Welcome to Voice of Supply Chain, brought to you by ISM New Jersey and SourceDay. The purpose of our show is to tell stories of people in procurement and supply chain doing extraordinary things. I am your host, Sarah Scudder. I oversee marketing for SourceDay. We automate purchase order changes and enable supplier collaboration for manufacturers, distributors, consumer package goods brands, and retailers. If you want to talk more about Women in ERP or what’s happening in the world of manufacturing, you can connect with me on LinkedIn and follow my hashtags: #WomeninERP and #ManufacturingMaven.

Today, our guest is G’Sean. Him and I have known each other, gosh, I want to say for a few years now, and he’s actually in a very different part of supply chain than me. I am now 100 percent in the direct world, and G’Sean is on the indirect side. So, G’Sean, I wanna dive in and kind of go way back in time and talk a little bit about some childhood memories.

Oh, oh, oh my goodness, Sarah, I am not getting on your couch today. I am not getting on your couch. You’re not going to be crying by the end of this episode. So tell me, share with me your favorite childhood memory.

Completely random, but this is what comes to mind immediately: literally laying on my mother’s lap. That’s my favorite childhood memory. And so I realized that my personality and my influence skills kicked in really early because I knew when she got on the phone with her girlfriends, that was the perfect time that she was not going to pay attention and she was going to rub my head. So that’s literally my favorite childhood memory.

Is that business-related?

This is down and dirty personal, G’Sean.

That’ll work, that’ll work.

What in your childhood shaped you to be the person that you are today?

You know, speaking of my mother, we grew up on the inner city of Detroit, right, and so we didn’t have a lot of money. The things that I got access to today that wasn’t even a thought when I was growing up. I remember oftentimes we’ll get bill collectors that will call the house, and it would say, ‘Hey, you know, such and such is due, yada yada yada.’ And the way I watched my mother, who was very gentle – I just mentioned she’s laying on her lap and her rubbing my head, very gentle woman, she’s probably 5’3″ at best on a good day, maybe 5’4″ with heels, however that works out – but I watched another side of her come out, and she influenced and negotiated for life in those situations. And that always stuck with me. It always stuck with me, and now I find myself, you know, influencing and negotiating big deals, and it comes from that foundation that she set very early on.

What’s a tradition that you learned from your family that you’ve continued on today?

So, my father is extremely hard-working. He put in 35 years in automotive manufacturing production, and I think for a period of that, a large period at that time, he was getting up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the job. And I just thought, man, that’s extremely hard-working, the dedication, the consistency. And so my mother is hard-working as well, but the other thing that my mother brings is that she loves to dance. My mother loves to dance. If there’s music and there’s a dance floor, she’s probably dancing. And so I think what I’ve been able to do is put both of those together. How do you do what you do well but have fun while you’re doing it? And so that’s probably one thing that has resonated with me. It’s like, never do I want to be the person that’s just talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to make sure that we’re having fun. We’ll get to the facts, we’ll stay focused on the details and attention to nuance, but at the same time, let’s do it while we’re entertaining ourselves and having fun and dancing. Speaking of dancing, the WBENC Conference, oh man, there’s dancing every five minutes. That’s my type of conference, my type of business. All right, plug out for WBENC, right?

What type of dance?

Oh man, so my, you know, all different types. I just learned for me personally, I just learned samba and some rumba maybe three years ago, so I think I’m getting better at it a little bit. But my mother, she knows how to do, if there’s 15 types of hustle, my mother knows how to do 21 types of hustle. I have no idea where she made up the extra six, but she is rocking out there. And at some point, she has to teach me how to hustle.

Is one of the dancing shows in the future for your mom?

Maybe I’ll become a star so she can dance with a star.

So, G’Sean, you also mentioned that one of the things you learned from your childhood is to have fun, something that you learned from your mom. When you and I were chatting, I think it was at ISM this year, you mentioned something that really stuck with me, and it was the fact that you take one night a week off to do something fun. So, talk a little bit about that.

So, I’ve learned – this is man, I was in the paper and packaging industry, this is my 2006, some time ago – and I was just traveling, doing all these different things, in one facility to the next facility. And I knew that it is important for me to have quality of life. And so, there’s a… if I flew into Houston and you drive about an hour and 15 minutes east to get into Beaumont, and then our facility was in New Delhi. And so, I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna fly in the day before whenever I do these trips. They’re very tiring. I’m gonna fly on the day before, and I’m gonna find just an amazing place for dinner, you know, every now and then that I haven’t tasted. So if it’s a different cuisine, if it’s… if it’s that, if it’s whatever it is, I want to taste it. And then also, just relaxation. And so, I’m gonna try every type of massage that there is. And I would do that and then go into Beaumont and have an amazing day of meetings the next day. So I started thinking, why can’t I do this across the world? And that’s what I started doing. So, I find these little hidden pockets of quality of life across the world, and whenever I travel there for work, I make sure I add an extra day to be able to enjoy just quality of life. Yeah, you have a great memory. It’s something that I’m not very good at, and when you said that to me, it really stuck out.

Yeah, yeah, it’s… you know, I grew up with all women, my two older sisters and my single mother, and all of their friends. And you know, one of the things that I love about women is that women are gonna collaborate within the first five minutes, and they’re gonna know where your son gets his hair cut. They’re gonna know the last vacation that you took. It’s like five minutes into the conversation. And I realized that, you know, it’s extremely important to have that release, and whether you’re doing it with your girlfriends or you’re doing it for yourself, self-care is extremely important, especially how busy we are as professionals.

What’s one thing that you’ve learned as an adult that you wish you knew as a kid?

