 Hello everyone, welcome to the fourth session by DSCI on Women in Supply Chains. I'm Sugathri Koludu and I will be the moderator for the next session. To all our attendees, we are excited to share that we rebranded our initiative and going forward, we would call it as trailblazers, through which we aim to advance the role of women leadership in supply chains. The session is a special one for me as it is my pleasure to have one of our very own DSCI fellows, Kathleen Colucci join me today. Kathy served as the vice president for IBM sales transformation and she was a senior IBM leader responsible for global transformation of IBM sales processes. Topoting 35,000 sellers worldwide where she improved the seller productivity by 100 million annually. Kathy, thank you so much for being here and looking forward to hearing your experiences. Thank you for having me Sugathri, this is exciting. So quick notes on housekeeping, duration of the session is 30 minutes. We have received beyond 35 questions from our registration. So from that we have identified our major themes and included most of them in discussion today. We have, we've heard your feedback, so we will have five minutes of Q&A at the end. So we will have activated the chat on Zoom, so please type your questions or comment on anything you find interesting during the course of the day. So let's get started. So Kathy, you've had a fantastic career at IBM. You're those from a manager to a C-suite executive. Could you give us an overview of your profession and journey? Sure, and thank you again Sugathri. I really hope that the folks participating today can, can have a walk away, right? A takeaway that helps them because that's why I'm doing this. Otherwise it feels odd to sort of talk about myself, right? As if it's an obituary or something, but it's very important. So I started my career first of all by graduating from St. Bonaventure University and we may have some Bonafocus on the call. That's south of Buffalo and I was actually a history major thinking I was pre-law, but I took one law course and I decided I didn't like it. On the other hand, I took several business courses, finance and accounting, and I found that I was passionate about business. So I went back to college, to school. I got my MBA at the University of Pittsburgh and then I started at IBM at a manufacturing location. It was in Endicott, New York. And that's actually the, the founder, you know, that's where the birthplace of IBM was with Thomas Watson Sr. So I was a financial analyst. My career grew slowly but steadily. I became a manager after two years and we'll talk a little bit later about that because I had some interesting times there. And, and I took time out. My husband and I, we had two sons. So I was able to take two maternity leaves and do a lot of different assignments while I was in Endicott. Then, and it was, it was honestly nine years after I joined IBM. So I'm not, you know, this, you know, flash star. I rose slowly. We moved to headquarters, which is Armonk and Somers. It's in Westchester County and north of New York City. And I had a chance to work in the PC business. So PCs were new and big. Well, they weren't that new at that time. And IBM had a huge problem. We, we were in terrible shape. We had actually, we had to write off a billion dollars, one billion dollars in inventory. So it was, it was an incredible time. I moved there. I was actually the business model analyst. And after an assignment or two, I had a chance. I had a chance to become, we called it an EA, an executive assistant, but think of it as the chief of staff role. So I became the chief of staff to the person who was the CFO of the PC business at the time, Mark Lockridge, who later became the CFO of all of IBM. So if that, that assignment was really the pivot point for, for me, we were working on a huge problem. Mark had assembled a very, very talented team, the best executives you could find. And because of my staff role there, I had a seat at the table. I was in all the discussions. And here's what I found. I found that I knew what they were going to say. I knew what they should do. And, and I knew that I could do that job. And so for me, that is when my career just took, you know, a trajectory up. And it was really about the change in me, right? The change in my confidence level. So that was a wonderful assignment. After that, I became, I had my first executive role as the CFO for a mid-range computer at the time. It was called the AS 400. That was great because it was a very operational role. I've been in finance a long time, but operations. And then in 2004, my other, probably the highlight of my career, Sam Pomazana was our CEO. He decided to pull together the integrated supply chain globally. And this was all these disparate organizations. It was procurement, who was a corporate function. It was all the manufacturing, which reported to the product divisions. And it was customer fulfillment, which was in every country. It was the IT and the controls and the management system around it. So he pulled it all together under a wonderful leader, Bob Moffitt, who, who mentored me and Bob asked me to become his CFO. And that was a vice president role. So it was, it was a huge assignment. It was a lot of fun. We did work on globalization, shared services. And then, and also order to cash, which I know we're going to talk about, which is very close to the supply chain. And then finally, my last IBM assignment, Sam Pomazano decided it was time to look horizontally at these end to end processes. So he assigned global leaders to the major ones. And I didn't do order to cash. I actually did opportunity to order, which is the sales transformation space, but worked closely with the leader from order to cash. And in fact, we ended up combining those two sort of processes in a seamless way. So that was my IBM career. It was a great one. And now I'll just say I am a fellow at DSCI, the Digital Supply Chain Institute. And I work with one of our member companies, helping them reinvent order to cash. So had a lot of fun. