Evolving tariffs, trends, and tech in supply chains with Audrey Ross

Listen Now!

In this episode:

Audrey Ross, Import and Export Compliance Manager at Orchard Custom Beauty, joins Host Brian Glick, CEO of Chain.io, to discuss:

• The constant changes in trade compliance and impact of new regulations and tariffs
• How to balance work, industry involvement, and personal growth
• The traits of strong trade compliance professionals
• Why long-term relationships with brokers and forwarders win in supply chain
• Evolving technology in the supply chain landscape, including AI

Audrey is a trade compliance specialist with over 20 years of experience in global shipping, supply chain operations, customs compliance, free trade agreements and international tax.

Tune in here:

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Brian Glick: Welcome to Supply Chain Connections. I'm Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io. Very excited for this episode. We talked to a very good personal friend of mine, Audrey Ross. Audrey is based out of the Toronto area, and is the Import and Export Compliance Manager at Orchard Custom Beauty. And if there was ever a title that understates someone's value, it's that one.

[00:00:26] Audrey is all things transportation and trade compliance and incredibly engaged in the trade community, works a lot with the team at Let's Talk Supply Chain and is out at conferences doing work with nonprofits. And we're going to get into all of that and how Audrey thinks about all of that outside work and how it affects your career and how she thinks about balancing those and how that's changed over time.

[00:00:52] So if you want to think about engagement in your career in the community and where that balance is and how you can adjust it and make it work for you, this is a great episode to listen to also just a pleasure and we are going to talk about the tariffs and all of that fun stuff too. So hope you enjoy the episode.

[00:01:13] Audrey, welcome to the show.

[00:01:15] Audrey Ross: Thanks for having me, Brian. I'm excited.

[00:01:17] Brian Glick: So how did you get into the global trade business and more importantly, why did you stay?

[00:01:24] Audrey Ross: That's such a great question. And I love hearing the answer from the other guests. And you wonder if there's like a personality trait that sort of sticks you in and then you just get obsessed with it.

[00:01:34] You are forced to stay. I started a junior degree in political science at Carleton in Ottawa, and my grandfather passed away. And he'd been involved in a business and he was in perishables actually in global trade. And so I'd heard about it, you know, when you're kind of talking at the dinner table and that, and I had gotten an opportunity after I'd come back to Toronto as a summer student, a summer student fetching coffee.

[00:02:01] And they were in this business that would seem to be a lot of samples, put the samples away, keep the samples tidy, this admin job for the summer. And I was like, it's fantastic. And I got there and within a couple of weeks, it became, can you type up these quotes to this customer in Mexico? Can you contact this factory in China?

[00:02:18] So it ended up being this more dynamic role than I'd expected. And by the time I got to the end of the summer, I was hooked. I was like, this is fascinating. I had always had this little inkling in the back of my mind that jobs got to be routine and boring and coming into like starting a career was like, I did not want to be bored at work.

[00:02:37] I didn't want to be one of those people who was like nine to five doing the same thing every day. And so this just clicked all of these boxes of like, now you go down to accounting. Now you have to fill out this form. Now you're talking to these people.

[00:02:47] Brian Glick: I've always said that in 25 years in this business, I've never had the same day twice.

[00:02:52] Audrey Ross: Oh my, no, no. And I signed on. I was like, how do I get more of this? And I came back the next year and have been doing that for a while, 20 years now. I'm 20 years this year.

[00:03:03] Brian Glick: Congratulations. I guess. I'm saying, I guess, cause I think we should be transparent. We are recording this on the 3rd of February as we are trying to unpack in real time on our second monitors, whether or not Audrey's home country of Canada,

[00:03:20] and my home country, the United States, are or are not in a trade war, which seems to be some topic of debate. Let's get a little specific then. What is the day to day reality for somebody who runs the global, the trade function for a company while all of this tariff madness is going on? Like, what is this, what does this do to your personal life?

[00:03:45] Or your mental welfare. Like, actually, tell us a little bit about the inside here.

[00:03:49] Audrey Ross: Yeah, I mean, this job, and like most jobs, can tend to become a bit boundaryless when it comes to time and activities. And when you have these kinds of disruptions, when you're working in global trade, you already have a series of projects that you're working on.