Oh, that’s a good question. One thing I learned as an adult I wish I knew as a kid… You know, it honestly has to be relationships. If I would have known the strength of relationships when I was a kid, I would have started developing them much earlier in life. And you do as a kid, you know, but you don’t think that I could see you again someday, right? If you have a friend in middle school that’s a really good friend, you don’t think, ‘Let me get your number. Let me somehow stay in contact.’ Especially in when I went to middle school, there was no Facebook. So that kind of dates me a little bit. And I look at the fact that relationships are global currency. When the pandemic happened, I was in private practice, and one of the things that I’ve done up into the point before the pandemic is travel the world and train folks on procurement, supply chain, contract negotiations, etc., right? Southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe. When the pandemic happened, a lot of our corporate clients couldn’t get access to PPE. And so I was able to pick up the phone and call one of my students from last year, or two years ago, or three years ago, and say, ‘Hey, I know you lead up the largest pharmacy network in Saudi Arabia. What are you guys doing for nitrile gloves?’ And so, relationships are definitely access to… it is global currency, honestly. And if you convert that relationship into financial success, then you think you’re doing well in life.

Why did you choose to go to college?

I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that question, Sarah. It was… it was just assumed and… well, for me, I can’t say my neighborhood, you know, a lot of folks in my neighborhood didn’t make it out of my neighborhood, but it was assumed for me that… This is actually… I do know the answer to that question, Sarah. It was about money for me. I looked at the facts, and I was like, ‘Okay, graduate high school, make maybe back then, minimum wage was $7.50, maybe it might have been less than that, or go to college and have a chance of making $45,000 a year. Done.’ You didn’t have to… You didn’t have to convince me. There was no other calculation. That was it. And then the stuff I learned as a byproduct along that journey was amazing, but it came down to $7.50 versus $40,000 a year.

One of the things that I think is really interesting about your background is you actually chose to major in supply chain. It’s not something that you just fell into. So, why the major in supply chain?

So, I went to Michigan State – go green – and I had to work to pay, you know, for the things that I wanted in life. And so, I had an apartment, and any… I wanted nicer food. You know, I wasn’t spoiled, but you know, I worked hard, and I like to have fun. And so, I worked at Two Men and a Truck. So, if you can imagine a moving company, moving very heavy furniture… in Michigan, where it actually did snow back then – so nowadays, with global warming, there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, maybe it’s gonna snow, maybe it doesn’t, but it actually did snow – and it was three inches, four inches, six inches. But you know what? If somebody is moving and has to be out of their house today, they’re not rescheduling their move. And so, we carry heavy furniture in the snow, and I learned… went back to the office, and my manager used to schedule us and say, ‘You know, Williams, Scudder, Thompson, you’re up at eight o’clock, and… and Scott, blah blah blah blah, you’re up at 12.’ And it was like clockwork. We would go out on our first job, and the first team would get back at 11:45, 11:50. I was like, ‘Man, how are you doing this? Like, this is pretty amazing that you know you’ve scheduled this thing all out.’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m taking logistics and production classes at Michigan State.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, the same Michigan State did I go to?’ And so, I went to see my advisor the next day, and my advisor said, ‘Yes, logistics. And it’s material handling, it’s production scheduling, and it gets into purchasing and negotiations.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, I remember my mother negotiating with all those bill collectors.’ And I was like, ‘So, I am in whatever this thing is. Sign me up.’ I had no idea, Sarah. I had no idea how it would change my life. I just thought this would be fun to do, and I want a job when I graduate that’s fun and not just me sitting at a desk. And that’s the reason why I signed up for it.

What’s the most important thing you learned in college?

Most important things I learned in college.Oh geez, I almost remembered the name.

My accounting, 202.

Dr. Petroni or something like that, I had a paper that was due, it was due at two o’clock or something like that, and I finished the paper at 1:45.

No comment, no comment here. You know, as you are aware, I’m gonna show up, but I’ll be there four minutes in advance, maybe not 15 minutes, so I’m like really pushing it.

And so, I got lost getting to her office. She told me I can drop it off in her office, and so I got to her office at 2:02, and she said, ‘I’m not accepting the paper.’ I was like, ‘Wow, this is… this I didn’t expect this.’ She said, ‘You’re supposed to turn it in at about two o’clock, and you’re not here at two o’clock.’ She didn’t accept the paper. Luckily, I was able to do other things and get a 3.5, but I could have had a four point, I think, if I would have gotten there on time. But what that taught me was there’s some relationships that expect the worst, and there’s some relationships that expect the best. You have to figure that out very quickly. Expecting the worst is not always a bad thing. If someone says, ‘Look, I know who you are, I know how you roll, I expect that from you, and feel free to impress me.’ That’s one way of looking at a relationship. And the other side is, ‘I don’t care how you roll, this is what I look for. Feel free to meet me where I am.’ I think that’s important in the office, when it’s important with your leadership team, that’s important in friendships, it’s important with our suppliers. We’ve got to know how people are wired and what they expect in order to really maximize that relationship that you have with that person. So, I learned that the hard way. I learned the other side of that, right? The other side of some people are just wired a certain type of way, and you have to be able to work with all types of people.

So, you survived college, barely. You made it. What did you think you wanted to do after graduation?

I, I am literally doing what I thought I wanted to do, and I really, you know, have been thinking about that for years. You know, it’s almost sad because if I wasn’t able to do this, I don’t know what I would have done. I had no backup plan. This was it. And what is this? I don’t really see myself as a procurement leader or a supply chain leader. I just see myself as a businessman, and I look at economic development, I look at workforce development, I look at the global economy. I’m looking at the supply chain impact on business and profitability. That’s what I am first. And what happens is you find yourself in some very interesting conversations once you accept the fact that that’s who you are. And so, I could, you know, what I saw myself doing in college and after college, I didn’t put a name to it, but it is this. It’s gallivanting across the world, finding business deals that make sense for me and my family, and then everything else after that is secondary. The fact that I do it for Floor and Decor, okay, that’s fine. The pirate portfolio that I have of small businesses, you know, all of that is secondary to the fact that I know that business is my space. I enjoy business, I enjoy the heat of negotiations and influence. I enjoy the contracting piece and process mapping. And then what I actually use it on, that’s secondary.