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing the chat. Kathy, undoubtedly you're the, we're doing to cash it, right? You know, can you tell us what OTC is and how it relates to digital supply chain transformation. And while you're working in this specific project, how closely did you collaborate with other supply chain functions? Oh, very closely. So first order to cash is just as it sounds. It's a horizontal end to end process. So it crosses different functions. It starts with sales getting an order from the customer, right? So that's the order part. And then you have to get that order into your systems. It's usually an ERP system or a manufacturing type system. And that triggers the supply chain to take action, right? Procurement is, the suppliers are getting the parts. Manufacturing is making the product. If it's a hardware manufacturing, they deliver it to the customer. That's all supply chain work. And then the invoice gets created. That's back to sort of the order to cash process and the customer pays. That's how you get order to cash. So that and the supply chain, order to cash in the supply chain are like heart and lungs, right? They're, they're entwined inexplicably, but you can't separate them. So you do work with many functions. Again, starting with sales, the supply chain, ending with finance and accounts receivable. Order to cash is a prime candidate for digitization, right? Because, you know, especially for older companies that they have manual processes and tasks. They have many handoffs, which are friction points. They have paperwork. So you can pull that all together in a seamless way and digitize it. And then you can infuse it with, you know, AI, with artificial intelligence or machine learning so that you can mine the data. And that helps you really know your customers, right? You can cross sell your customers. You can predict the orders they're going to have. And then just, just as, as we look at our DSCI work, right, DSCI is, does applied research. And we have a white paper and a survey out recently. We call it the new customer. But that's customers today in business, even business to business. Expect their transactions to be as fast and as streamlined and as customizable and as joyful as the ones they have in their personal lives, right? Whether they're ordering from Amazon or getting a ride from Lyft or ordering food from Uber Eats. So, so the supply chain and order to cash have never been more important in terms of speed, efficiency, and also delighting customers. I'm good to know that, Kathy, and thanks for the explanation. So you've touched upon it in the first question regarding, you know, being the CEO of IBM supply chain. So can you describe for an audience that expedience and was that expedience helpful part of your career? Oh, and amazingly, it was, you know, certainly one of the highlights, if not the highlight of my career. And I have to say, you know, first of all, you know, IBM is a great organization, right? Founded on values. So from the top down, we had Sam Palmisano as CEO. And then Bob Moffat, who ran this integrated supply chain, truly a great leader. So first of all, when Bob put the supply chain together, more than half of his direct reports, his leadership team, were women. Yes, and that, you know, and again, that was back in 2004. And I'm proud to be one of those women. But it wasn't like there were only, you know, four or five of us at the manufacturing locations. There were many, many supply chain leaders. In fact, you know, we keep some of them I keep in touch with. Some of them have, you know, we're in very high level positions today at IBM. And others are in high level positions running supply chains in many different companies. So that was important for me. It's a great mentorship, but also pulling, pulling this team together. We had a responsibility, certainly from Sam, for productivity. So this organization was responsible for $35 billion, you know, many of the parts and services that we procured, but then also the organization. And we had to find 10 to 15% productivity in that every year. And this is where I also really learned about changing the culture is so important. Because many of these teams, think of manufacturing teams around the world, they had viewed themselves as back office and actually to pull them together. And I credit Bob, but to pull them together and have them believe in themselves, believe in their mission, be excited to be part of the integrated supply chain. It was quite an accomplishment. You know, I had a chance as part of this to, you