[00:04:02] You already have through manufacturing delays, artwork challenges, quality assurance, reviews and audits and things, to climate and weather conditions, maritime companies changing their alliances and thus changing their shipping routes. You already have a level of underlying disruption in your day to day, depending on how many countries you're working in and where I've been working with about 22.

[00:04:27] And so there's always something that you're trying to work around or mitigate. And alongside getting the project done, getting it shipped on time, getting it delivered in perfect condition and meeting the cross border requirements, documentation and tax and duty expectations. And then when you add these things in, it becomes, and especially in this case, the U.S.

[00:04:49]  Administration does not like to work like a 9 to 5. So these announcements are often after hours. In this case, I'm going to tell you on Saturday. So I had to wait like all Saturday checking the news because it's going to have, at least we got some expectation of, we knew it was going to be us, but we knew it was going to be these regions so you could change it.

[00:05:08] And then it means I come in this morning and some of the first emails out aren't trying to get a customs clearance done or trying to look at our, the current project list or do we have challenges with anything? Do I need to meet with my team? It becomes, get the messaging out on how we are going to cope with this pricing change or it's published.

[00:05:26] So this is what you have to do now. We've had preparatory conversations already, but it's certainly an interruption. It's an interruption. And in this case too, there seems to be a back and forth, right. Where we expect something might happen and then it changes and then it changes again. And it just, you know, I joked a lot about Brexit personally affecting Audrey Ross in Canada, which I mean, it makes me sound self centered, I'm sure, but it really did.

[00:05:51] It was like this huge thing for like three years of like, are you guys really going to do this? And then once they did, it was like this has to set, this has to set, this has to set, and it was like, it became, it does become like three hours of your day is just coping with a country decided to change its customs rules, right?

[00:06:08] Brian Glick: And you were, we haven't talked, really got into it, what Orchard does, but tell us a little bit about the size and shape of the supply chain you work in, so everyone has some context.

[00:06:19] Audrey Ross: Yeah. It's funny because internally our teams think we're a big shipper because they think we ship a lot. And in some ways we ship a lot, but we ship a lot of small.

[00:06:27] Because we're in the cosmetics, beauty accessories, and bath item trade. So our cosmetics, you're talking about lipstick and lip pencils that are so tiny. So a big order is still only three to five palettes. So there's a lot of small shipments, a lot of LCL, if we're going technical. And then we have some customers who do some of the bigger items, right?

[00:06:48] We do a lot of cosmetic bags and travel bags for a couple of our customers. And so that's FCL. And I think I mentioned earlier, it's about 22 countries now that we're in and out of, so we've always had a pretty diverse manufacturing landscape where we have, we've leaned heavily on, on a country like China for things like components and import inputs, and then those might be moved over to Italy or into Canada or into the U.S.

[00:07:10]  And then in recent years, it's like, who's doing what in Colombia and Mexico and Turkey. So those kinds of keeping track of 22 import and export areas, plus all the regulations, monitoring the shipping, keeping on top of peak season. So it's definitely keeps, there's a breadth to it for sure.

[00:07:31] Brian Glick: So that's a lot of work to do and a very complicated supply chain that you guys manage with a relatively small team.

[00:07:42] And while you're doing that, you also have always made time to be very engaged in the trade community, in managing, I'll use the word, a personal brand, being out there in the world. How do you think about that kind of balance and what makes you want to go out there and also spend time doing a lot of these other industry things as opposed to just having a normal hobby like I guess, theoretically, other people have?

[00:08:17] I don't have them, but I'm assuming there are people in the world who have hobbies.

[00:08:21] Audrey Ross: Yeah, exactly. I think, if I'm being really transparent, the kind of why of it was I think I wanted, especially, when I was starting, I wanted to build some credibility. I didn't finish my degree and I have a couple of certifications that I found invaluable.

[00:08:42] They really helped craft me into how I'm able to do my job. But I think I felt that trying to get some sort of steady, I don't know, recognition or validation that what I've learned and what I was doing and how I was organizing it was the best direction and was a match to what people are doing in the industry.

[00:09:02] And then there's also the representation piece as well. Supply chain, international trade, especially around in the finance piece can be very, has had been very male dominated when I would go into rooms 10 or 15 years ago, I could count on my hands how many other women there were not so much in Canada, like overall diversity of who was in the room, but generally like the woman count

[00:09:26] was low and that's changed and I started to see on places like LinkedIn and other social media and also in interviews or on conference conference floors that women weren't necessarily wholly represented in the way that they were participating in the industry and I'm an extrovert. I was raised by my family to have some sort of opinion.