How did you get your first paying gig after college?

My first paying gig after college, all right, so that’s a good question. During college, I interviewed with Intel, and I turned them down. And then I was like, wait, no one turns us down. It’s like the mafia, like no one turns us down. And I turned it down. The reason why I turned them down is because I was graduating college in three and a half years. I took AP classes in high school. I came in and got straight to it, and I was like, you know, since I’m hanging out here for five years, how fast can I get done? And I saw a path to get done in three and a half years instead of four. And as I got closer to that time, I realized that, you know what, I don’t want to come out in the December market because the May market is much better. And so I turned Intel down and I went after a six-month co-op instead of three. Okay, yeah, this is what it was. A 19-year-old making these decisions, right? So, and I think that six-month was so critical. That’s so critical. So, my point is, I met a gentleman during that six-month co-op, and he really shaped my career. But before, you know, I got into working for him and getting promoted and doing different things over the course of my career, I went back to Intel. I called him up and said, ‘Hey, remember when I turned you down? What do you guys got going on full time?’ I said, ‘Man, I’m so glad you called us.’ And so I, instead of actually interviewing for a job at the career fair in my senior year, I hung out with Intel in their booth interviewing other students for them to get a job. And it was, needless to say, Don Moore, I remember her name from 22 years ago, Don Moore was like, ‘You’re already hired. This is just a formality.’ And so, that was my first paying gig out of college, was going to work for Intel and sourcing parts for the litho and track processes.

What did you do next?

I went to the mattress industry. And he would talk about indirect, direct earlier. And so, my career has been back and forth between indirect and direct. And so, I was indirect, obviously, at Intel. When I went to the mattress industry, I went to direct. And I’m 24, 25, and had no idea that I’d be traveling the world, sourcing products, and negotiating deals. I’m in Switzerland one day, and I’m sourcing fibers, working with a group of suppliers at a large conference, and I’m just like, is this real? There’s no way this can be real. That a black man from the inner city of Detroit, where 60 percent of people don’t make it out of that neighborhood, probably 90 percent haven’t been farther than two hours away in their life, and unfortunately, some of us that were farther than two hours away were probably visiting one of our relatives in prison. And so, that black boy is actually traveling the world, negotiating multi-million dollar deals at 24. Yeah, and so I got lost in my thoughts, man, but that’s… that’s kind of what I did when I left Intel, and it really changed my life.

Like wait, what? This must be in the bloodline. There’s something about mattresses that’s in the blood, and so yeah, that was kind of surreal to me. It was definitely surreal to me, to you know, learn that and be in that space and to think, you know, you did it as a sharecropper on the farm and I’m doing it across the world, and that’s just two generations. You know, where could we be two more generations from now? And so anyway, that’s pretty cool.

So, walk me through the progression of your career. You left Intel, you pivoted and went and worked at a mattress factory or a mattress manufacturer. What next?”

“Yeah, I did that and it did this. You’re sure you want to do this because it’s going to be like seven stops, eight different states? I’ll let you pick and choose. No, I pull out the highlights for us. There’s actually a huge highlight. And so, I went to the mattress industry, and I think I went to paper and packaging after that. I think, with the paper and packaging, then I went to pharmaceutical, and that was the big break for me, as pharmaceutical. I got a phone call, and it was the opportunity for me to break the manager level and then hit the director level, and that was huge for me because I knew I wanted to be a leader in a procurement space, and I was just waiting for the right opportunity.

So, I went from senior manager to director in the pharmaceutical space. But a few years into that role, we had transformed our integrated facilities model. We didn’t even have an integrated facilities model before that, and so that’s what they brought me there for.”

“But what does that mean?”

“So, you look at global facilities, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen in order for you to run that operation. Every plant or manufacturing facility is like its own little city, and so how do you manage that city? Whether it’s the electrical components, whether it’s plumbing, how do we generate steam for electricity and get to the cafeteria services, the landscaping, everything that you need. Say, ‘Yeah, everybody can, everyone can do their job, all right?’ The IT help desk except. So, if you need something to do your job, if you want beautiful, you’re going to walk up to beautiful landscaping. That all fell under facilities. And so, what we did was instead of working with 200 contractors, we integrated that over each one of our campuses under one or two main providers. And so, that was a huge undertaking for us. I learned a lot. The largest contract I’ve ever written in my career is $875 million bucks or something like that, right? And 24 or 20, I think 24 sites and eight different countries. Loved it, traveled the world again.

But my mother got sick, and my nephew got shot and killed, and I decided it’s time for me to take a leave of absence, focus on family, and just, you know, that’s what my focus was at that time. Well, what I didn’t know was a friend was gonna call me up and ask me to help her start a chiropractic practice. And then later, she would say, ‘Hey, can you help my sister do this?’ And later, just, and then boom, voila, I’m now helping 16 small businesses do finance and supply chain. I never even thought of that as a career opportunity, but as I said earlier, I’m just a businessman, and everything else comes after that. And there was no difference to me in helping a Fortune 1000 company versus a small business. And so, I went into private practice and did that for eight years, man. Had a ball, training development, small business economic development, workforce development across the world. And then I got a call from one of my mentors, and he said, ‘Hey, Chuck Kinnebrew at Floor and Decor.’ And said, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna be here. They’re getting ready to retire. I need somebody to replace me, and you’re the type of guy that I need.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not interested.’ And so, a friend of mine over at Home Depot called me up and was like, ‘Did you tell me you weren’t interested? Maybe you want to reconsider that.’ Yeah, maybe you’re right. And so, that’s how I got to where I am now. I lead up all indirect procurement for Floor and Decor, including our supply diversity initiatives.

Why indirect? You pivoted back and forth.