know, my finance team was around the world. So I had a chance to visit with them and speak with them and learn many different things about IBMers around the world. So it was very powerful. It was very powerful. And it was, it was fun and we were very successful too. That's impressive. I mean, 2004, having the thought of diverse teams, I can imagine. And would like to talk more about it in our later conversations. But the next two questions I have for you are, you know, they are our most popular questions, Cathy. Many of our attendees wanted to know, number one, what was the most energizing aspect of being a part of IBM? Right. So, and I would say the teaming. And it's funny because someone just within the last few weeks re-sent me the letter I had sent out to all my IBM colleagues when I retired. And so as I re-read it, I said, oh, I could almost read this, but I won't read it. But because I was there, I remember it. But it really was the teaming. It was, you know, that time in the PC business when we had lost a billion dollars and we needed to find our way. And so we all contributed. The goal was important. But getting there was the fun part. And playing off people, the different talents, you know, the strength as you pull together a team. I certainly felt it with the ISC also. I felt it. And at the time I was the CFO of the AS 400, that terrible day of 9-11 when we made sure that our clients could still run their businesses because they had lost their servers in the World Trade Center. And we set up, you know, servers for free. I mean, day and night to make sure that our customers could run their businesses. You know, that was a wonderful teamwork. I had the opportunity to do different things as part of IBM. One of them, I was asked to be a senior executive sponsor for IBM's global LGBT diversity group. And as part of that, and some wonderful leaders there, and very courageous too, right? They were out executives, you know, 15 years ago, right? And so I would go with them and we would meet with IBM country managers in places like Japan and India and talk to them about the importance of welcoming their LGBT members and providing a safe space. And in some places around the world, real safety, right? So that was an opportunity given to me by IBM. So and then I was part of, we won an out and equal workplace excellence award. And I was on the stage with 40 IBMers to celebrate that, to focus, you know, IBM's focus on equality. So just some examples of teaming and how it's really, you know, it's never been about just me. It's been around, how can I contribute to be part of a group? Very energizing. Great time, Cathy, for sure. And second part of the question, you know, what do you consider a biggest professional developer and what are the lessons learned from it? Oh boy, this is the one that's, you know, it's still hard to talk about, but I think it's important. So I told you, I started at IBM Endicott, which was a manufacturing site. Very young in my career, I was made a financial manager and I had eight employees. And, you know, what I would say as being new in my career, I write, if you're a financial analyst, you're successful based on the data, based on the analytics, based on, you know, your recommendations. It can be, you know, at least in those days for me, it can be sort of a solitary thing. So as I became a manager, and I was young to be a manager, right, I managed eight people, some of them had literally 40 years in the business. So as I became a manager, I didn't change. I think mentally I thought, oh, now I have nine jobs, right? And so I was trying to bring my team and PCs were just underway. So we were doing our own digitization, putting our plans on PCs instead of not PCs. So anyway, those are all the excuses, but I wasn't a good manager and I learned about it. I learned that I wasn't a good manager in a very public way because IBM had, at that time, they had what they called the opinion survey. And employees would fill out a survey that was anonymous, but you'd get the results if you had at least five people in your department. And there were many questions of the survey, but the key ones were really, you know, how did you feel about your first line manager? Did that person support you? I mean, you know, so there were probably three to five questions about that. And when I did get the results and when I got them, they were terrible. They were terrible. I mean, I was trying to think, you know, maybe on a scale of one to five, with five being the best, it was a two. I mean, they were terrible. So noticeably terrible. And by the way, that mattered to HR also and to the leadership of the site and also of IBM that they wanted managers to be good managers. I can't tell you how devastated I was and also actually surprised because I thought, you know, aren't we working hard? We're all trying. So what I did after, you know, a miserable, miserable weekend, I set up time with each one of my employees and I told them. I mean, I just said, you know, I got terrible results. And I just, I want to work with you. I want to be a good manager. So can we have an honest dialogue? And I want to, you know, we'll stay close. So I had one-on-ones every week or every other week with my employees. And one man who, again, he probably had 30 years in the business and he said to