[00:09:48] You couldn't be around the dinner table without having some sort of. There was a lot of debate. Both sides was like, take this side, take that side, and so I think that helped too to have some sort of confidence as well in myself or in what I was doing and being able to kind of be a representative that I wasn't seen and not in any way to suggest that I knew everything that was going on.

[00:10:10] But I think it was making a space to say it's okay to not know everything that's going on and to be putting up your hands and, you know, representing the new people to the industry, the people who aren't always in the room and to just be curious about how this whole thing works.

[00:10:27] Brian Glick: Do you feel an obligation to do that, or an interest, or both, or, like

[00:10:35] Audrey Ross: Oh, that's a good question. I think it definitely started as an obligation. Every time I was in rooms and, uh, where I have my friend Sarah, you'd be talking to people about, you know, who's speaking on stage, or Who's doing this? And you know, you'd be in a room where a woman would say, Well, I couldn't go and do that. Like, I don't know enough about X.

[00:10:54] When I had enough, I know, arrogance, confidence that I wouldn't hesitate to say yes to something if I was offered a spot on a webinar. You know, Simon did a great session at log tech several years ago now, I guess. But yeah, I think definitely in the beginning, I felt in a way obligated to pay it forward, but also to take it on, take on that role to show that you could do it right.

[00:11:19] And not again, not to say that I'm any sort of expert in it, um, but just to show that you can have support while you muddle your way through when start to learn at least certain pillars or certain aspects of the business that you start to become confident in and then being open to, to learn the rest of it.

[00:11:35] But yeah, I think it started as obligation and now it's become interest. And I think the way I approach it has changed. It's not, it's become less about my own insecurity and maybe that's just because I've matured and gotten, gotten older or gotten into a different place. But I think it became less about my own insecurity and more about helping the community.

[00:11:59] Right. It became less about trying to build that confidence and more about what can I actually share from what I've learned to make it easier for the people who are doing this or who are new to this or who are struggling in a certain area, right? They're confident in shipping between Canada and the US, but I have no idea how to deal with Turkey and Poland, right?

[00:12:20] Brian Glick: Shifting gears a little bit. One of the conversations that you and I had on a stage actually, was the kind of late stage pandemic, we're all back out in the world, but with the chaos of, you know, Suez Canal and, and, and all the things that kind of were going on a couple of years ago, we had a conversation about what can your service providers do for you and what should your relationship be between a shipper and a service provider?

[00:12:49] Brian Glick: And we're now in another one of those moments, right? With a lot of chaos. How are you leaning on your providers? Are you leaning on providers or are you going it alone trying to figure this stuff out?

[00:13:01] Audrey Ross: I think for me, I've taken a bit of, now that I have more experience and that we have more experience in some of the areas that we're operating in and being through at least one round of what tariffs look like from 2018, I think I've done quite a bit of, like, when it's the same challenge between freight forwarders, I think, and customs brokers,

[00:13:22] my goals have always been a long term relationship, trying to determine who's the best fit up front, spending a lot of time on doing that. And I don't change quickly unless it's really necessary, but it's also, I've probably been vetting someone for several years. I'd like to have a backup. So there's always someone who I'm, you know, kind of keep an eye on or have a short list of like, okay, if this doesn't work out, I've met this person, or we've talked to this business, or we've seen another customer with this business, or they've gotten a recommendation from someone in the community that I know.

[00:13:56] I would say now, with these tariff challenges, like who am I getting updates from, I'm getting updates in real time. I know where to look for them. I know where they're being published. I think I rely once they're published, I'm disseminating that to my team, but then there are definitely people I look to for more analysis and that it's not necessarily companies that we work with.

[00:14:20] I think there's some companies that I'd like to work with maybe, but we're not working with who offer some great insights and are kind enough to publish those out on LinkedIn or on their own websites, like this podcast, right?

[00:14:34] Brian Glick: So you mentioned your team and getting that information out to them. What personality traits do you look for when you're trying to build up your team?

[00:14:43] What makes someone good in this business?

