't raise your hand and try to touch the sky. Because it's people will sometimes you have the thought that you need to wait and somebody will come and tap you. But raising your hand says, I'm ready. I want to do more. I want to learn. I want to try. I'm interested in this. And sometimes women in particular, we're very shy or we're reticence about doing that and raising our hands. And so I think it's really, really important to raise your hand and volunteer for a stretch assignment. Volunteer to try something new. Volunteer to say, I'm here and I'm ready or I'm interested in that. How do I get there? And so that's that's the way I look at it where it's all in your hands, because you can reach down and pull those people up, you can reach across and build great relationships. And then don't be afraid to raise your hand to say, I want to learn more. I want to try this. And hey, I'm here and don't forget that I could be great at that. That's awesome. The amazing tips are from you, Julie. I personally enjoyed this conversation. And I guess we are getting to the end of the session. We are at the top of the yard. So I personally have a lot of takeaways. And I'm sure our audience feeling the same way. So thank you once again, all of you for participating in this amazing chat. We're going to have another discussion much like this. So stay tuned. And Julie, thank you very much once again for your time. And in the chat, I will, I'll just leave my email. So if anybody wants to connect us any questions, you also want to know anything about our great brands, I'm happy to help with that. So I'll put that into the chat for everyone in events anyone wants to reach out and continue the conversation. And just hope everybody has a great day and stay healthy. And if you're, you're going to be enjoying a product this weekend, we've got some for you. So thanks so much for having me.