You know, for me, I think it’s about variety. And it’s very easy to get pigeonholed into a chemical buyer. It’s very easy to be a raw material buyer. You get this extreme focus on this one commodity or category. If you’re in the automobile industry still, right, it’s hard to go from a steel buyer to plastics buyer, right? It’s not impossible, but it’s harder. And so, you know, you don’t go from Ford steel to Ford plastics. You probably go to Chrysler steel. And so, I didn’t want to get pigeonholed in that space. And indirect, there’s such a variety. So, there’s two things. There’s such a variety of the areas of focus for indirect. And the other thing is there’s such an impact on economic development because you’re dealing with so many small businesses in that space. Direct, you’re traveling across the world. You’re finding these big suppliers. They got to be able to service you. They got to be able to have the infrastructure to get you what you need. And that’s fine. It’s fun, but indirect, you have so much impact on what’s happening in the global economy as well, but more importantly, in the local economy, small businesses, diverse businesses. You can go from marketing one day to IT the next day to facilities to construction and find out all the common threads between them all. And in most situations, that’s where your transformation is happening. And we look at the last 10 years, but I think the next 20, 30 years, especially with this supply chain interruption, which has reset it. I think this project interruption has reset direct as well because people thought they had good sources. Now they challenged that. But on the indirect side, you know, we’re going to see for some years the ability to be able to transform that organization as people realize that, you know, in indirect, it’s a large part of our, it’s not our COGS, but it gets into our operating expenses, our SG&A. And we need leaders that can come in here and drive that number down so we can see more profitability. So, that’s a long answer.

What makes you so good at leading an indirect procurement team?

You know, am I good? I don’t know. Is there a metric? Is there a report out there that says I’m good? I think I do fine. I think you do well. And I think it comes down to the ability to connect with the stakeholders. You have to come into their world, and not everyone can drop themselves into a new environment, a new world. In my case, you know, two years ago, a new company altogether, and be able to learn the needs of those stakeholders and do it in a way which is non-threatening. And so, I’m not here to, you know, save you money and go back to finance and say how your budget needs to be smaller next year. I’m here to give you extended budget so you can do more of the things that you want to do. So, I think having those conversations and making those connections. But then also, you learn something new in every space. I’ve never learned more about broadcasting than you know, in a marketing space, from you. I’ve learned so much about print, geez. You show up with a new sprint outfit in a heartbeat, like can you do that? You know, like how did you do that? We’re like, you know, it’s so, you know, technology as well. So, you learn so much in indirect. And ability to create centers of excellence that I think I do really well at. I think about the end in mind and helping our stakeholders get there. Where do suppliers fit into the mix? When I was in the home-building industry before I was in the home-building industry, I didn’t understand. But when I got to the home-building industry, I was asked to lead up our procurement operations. I realized that 95% on average in the residential home-building space is outsourced to contractors and suppliers. And only five percent is actually project-managed by that company. And so, as a buyer of a home, you may deal with the salesperson that works for that company. You may deal with the construction manager that works for a company. There’s a good chance a lot of the other folks that you deal with, especially if they’re working on your house, they’re probably tradesmen. And so, I look at that model, right, and I think about, regardless of it’s home-building or any other industry, you’re only as good as your supply base. You’re only as good as your suppliers. So, if you’re a manufacturing company and you’re doing the two billion dollars a year, there’s a good chance you spend one to 1.2 billion on raw materials. You spend it on your facilities, on your equipment capital, construction, and all that’s not happening in the house, it’s happening through your supply base. And so, extremely critical for your supply base to complete that puzzle for you and help you deliver against your customer needs.

What advice would you give to people struggling to determine if they want to pursue a career path that’s more direct or indirect-focused?

I think the proof is in the planner. What are you talking about, G’Sean?

When I decided that I wanted to get in procurement, I was interviewing at Motorola, and I forget his name. This is 1998. Should I date myself, Sarah? Should I do this? Go for it. 1998, I decided that I really like this procurement thing. I want to go for it. I’m interviewing with Motorola, and I said, ‘Do you mind? And by the way, I’ve got to preface this. This is when we actually had planners. Like the literal planner that you walk around with the book, you open up and you write in. Yeah, paper and pen. Some people listening to this, okay, a pen is, this is a pen. All right. And so, I said, ‘Hey, look, do you mind if you can show me your planner from last week so I can see what your life is like?’ And he had no problems. He opened up the planner and he said, ‘I was traveling here, I did a leadership report out here, and I was working with a supplier, negotiating here, and then I had to make plans for this, and I got a chance to get a feel for, okay, perfect. I am not going to be sitting at a desk from eight to five.’ And that was it for me. And so, I think when you look at direct versus indirect, you have to understand the nature of that category. On the direct side, it gets into excellence, it gives us a certificate of compliance. Did we receive the right stuff at the right time for production to be able to live for production to flow? And that may be a high-impact environment. If you don’t receive the right stuff at the right time, your life may be consumed for the next foreseeable future trying to get it right. On the indirect side, it was about, do we have the right infrastructure for production to happen? Do we have the right infrastructure for sales to happen? And so, you can strategize a little bit more on the indirect side. That’s what I learned, and maybe different, you know, depending on the company that you’re at. But you strategize a little bit more on more abstract. Direct is very direct, it’s very concrete. We either have this cap for this bottle, or we don’t. Indirect is, I don’t know if we did marketing and branding and broadcasting in these five regions, would it return something? Possibly, maybe not. And so, that’s why you got to really understand the nature of direct versus indirect as you’re making that decision.

One of the things that I think you excel most at, G’Sean, is building really good teams. And I would say the people that I know that have worked for you would describe you as the best or one of the best leaders that they’ve ever worked for.

Oh wow, I’m gonna make sure I send that check.