[00:14:46] Audrey Ross: It's a person, someone, especially for us where we're really focused, you know, one of the values is that agility. And adaptability and being able to juggle different types of projects in different types of regions. And so it's that, not to say multitasking, but to be able to have, you know, that Jack and Jill of all trades analogy is probably apt in our business, right?

[00:15:13] There's definitely areas where you can find joy and focus from this trade compliance. But, you know, that understanding a bit about logistics, a bit about customs and being able to, to carry that through. I did an interview with one of my team members and when we were talking about challenges and things like that, he goes, when you fill out the IMO dangerous goods form and like you get the kilograms off by like two kilograms, you have to fill it out again.

[00:15:39] You know, relationally, I'm like, I filled that out. I know what you're talking about. And then also, yeah, that, that level of detail that it's like, you know, if you're, you have a mismatch between your bill of lading, your packing list, and you can spot that. And like, it's challenging when you're going to your HR team, your people and culture team and being like, I need to hire someone who can spot a difference on a bill of lading and a packing list.

[00:16:01] Like what, how do you test for that? Or how do you come to that outcome? But I think overall, it's interest. If I'm looking for an interest in learning, I'm looking for an interest in being in the industry that they find fascinating or that they're curious about. I think that's the driver. I think the technical knowledge, this can be a very technical industry with a lot of jargon.

[00:16:22]  And I think the key is I'm not expecting someone to come in or even at my level I don't know all of the, my teams, the broader teams always ask me, what's this acronym that this customer is asking me about? I'm like, I don't know all of them. Like, I also go to Google. I also go to Perplexity.

[00:16:43] I also go to LinkedIn and I'm like, sorry, has nobody else heard of this? What is it?

[00:16:48] Brian Glick:  That's, it's actually something that we have to talk to our team about as well is, like, it is totally fine. I think a lot of people who come into this business, especially if they come in mid career from outside supply chain, right?

[00:17:04] They come from spaces where the world of acronyms or the world of things that go on, may be finite in there, like, you know, I'm afraid to name another industry because I know everything is much more complicated than you think it is, right?. But like, you know, it's this thing and there's a regulatory framework and I know we have.

[00:17:25] But like, everything kind of matches between companies and it's really important that we stress, especially with our salespeople, like if you get on the phone with a customer and they start rattling off something that you don't know. It is 100 percent okay in this business to say to someone from another company, I have no idea what you're talking about.

[00:17:48] Audrey Ross: You lean on the things like, well, you know, Hey, like I'm here in Canada and we might refer to that differently. I lean on that one, right? I'm in Canada. You're in France. Might be different. You're in China. What is, sorry, what is, can you, can you just explain that? Like just in case,

[00:18:05] Audrey Ross: Because yeah, the global, like even bill of lading, there's a truckers bill of lading, there's an ocean bill of lading, FOB in the U.S.

[00:18:11]  I learned meant something kind of different. Because it's such a huge country that you could just have freight on board and like on a truck between different states not the Inco term that put it on a boat getting asked for like I will be in the US and I'm like you want me to take it to LA and load it on a boat.

[00:18:29] Oh, no, that's not what you meant. Okay, whoops.

[00:18:33] Brian Glick: It is. Yeah. You know, I think you mix in that a lot of companies have unique internal terminology that has no correlation to anything in the real world, right?

[00:18:43] Audrey Ross: Yeah. That's what my team mostly brings to me. Our customer is saying this and I'm like, your customer has like, bajillion dollar supply chain and they've just made up what they wanted.

[00:18:54] But you can't go, don't go back to the customer and tell them that, but like, okay, we'll try to figure out what that means when it, and that nine times out of 10 has the same, like there's the same acronym, but that means something in world shipping or in customs or whatever. And you're like, Oh, that's not what it means.

[00:19:09] Brian Glick: The extended period at the beginning of my career, I think I spent a year helping to build a system, and the system had an entire GOH management section. And I was like, I kind of figured out that it was garments on hangers. Right. And it was clothes. Right. And it's like, I was like, Oh yeah, their GOH program, their GOH program, we have to have GOH flags and GOH identifiers and GOH allocations.