me, he said, you know, Kathy, you don't know the name of my kids. You don't ask me how my weekend was. And I mean, it was just like, oh, so I made changes. And I learned along the way that management is a sacred responsibility. That is how I see it. You're responsible, certainly for the work getting done, but you're responsible to help your employees grow and learn in their careers, right? And so it's a partnership. And they always have things to teach you, right? So it's not like it's a hierarchical organization. It really needs to be that team. So I am happy to say that it worked out very well. The second time, the next time we had an employee opinion survey, which is about 18 months later, I got the best scores across all of the site. So, and I've never forgotten that lesson. So it was a very valuable lesson to learn very early on. And I think it changed me in a positive way. The way you put it as a manager is more about, you know, it's a partnership. It's a sacred experience. I think that's a wonderful way to think at the end. I think that's all. And also I feel, especially with the failure situations, when we want to talk about failures, we're always uncomfortable about it, right? But, you know, I heard you comfortably talking about it and learning from it. And yeah, it's wonderful to share those experiences. And thanks for being open and honest about it. Thank you. All right, so let's switch gears, you know, to, you know, and get some of your advice to individuals and organizations. And on that lines, could you talk a little bit about what advice do you have for the women aspiring to make it to the top organization? Sure. So the first thing I would say is ask for what you want, right? If you don't step forward, you will remain in the same place, right? That's the way it is. I have a good story here, and this is sort of the first pivot point in my career, is when I was working with Mark Lockridge, the CFO of the PC business, on that great billion-dollar issue. And I remember I had a chance to have a meeting with him one-on-one on a business topic. But at the end of it, I just said to him, you know, I would love to be your chief of staff. And the position was full at the moment. It was actually another woman. And I said, if she moves on, I would love to have the opportunity to be considered for that role. And about a week later, the current chief of staff came to me and said, you know, I'm going on vacation for a week next week. And Mark suggested you might want to sit in. And so I sat in, and then, you know, another month or so later, I had the job. And again, that was the job that really, you know, changed my career, mostly because it changed my confidence level and my understanding of what, you know, what the responsibilities were at an executive level, at an executive, at a level higher than myself. So back to ask for what you want. In my own career, I think I've talked quite a bit about it, you know, team, team with others. They're the most memorable and the best times. So the people around you are your teams. Mentor and be mentor, right? I was fortunate. I've had many good mentors in IBM and I've tried to pass that along. I've literally mentored hundreds of women and also men, but, you know, probably the majority of women. Take the tough assignments early on. The only way you're going to, you know, learn and grow is by learning and growing. So it makes it easier to have people at women at the top, if they've had the right experiences along the way. And then I just, you know, who would I want to hire or promote? I don't, it's not about skills. It's about attitude, right? You can always teach skills. So I've always looked for people that are enthusiastic. I called it passion for the business, right? They're inquisitive. They're friendly. They're a hard worker. They're a team player. They're straightforward. It's as simple as that, you know, and you'll do well. You'll do very well. So great advice. Thanks for that, Kathy. So we spoke about advice to individuals. Now let's talk about advising what an organization is. Supply chain has historically been a position for environment. I keep saying this in all my, you know, fireside chats. And do you believe that is still the case? Or what advice do you have for organizations to address this gap and promote women leadership in supply chains? Especially, for example, you gave in 2004, where you kind of lived in the times where most of your team is women in supply chain. So what is that culture? You request other organizations to develop, or how should they see this problem as, and how should they work on it? Sure. Well, I would say organizations should see it as an opportunity, right? Women bring very important skills to the workplace and to the supply chain in particular. You know, DSCI released recently a white paper, and it's on the supply chain of the near future. And it's called the bamboo supply chain. And the terms they use, that you need to build a supply chain that is strong and resilient and adaptable. And I thought, well, those are strengths of women, right? Just about every woman I know is strong and resilient and adaptable. So I just thought it was rather interesting. These female strengths are the strengths that we need in a supply chain. So I would encourage organizations, but also the women to do