I think you do a great job, and I think It comes down to the ability to connect with the people, the stakeholders. You have to come into their world. Not everyone can drop themselves into a new environment, a new world. In my case, you know, two years ago, a new company altogether, and be able to learn the needs of those stakeholders and do it in a way which is non-threatening. And so, I’m not here to, you know, save you money and go back to finance and say how your budget needs to be smaller next year. I’m here to give you extended budget so you can do more of the things that you want to do. So, I think having those conversations and making those connections. But then also, you learn something new in every space. I’ve never learned more about broadcasting than you know, in a marketing space, from you. I’ve learned so much about print, geez. You show up with a new sprint outfit in a heartbeat, like can you do that? You know, like how did you do that? We’re like, you know, it’s so you know, technology as well. So, you learn so much in indirect. And ability to create centers of excellence that I think I do really well at. I think about the end in mind and helping our stakeholders get there. Where do suppliers fit into the mix? When I was in the home-building industry before I was in the home-building industry, I didn’t understand. But when I got to the home-building industry, I was asked to lead up our procurement operations. I realized that 95% on average in the residential home-building space is outsourced to contractors and suppliers. And only five percent is actually project-managed by that company. And so, as a buyer of a home, you may deal with the salesperson that works for that company. You may deal with the construction manager that works for a company. There’s a good chance a lot of the other folks that you deal with, especially if they’re working on your house, they’re probably tradesmen. And so, I look at that model, right, and I think about, regardless of it’s home-building or any other industry, you’re only as good as your supply base. You’re only as good as your suppliers. So, if you’re a manufacturing company and you’re doing the two billion dollars a year, there’s a good chance you spend one to 1.2 billion on raw materials. You spend it on your facilities, on your equipment capital, construction, and all that’s not happening in the house, it’s happening through your supply base. And so, extremely critical for your supply base to complete that puzzle for you and help you deliver against your customer needs.

What advice would you give to people struggling to determine if they want to pursue a career path that’s more direct or indirect-focused?

I think the proof is in the planner. What are you talking about, G’Sean?

When I decided that I wanted to get in procurement, I was interviewing at Motorola, and I forget his name. This is 1998. Should I date myself, Sarah? Should I do this? Go for it. 1998, I decided that I really like this procurement thing. I want to go for it. I’m interviewing with Motorola, and I said, ‘Do you mind? And by the way, I’ve got to preface this. This is when we actually had planners. Like the literal planner that you walk around with the book, you open up and you write in. Yeah, paper and pen. Some people listening to this, okay, a pen is, this is a pen. All right. And so, I said, ‘Hey, look, do you mind if you can show me your planner from last week so I can see what your life is like?’ And he had no problems. He opened up the planner and he said, ‘I was traveling here, I did a leadership report out here, and I was working with a supplier, negotiating here, and then I had to make plans for this, and I got a chance to get a feel for, okay, perfect. I am not going to be sitting at a desk from eight to five.’ And that was it for me. And so, I think when you look at direct versus indirect, you have to understand the nature of that category. On the direct side, it gets into excellence, it gives us a certificate of compliance. Did we receive the right stuff at the right time for production to be able to live for production to flow? And that may be a high-impact environment. If you don’t receive the right stuff at the right time, your life may be consumed for the next foreseeable future trying to get it right. On the indirect side, it was about, do we have the right infrastructure for production to happen? Do we have the right infrastructure for sales to happen? And so, you can strategize a little bit more on the indirect side. That’s what I learned, and maybe different, you know, depending on the company that you’re at. But you strategize a little bit more on more abstract. Direct is very direct, it’s very concrete. We either have this cap for this bottle, or we don’t. Indirect is, I don’t know if we did marketing and branding and broadcasting in these five regions, would it return something? Possibly, maybe not. And so, that’s why you got to really understand the nature of direct versus indirect as you’re making that decision.

One of the things that I think you excel most at, G’Sean, is building really good teams. And I would say the people that I know that have worked for you would describe you as the best or one of the best leaders that they’ve ever worked for.

Oh wow, I’m gonna make sure I send that check.

I think you do a great job, and I think it comes down to the ability to connect with the people, the stakeholders. You have to come into their world. Not everyone can drop themselves into a new environment, a new world. In my case, you know, two years ago, a new company altogether, and be able to learn the needs of those stakeholders and do it in a way which is non-threatening. And so, I’m not here to, you know, save you money and go back to finance and say how your budget needs to be smaller next year. I’m here to give you extended budget so you can do more of the things that you want to do. So, I think having those conversations and making those connections. But then also, you learn something new in every space. I’ve never learned more about broadcasting than you know, in a marketing space, from you. I’ve learned so much about print, geez. You show up with a new sprint outfit in a heartbeat, like can you do that? You know, like how did you do that? We’re like, you know, it’s so you know, technology as well. So, you learn so much in indirect. And ability to create centers of excellence that I think I do really well at. I think about the end in mind and helping our stakeholders get there. Where do suppliers fit into the mix? When I was in the home-building industry before I was in the home-building industry, I didn’t understand. But when I got to the home-building industry, I was asked to lead up our procurement operations. I realized that 95% on average in the residential home-building space is outsourced to contractors and suppliers. And only five percent is actually project-managed by that company. And so, as a buyer of a home, you may deal with the salesperson that works for that company. You may deal with the construction manager that works for a company. There’s a good chance a lot of the other folks that you deal with, especially if they’re working on your house, they’re probably tradesmen. And so, I look at that model, right, and I think about, regardless of it’s home-building or any other industry, you’re only as good as your supply base. You’re only as good as your suppliers. So, if you’re a manufacturing company and you’re doing the two billion dollars a year, there’s a good chance you spend one to 1.2 billion on raw materials. You spend it on your facilities, on your equipment capital, construction, and all that’s not happening in the house, it’s happening through your supply base. And so, extremely critical for your supply base to complete that puzzle for you and help you deliver against your customer needs.

What advice would you give to people struggling to determine if they want to pursue a career path that’s more direct or indirect-focused?

I think the proof is in the planner. What are you talking about, G’Sean?