[00:19:36] And like someone had to finally explain to me, yeah, when you pack stuff on garments on hangers, you have to pay a tariff on the hanger. Maybe. Depending on the type of hanger and depending on whether that hanger is going to be reused and on and on and on, but like, I was too embarrassed at 25 to be like, in the first meeting, hold up everybody, I don't know what GOH is, right?

[00:20:08] And you can say, look, I've got an FOB GOH PO, like, I haven't used any words yet. It's all acronyms. The whole sentence could just be acronyms. So yeah. But I think that comes to that fascination, right, that you were talking about, like, if you're

[00:20:22] Audrey Ross: Curious.

[00:20:22] Brian Glick: Yeah.

[00:20:23] Audrey Ross: Yeah. But also not afraid to put up your hand.

[00:20:25] I think if you and I can do one thing, like for our team members, it's I tell everyone when they start. I'm like, very quickly, people are going to think that you've been here a long time. And we have such a huge variety of customers and regions or whatever, there's going to be something that they toss out, like just pause and say, Oh, I haven't worked in that area.

[00:20:46] I haven't worked on that product. I haven't worked on whatever and get them to explain it to you because the worst thing that can happen is that you go through and you're treating it like, yeah, I know what that is.

[00:20:57] Brian Glick: I will say I have never once, and I can be impatient, but I have never once in my career, internal monologue, actually had somebody say, can you stop and explain that to me where that has bothered me or upset me.

[00:21:14] And I'm east coast US. So if I'm not doing it, nobody's doing it, right? Like I'm always like, if it's a salesperson from another company, I'm like, Oh my God, thank you for actually caring that you're getting this right. That's what it's in my head, right? I get, people are terrified to go, I don't know, like I'm supposed to be the expert. I don't know that term you just used.

[00:21:38] Audrey Ross: Yes.

[00:21:39] Brian Glick: It's fine.

[00:21:40] Audrey Ross:  Yes. It just shows dedication. It shows that you're true. It shows that you're interested. To me, it shows that you value being correct over being incorrect and blustering through. I don't know. I'm on the same page.

[00:21:51] Brian Glick: And that is a big thing in the personality type we're talking about, right?

[00:21:54] When you want to hire somebody is valuing being correct. And you don't need that in every job, right? Actually, that brings me to a tech topic. What are, okay, I'm going to apologize in advance because I'm going to go there. But you mentioned Perplexity, right? And, you know, you're, you're not a tech person. So I'm very curious.

[00:22:18] How are you thinking as a compliance person about using AI? And where is it appropriate and where is it inappropriate? Your thought process right now, knowing this is a very evolving topic, but I'm very curious, from a person who is precise, like, where do you, where do you use it in your day and where are you not using it?

[00:22:41] Audrey Ross: Yeah, it's, I mean, it's definitely the hot new technology and as a compliance person and as a person who, you know, my fit training has me with an ethical mindset, right? A commitment to, to an ethical process. The first concerns become, is it ethical, right? And we've seen a lot of the applications come out around artwork and books and literature and things like that.

[00:23:06] And this concept of it's lifting everything. And you're like, and then what is it doing? It's a, then writing a book and it sounds like the same author and now the author's not getting paid. So there's that kind of personal or ethical concern. There's the, primarily as being business minded, there's a privacy concern.

[00:23:23] I think that's the biggest. A lot of people, um, that I work with are, everyone wants to, it sounds great, right? Oh, it's going to automate this task. You're not going to have to spend time doing copy and paste or data entry. I can read this and do that. It can help you with prompts and quick research. And then the primary holdup for me is the privacy.

[00:23:46] Right? Because I can ask certain general questions, right? And you know, there are a couple perplexities, one of them that brings back cited information. So it's not just random. It's very, if we can do the second step and click through and verify it, but it's the, can I upload my bill of lading or my, this spreadsheet with all these costs on it and have it do something without all of that being in the public sphere.

[00:24:11] So I think there’s, for me, the privacy concern is real and learning more about systems that are, um, in-house where you have a license and you're in an enclosed space are attractive. And I think that's how we're approaching it, at least initially. Um, and then we have a working group internally that's across all of our business units that needs to talk about AIwhat's coming through.

[00:24:34] We have a team that's becoming more dedicated to it. How best can we use it? And of course, the primary use cases in our business are r sales forward. Marketing forward, how can we showcase the products? But there's definitely a secondary interest in the backend operations. And that's very enticing to see.