mentoring, as we talked about. Sometimes the organizations can do internships or rotational programs, or even sort of skills badges. I mean, there's ways to bring knowledge and then also give a chance, right? We need organizations that are focused on bringing all of their talent to bear, so, you know, in all the different flavors. Thank you so much, Kathy. So it's time for a Q&A. So please, to all the attendees, please type your questions in the chat box, and we will try to answer as many as we can. We'll quickly take a pause there, Kathy, and watch after. Okay, we got the first one. So please keep the other questions coming in. So for our first question today, someone asked, what would the VP for IBM tell the Kathy five years into her career? That's a good question. That's a great question. You know, I would say, you know, Kathy of the past, relax, you know, trust yourself, trust your instincts. Don't be critical of yourself, right? I know that's very common. You have to learn by doing, right? As my dad always said, life is a great teacher, and I think that this story about me being a first-line manager is a good story. So, and in a true story, you know, in terms of leadership, by looking early in my career, I was always focused on, you know, the people around me as in, you know, my peers, you know, if they got ahead or this or that, and then I quickly realized that, you know, talent is good. More talent is better. There's no point in feeling competitive with someone because there's room for all. There's room for all at IBM, but there's also room for all in this great world. So, I guess that's what I would say to, you know, Kathy five years in her career is, and enjoy it. Because that's when you look back, that's what matters is that you, you know, you worked, yes, you earned, you earned what you were paid, but you accomplished something meaningful with people that you treasure. Thank you. The next question we have from one of the attendees is, what advice do you have for men to lean in and help women get ahead? Ah, well, so that's a great, another great question. First of all, is to be, is to realize, right, that sometimes it's harder, right? Certainly sometimes women have different responsibilities, right? They tend to have more household responsibilities if you have children, if you have parents, you know, etc. So, from a home perspective, you know, encouraging the men to sort of do their fair share from a work perspective, being flexible, but also appreciating the special talents that women bring. No. Thank you, Kathy. The other question we have is from Savita Mies. She says, how much time did you invest in your personal development during your journey from a manager to a C-suite executive and any tips on self-investment? So, another great question. I probably didn't do very much, you know, at that time, explicitly called sort of a personal development. I would read, you know, books around business. I was fortunate, again, in that IBM had a lot of different opportunities to learn and grow, and I went through, like, a management development program. That would have been nice two years in, but so, to do, to do personal development. So, so I didn't do something programmatic on my own. I also think the landscape has changed, right? There's so many great ways. And again, I would say be inquisitive and explore, because first of all, you'll find what you're passionate about. You'll find, you know, people that have similar interests and you'll learn from them. So, in a long way, it sort of goes back to that teaming thought. Yeah. Thanks, Kathy. Now, one more. This is a little tricky one. What can someone do to gain experience when their leaders do not prioritize or provide employee development? So, I guess they're looking into if their environment or the, you know, organizational culture is not more towards, you know, open ship and, you know, development of their employees. What should they do? Sure. Well, first, you know, you can try asking for what you want, which is sort of highlighting the need in a nice way, right? If that doesn't work, you may have to do it on your own. If it's an environment that you're really not comfortable and happy in, then work to find a new environment. That's, you know, you can try to change the surroundings and if that doesn't work, it's better to find a new surrounding. So, hopefully keep exploring. All right, Kathy, I guess that's the last Q&A and with that, we are at the top of the art. It's been such a pleasure to hear your experiences. So, thank you so much for your time. And I'm sure that our audience have enjoyed this chapter. Have a quick announcement to make on Women's Day. We are thrilled to announce an exciting opportunity. It's a free mentorship program for women in supply chain. So, if you're interested in applying to it as a mentee or interested in mentoring more women, please stay tuned on our socials. And I will quickly share my screen as well. So, yeah, you have your social links here and you can email me at escolduru.net for more details on the upcoming mentorship program. We're going to call it 21 for 21 and you will have more details on it being released on Women's Day. So, stay tuned and thank you very much once again for your time and participation. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thanks. Bye.