When I decided that I wanted to get in procurement, I was interviewing at Motorola, and I forget his name. This is 1998. Should I date myself, Sarah? Should I do this? Go for it. 1998, I decided that I really like this procurement thing. I want to go for it. I’m interviewing with Motorola, and I said, ‘Do you mind? And by the way, I’ve got to preface this. This is when we actually had planners. Like the literal planner that you walk around with the book, you open up and you write in. Yeah, paper and pen. Some people listening to this, okay, a pen is, this is a pen. All right. And so, I said, ‘Hey, look, do you mind if you can show me your planner from last week so I can see what your life is like?’ And he had no problems. He opened up the planner and he said, ‘I was traveling here, I did a leadership report out here, and I was working with a supplier, negotiating here, and then I had to make plans for this, and I got a chance to get a feel for, okay, perfect. I am not going to be sitting at a desk from eight to five.’ And that was it for me. And so, I think when you look at direct versus indirect, you have to understand the nature of that category. On the direct side, it gets into excellence, it gives us a certificate of compliance. Did we receive the right stuff at the right time for production to be able to live for production to flow? And that may be a high-impact environment. If you don’t receive the right stuff at the right time, your life may be consumed for the next foreseeable future trying to get it right. On the indirect side, it was about, do we have the right infrastructure for production to happen? Do we have the right infrastructure for sales to happen? And so, you can strategize a little bit more on the indirect side. That’s what I learned, and maybe different, you know, depending on the company that you’re at. But you strategize a little bit more on more abstract. Direct is very direct, it’s very concrete. We either have this cap for this bottle, or we don’t. Indirect is, I don’t know if we did marketing and branding and broadcasting in these five regions, would it return something? Possibly, maybe not. And so, that’s why you got to really understand the nature of direct versus indirect as you’re making that decision.

One of the things that I think you excel most at, G’Sean, is building really good teams. And I would say the people that I know that have worked for you would describe you as the best or one of the best leaders that they’ve ever worked for.

Oh wow, I’m gonna make sure I send that check.

I think you do a great job, and I think it comes down to the ability to connect with the people, the stakeholders. You have to come into their world. Not everyone can drop themselves into a new environment, a new world. In my case, you know, two years ago, a new company altogether, and be able to learn the needs of those stakeholders and do it in a way which is non-threatening. And so, I’m not here to, you know, save you money and go back to finance and say how your budget needs to be smaller next year. I’m here to give you extended budget so you can do more of the things that you want to do. So, I think having those conversations and making those connections. But then also, you learn something new in every space. I’ve never learned more about broadcasting than you know, in a marketing space, from you. I’ve learned so much about print, geez. You show up with a new sprint outfit in a heartbeat, like can you do that? You know, like how did you do that? We’re like, you know, it’s so you know, technology as well. So, you learn so much in indirect. And ability to create centers of excellence that I think I do really well at. I think about the end in mind and helping our stakeholders get there. Where do suppliers fit into the mix? When I was in the home-building industry before I was in the home-building industry, I didn’t understand. But when I got to the home-building industry, I was asked to lead up our procurement operations. I realized that 95% on average in the residential home-building space is outsourced to contractors and suppliers. And only five percent is actually project-managed by that company. And so, as a buyer of a home, you may deal with the salesperson that works for that company. You may deal with the construction manager that works for a company. There’s a good chance a lot of the other folks that you deal with, especially if they’re working on your house, they’re probably tradesmen. And so, I look at that model, right, and I think about, regardless of it’s home-building or any other industry, you’re only as good as your supply base. You’re only as good as your suppliers. So, if you’re a manufacturing company and you’re doing the two billion dollars a year, there’s a good chance you spend one to 1.2 billion on raw materials. You spend it on your facilities, on your equipment capital, construction, and all that’s not happening in the house, it’s happening through your supply base. And so, extremely critical for your supply base to complete that puzzle for you and help you deliver against your customer needs.

What advice would you give to people struggling to determine if they want to pursue a career path that’s more direct or indirect-focused?

I think the proof is in the planner. What are you talking about, G’Sean?

When I decided that I wanted to get in procurement, I was interviewing at Motorola, and I forget his name. This is 1998. Should I date myself, Sarah? Should I do this? Go for it. 1998, I decided that I really like this procurement thing. I want to go for it. I’m interviewing with Motorola, and I said, ‘Do you mind? And by the way, I’ve got to preface this. This is when we actually had planners. Like the literal planner that you walk around with the book, you open up and you write in. Yeah, paper and pen. Some people listening to this, okay, a pen is, this is a pen. All right. And so, I said, ‘Hey, look, do you mind if you can show me your planner from last week so I can see what your life is like?’ And he had no problems. He opened up the planner and he said, ‘I was traveling here, I did a leadership report out here, and I was working with a supplier, negotiating here, and then I had to make plans for this, and I got a chance to get a feel for, okay, perfect. I am not going to be sitting at a desk from eight to five.’ And that was it for me. And so, I think when you look at direct versus indirect, you have to understand the nature of that category. On the direct side, it gets into excellence, it gives us a certificate of compliance. Did we receive the right stuff at the right time for production to be able to live for production to flow? And that may be a high-impact environment. If you don’t receive the right stuff at the right time, your life may be consumed for the next foreseeable future trying to get it right. On the indirect side, it was about, do we have the right infrastructure for production to happen? Do we have the right infrastructure for sales to happen? And so, you can strategize a little bit more on the indirect side.

That’s what I learned and maybe different, you know, depending on the company that you’re at but you strategize a little bit more on more abstract. Direct is very direct, it’s very concrete. We either have this cap for this bottle, or we don’t. Indirect is, I don’t know if we did marketing and branding and broadcasting in these five regions, would it return something? Possibly, maybe not. And so, that’s why you got to really understand the nature of direct versus indirect as you’re making that decision.

One of the things that I think you excel most at, G’Sean, is building really good teams. And I would say the people that I know that have worked for you would describe you as the best or one of the best leaders that they’ve ever worked for. Oh wow, I’m gonna make sure I send that check.

What skills and personality traits do you look for when you’re hiring people?