[00:24:52] Does it feel like cheating when you use it?

[00:24:55] Audrey Ross: To me, it definitely does. Oh my gosh. I was raised again by this family who was like, you have my first birthday gift was like a dictionary and there was an expectation that you would just learn these things, right? It just wasn't an option to not have this sort of detail oriented research.

[00:25:14] I don't know how to do that now. So it definitely feels in some ways, and yeah, that concern about if I don't use my brain, is it going to melt after a couple of years of just having something answered? So for me, it's important to use it as, to me, it's more of a strategic tool. I'm not asking it everything.

[00:25:32] I'm more looking, to me, it's a research tool. It's like I don't have time to scour. Google's not necessarily delivering in the same way it used to, right? I think there's been sort of a shift in how it delivers you the information, the accuracy of the information that you're looking for. It still gives you information.

[00:25:50] So to me, it's like using it as a tool that can curate information quickly, faster than I can. That's a very good use case. Answering all of my dumb questions, I don't know.

[00:26:00] Brian Glick: Does the calculator on your computer feel like cheating?

[00:26:05] Audrey Ross: Oh, no.

[00:26:06] Brian Glick: No, what's that? What's the difference? I'm curious. I'm very curious what the difference is.

[00:26:08] Audrey Ross: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think there's a bias I think there's an inherent bias for me in yeah, how I would use something or the perception that I'm not making sure there's some personal development or some sort of learning growth around using the tool, but that's probably just it's, uh, it's an Audrey problem.

[00:26:34] Brian Glick: Well, it's not an Audrey problem. The reason I went down that path is I had an interesting conversation last week, uh, with an investor here in Philadelphia who has worked for some very large companies. Her name is Grace Francisco, and she was mentioning how there is a very significant gender divide in how people approach that question and it's the usage stats and there was an article I saw the other day that said that something like 85 percent of the ChatGPT mobile downloads.

[00:27:05] Right. I don't know if it was all mobile or just Android, but it was 85 percent male.

[00:27:08] Yeah.

[00:27:09] Brian Glick: Right. And at this, and she actually said to me in the conversation we had, like, it's because women feel like it's cheating. Right. And that, that is, uh, is one of those sort of subtle gender differences in how we're conditioned.

[00:27:24] Right.

[00:27:24] Audrey Ross: It's a condition. It's definitely conditioning that that's too easy. And I, yeah, in conversation with other women, there's other things too, where it's like, that seems too easy. Isn't this supposed to be hard? And so yeah, it's like, what was your horrendous childhood conditioning that makes you think that everything has to be hard?

[00:27:40] Right. And I love flipping that for me. I do have these concerns about the privacy, so I can't bring a lot of business stuff into it until we have it in our own space, but I did feel, what's the right word for it, I don't know. I felt compelled. I felt compelled to start trying it. And I felt compelled when they started offerings.  up at work had put together these monthly meetings to talk about AI and to really start learning about it because I do find in other technologies as well that women did lag.

[00:28:06] And so maybe that comes back to me. I don't know. My purpose is to show that. You can start out and try these things and you can fail with them, but that they are useful tools. So that's a great useful tool for your business in a lot of ways. And like I said, there's a couple of ways where it's still, there's like little restrictions or like little things that it needs to catch up to.

[00:28:25] But overall, like it's user friendly, it helps you with X, that's Y done.

[00:28:29] Brian Glick: It sounds like you have a healthy skepticism, which is an important component to anything.

[00:28:36] Audrey Ross: That's what I find with anything new. It's like, I don't, I'm not afraid of it. I'm not. And I think too, like my grandparents are around my grandfather's 89 and my grandmother's 87.

[00:28:46] And they both have their own cell phones, they have laptops, they had tablets, my grandfather does his bible study on zoom every week, um, and it was always very, I don't, it's like a competitive thing, I don't know, but they weren't going to be left behind, um, but they weren't going to be left behind on anything, and so when they bought, what if they buy a laptop or something and Microsoft offered them like six courses?

[00:29:09] They diligently went up to the mall to see this like 22 year old guy to go through all the like exercises and like they'll do their homework they're like homework people and like they did every so they come back the next week with like my grandfather would open his notebook and be like okay. Okay, Matt, you know, what about this?