Okay, that’s a good question. You know, one of the – and this is kind of indirectly answering your question, but I’ll make sure I get to it – one of the things that’s important for me is to understand the thought process. And one of the questions that I ask, you know, regardless of what’s on paper, I need to know how many ways can you get home from work?

And so if you work downtown and you live in the suburbs or vice versa, and maybe you live right across the street from your job, I still don’t care. I want to know how many different ways can you get home. And one of my, I guess, pet peeves is that some people may say, ‘I don’t know, I take the same way every day.’ And I think in this industry, in procurement and supply chain, you never know when there’s a pandemic. Before there’s a pandemic, you say, ‘There’s no way it can be a pandemic. That’s something that can impact this entire world, that’s crazy.’ But then you go through it and realize that’s not so crazy. We’re still impacted two years later, two and a half years later, three years later. And so you always have to inspect, you always have to expect the unexpected. And if I’m talking to someone and they’ve never thought that that road could have been shut down, but they never thought that their car wasn’t gonna work that day, I don’t know, whatever it was, I want to make sure that at least it was a thought.

You know, I was impressed with someone one day. This is probably about seven years ago. He went through so many different options, like, ‘Okay, that’s enough, I’m good.’ He had seven different options for a three-mile commute, and I was really impressed by that. And so I think, again, I want to, you know, the skill set that I’m looking for is the ability to think in flight. Everyone can put down a checklist and say, ‘Okay, I have 12 steps of the RFG process, and I’m gonna go through each step.’ Hey Chris, I’m gonna go through each step, and I’m gonna make sure that we do this and do that, do that. But what happens when there’s a detour? What happens when the supplier comes back and says, ‘Oh, we can no longer deliver that lead time anymore?’ What happens when the price goes up? And what happens when there’s a pandemic? And I think that person that thinks outside of the box and they’re always ready for the detour does really well in this profession. So that’s definitely one of the skill sets that I’m looking for.

What about from a leadership perspective? What are you looking for when you’re hiring people to manage teams or manage groups of people?

You know, someone mentioned the word entrepreneur, is that what it is? Entrepreneur or something like that, right? I really like that concept. When I was at Intel, I knew that it was something bigger for me. And so what I learned was, I went, I paid to go to university, but then when I graduated, I got paid to learn. Wait, wait, but it’s not, that’s not it. You have to convert that into generational wealth, and a lot of us never make it to that third stage in this situation. So as a leader, you know, I hold myself accountable for this and also my leaders. Your ability to look at not only the surface, not only the need of what’s happening today, not only that PO or that contract that needs to be written today, but how do I consider this supplier in the next five years? How do I consider this relationship for the next three years? How do I ensure we mitigate risk over the next 18 months? And maybe that’s not the question that your stakeholder even had. Your stakeholder just simply said, ‘We need a software, we need the ERP system.’ But no, not only do we need an ERP system, I think the leader that says, ‘We need the ERP system for XYZ today,’ but how is that going to be impacted with our growth five years from now? And so it goes back to our ability to be a businessman or businesswoman first and be able to tie into profitability of our organization, to be able to tie into EBITDA of our organization and their strategic growth plan. Let’s listen to the earnings calls and see, look, we don’t need to wait until our leadership team says, ‘Hey, can you do this?’ Let’s just listen to the earnings calls, understand what our organization is trying to do, and build our strategic sourcing plan based off of that. Because that’s what they have to commit to. They have to go back to analysts and commit to that and show where they are in the status against the plan. And so we might as well help them out and do the same thing for our organization and tie that, tie our strategic imperatives and strategic imperatives for our team to the strategic imperatives of our executives. So that’s what I’m looking for in a director and a leader of procurement. It’s a tall task, right? We’re not wired that way usually. And it’s something that I think we’re continuously getting better at over the years as a profession.

What things should somebody look for in their vetting process of a company and leader? You multiple times today have said you turned down opportunities.

Yeah, I see, I know how I’m wired, Sarah. I know that I am better served if you have 1.5 billion worth of spend and you have seven people that report to you. I’m okay with taking half of that, just allow me the freedom and the autonomy to do it in a way that I think makes best sense for that moment. I’m very low maintenance, you know? I’ll pull my bosses in, say, ‘Hey, look, I got a problem.’ But you’re probably gonna hear from me with a problem twice a year, maybe, right? To the fact you might call me and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on in your world?’ You’re saving me money, you’re implementing software systems, stakeholders love you. But I don’t know what’s going on beyond that, right? And I think what works for me is that my bosses over the years have realized if I don’t want to deal with it, I’m giving it to you, because I know that I can give it to you. You’re not going to ask me 50 questions in order to get it done. And I want to go focus on something else. I want to grow the company in a different area. So that, it’s one of the things I look for in the interview, is whether or not my potential hiring manager could be a micromanager, whether or not they’re going to give me that autonomy. And a lot of signs will tell you the answer to that. And, you know, look, no one wants to sign up to put yourself in a felony situation. And so we have to be more cognizant of how we look at what a failing situation could be. And that’s, I’m speaking to small businesses as well, right?

A small business, I learned when we’re in private practice, never pick up a client that you can’t have lunch with and enjoy it. If you painfully are sitting there saying, ‘I just can’t wait for this lunch to be over,’ I had to. I had to smooth them because this is just what I have to do. But if you have clients that you love going to lunch with, ‘Oh, okay, okay, it’s five minutes left, oh, we gotta talk about business, we gotta talk about business.’ Then you’re in a good spot, because you’re the quality of life for that relationship, it brings you life. And so I think the same thing with our day job, our Q2, or whatever we’re doing to make a living, we gotta enjoy it. Look, this life is short, and we’re gonna spend a third of it messing around with folks at work. That’s a lot of sacrifice, a lot of sacrifices, and most of us, not even a third, it’s probably more like half of the day, right? Mess around with folks at work. And so I definitely interview the companies that I work for based off of the autonomy and ability to be me, and to freestyle, and to get stuff done. Hold me accountable for what I’ve accomplished, not for whether or not I got in at 8:03 one day versus 8:05.

We haven’t talked much about technology, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times. Where does technology fit into the mix of your strategy and what you’re doing in the indirect space?

Oh, technology is the enabler of everything that you’re trying to accomplish. And you can come up with a great business process and get everyone on board, but at the end of the day, they’re gonna go to some technology, some software, to actually get it done. And if that technology is completely contrasting or conflicting with the business case or with the business process, it’s not going to happen. You’re going to have one, you’re not getting early adoption for the next project. And then two, the utilization of that software is going to be lower, which means your compliance is low, which means you’re not able to track and reporting, and it has a whole trickle effect on how you run an organization, how you support the C-suite. And so it really is the enabler, is the bloodstream, is the central nervous system of anything that you do, and that’s extremely critical.

What should people in supply chain, whether you’re a buyer, whether you’re a director, where you’re running or whether you’re running a team, no matter where you are in your career. How can people get better at buying and implementing technology? I know it’s a really important part, in particular on the indirect side.

You know, that’s funny, I had this conversation often. We have to go to the place of use, and so I’m going to tell you something really interesting, and I promise you this comes back to your question. I’m in Houston and they said, ‘Hey, you know the new Tesla is there’s a relationship between Hertz and Tesla, and if you want to switch your car to a Tesla, call electric feel free and like really let’s go for it.’ And so I jump in, she gives me a little tutorial on how to work this thing, and I am off. I’m riding around town, I am getting stuff done, this is a perfect trip up until the point that I got to nine percent on the battery… I won’t ask any more questions about that.

So, long story short, at one percent I pull into a buddy’s garage at about six o’clock and I’m like, ‘I have no idea what to do, no idea what to do.’ And we play around with it, so I plug it into his outlet at 120 volts and it says, ‘Okay, you now are charging your car like you’re charging a cell phone, you have 24 hours before you’re fully charged.’ I can’t stay here for 24 hours. It’s so… Anyway, my point is you have to go to the point of views, and if I decide that I want to take a project that’s sourcing all fleet, which is a project we’re doing right now, we’re looking at material handling equipment and do we go from propane to electric, I have to put myself in the shoes of the stakeholder and say, if I have an electric forklift, how often am I disciplined enough to charge it? Because if I actually don’t, I would be stuck in my buddy’s house for the rest of the night. Okay, I’m sorry, flashback, if I actually don’t charge it, I can’t move product. If I can’t move product, we don’t make money. And so being able to see that trait that’s so critical is being able to see what the end in mind looks like.

Alright, so with technology, I promise you I’ll come back. If you don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish and how technology can help you get there, it’s probably not going to work. I think there was a, I was reading, don’t quote me on this one, Sarah, but I feel like it was 2005 or six or something like that, and there was a quote that 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies had some version of SAP. Right, I forget the exact numbers, but it was something crazy like that. But then when you talk to 90 percent of the companies who have SAP, they will tell you SAP sucks. Alright, it’s gotten a lot better, I’m sorry, any SAP people out there, I’m sorry. Alright, but it’s gotten a lot better, but that’s the point. I don’t think SAP actually sucked, I think it was the companies that didn’t know what they were expecting. They couldn’t think with the end in mind, I couldn’t foresee what my business process needs to be two years from now, and said, ‘That’s fine, don’t, don’t, no, I don’t want any customization, it’s too expensive, just give it to me out of the box.’ And that was the wrong decision for them. And here’s the reason why they, their implementation wasn’t successful or it was delayed for six, nine, 12 months because I didn’t think about those things in advance. You got me started, sorry about that.

Alright, so we’re at our spitfire round. I’m going to ask you five or six questions, and you’re going to respond with the first word or phrase that comes to mind. Oh no, I’m going to get in trouble, okay, all right.

Accomplishment you are most proud of? I haven’t done it yet.

Quality you admire most in yourself? I was thinking about this. I’m always going to have your back. I am always going to give you a business case that is articulate and calculated and knowledgeable.

What’s your dream? I want to be the number one advisor to someone. I was saying, I was thinking about this, I got a chance to meet, okay, this is too much, I’ll make it quick. I got a chance, Lee, get a chance to hang out with the League of Mayors, which is all the diverse mayors across the country. And as I was meeting all of them, I also got a chance to meet one of their number one advisors. I was like, ‘How sweet of a job is that, to be able to advise half of the mayors across the country on key topics?’ And so I think I would love to advise the president on procurement and supply chain issues in their presidency at some point in the future. Dream.

Biggest pet peeve? People who give up too easily.

Favorite thing to do in your downtime? It’s a tie, lay on the beach and just take video footage of the seagulls. That’s what, and the other one is lay on the couch and watch Sunday football, but also nap through half of it. So, between those two, there’s some… Two-way tie, I’m not sure which one. I’m thinking I’ll take, actually, I just thought about this here. I’m going to take my phone to the beach, play with the seagulls and watch football and take a nap. Boom, that’s it right there. That’s my favorite on-the-spot. It happened right here on this show.

What are you binging? Oh man, nothing right now. I, I, I, okay, so, I used to be Survivor and Big Brother, but I got really busy and so… I may have an announcement at some point in the next 30 days.

Favorite thing you’ve read this year? My book. That’s the favorite thing I read. I said I’m pretty serious. I try to read my book like every quarter or so. Here’s the reason why. I was teaching a class of women business owners, and I said, ‘Give me your best negotiation quote,’ and somebody, one of the teams of four, gave me a negotiation quote. I said, ‘I really like that, I really like that.’ And they’re like, ‘We hoped you would like it because it’s yours.’ They took it out of my book. No one’s ever gonna catch me off guard like that again. So, I’m gonna go with my book.

G’Sean, thanks for sharing your laughter and stories, and just all of your wisdom with us today. For those that tune in every single month to our show, join us again September 28th at 2 PM Eastern for our next show.