[00:29:27] And so I don't know if that helps me too and the like there's no age limit. I think two people get very ageist about, well, I'm this generation and maybe we don't do that. I don't know.

[00:29:38] Brian Glick: It's, well, it's a very important thing, I think, as people age, because, yeah, like I look at my grandparents, since we're on the topic, both have passed, but my grandfather was very active all the way through up until the last couple years of his life.

[00:29:54] He made basically community wide Wi Fi for his entire retirement community. He didn't physically put up the towers, but he arranged for them to have towers and wideband installed and all of this stuff in his eighties. Right. Because he was always active and my grandmother was less so. And you could very much see,

[00:30:17] You know, mental capacity is use it or lose it. And that's a really important thing, I think, for all of us to remember that, like, you, you know, at least from an analogy standpoint, your brain's a muscle, right? And if you don't use the muscle, it's going to atrophy. So, take us out with something you're excited about besides the fact that you get to hang out with me and go redo tariff spreadsheets.

[00:30:41] What else are you excited about?

[00:30:46] Audrey Ross: I'm headed to New York City next week, which is always a great city to visit. So I'm excited about that. I'm not going to any conferences as of the first and second quarter of this year. I put a pause on that, and have FOMO about everybody's going to be having so much fun at Manifest and at ATCC in Houston is I think this week or next week, TPM.

[00:31:08] So there's definitely a sense of miss around it, but I feel good about the decision. I was feeling a bit stretched and I was losing sense of why I was doing some of these things and what I was looking for. And so I am looking forward to the next few months of taking that introspection period and not being out as much in the world.

[00:31:35] Brian Glick: Well, that is, I think all of us, may be a little bit jealous of the amount, amount of things that you can do when you're not having to be on plane. Yeah. And again, we'll keep talking and I'm glad to have you on here.

[00:31:48] Audrey Ross: Yeah. It's an honor. Like I've been listening to the show and like you've managed to find very interesting people.

[00:31:54] So. Glad to be included in that group.

[00:31:56] Brian Glick: Thank you so much for chatting with us. We'll get a link down to Orchard if people want to understand more of where you work and what you guys do down in the show notes and why don't you tell everybody just real quick at the end because we didn't talk about it, about Blended and some of the things you do in the community and we'll get those down in the show notes and then we take it out from there.

[00:32:16] Audrey Ross: Sure. Yeah. Blended is, uh, Blended Pledge, which we started. Sarah Barnes Humphrey, who a lot of you know from Let's Talk Supply Chain, we got that started. Part of it was inspired by the fact that when I was first starting out, I'd get asked to speak, but I wasn't in a position at the company where they would pay me to go to anything.

[00:32:32] So to try and realize those opportunities, a lot of people heard about my planes, trains, and automobile journey to find the best budget price. I did several flights on Spirit Frontier. It got me there. I'm in one piece, but. So anyways, Blended was started, it's a micro grant program to help, to help cover all of those costs.

[00:32:52] If you get an opportunity to be on a stage and you're in a position where, you know, it's important for your personal brand, it's important if you're an entrepreneur to get your business out there, um, but you can't afford the hotel and airfare costs. You can apply and, um, there's a review committee and then we offer a grant.

[00:33:07] I love being part of that because it really solves, it really solved a specific problem that some people don't realize is there, because a lot of companies will cover the cost for people to go or a lot of people are in a different financial position, um, than I was. So I love that one. And then the other big one, I'm just closing out,

[00:33:22] I was the president for two years of the Organization of Women in International Trade Toronto, which supports, um, entrepreneurs, um, people in trade policy, trade practitioners. It's a focus on advancing, um, the careers of women in professional trade. Um, so there's a high focus on, um, facilitated networking, um, and then education topics relevant to that.

[00:33:45] So I was the president. I'm closing that out. I'm past president this year. So I'll support them going forward, but not as much as many activities, maybe, like I love doing these things. I love taking them on. But I think someone, when I first got started, I was asking, well, what is this group like? And how are they?

[00:34:02] And she's like, this is the kind of thing you do for like four years and then you take a break. And you don't. Do it every single day for the rest of your life. It's the kind of thing you go into, you give it what you've got, and then you take a pause.

[00:34:14] Brian Glick: Well, we will get those, it's blendedpledge.org and owit.org but we'll get those in the show notes as well. And Audrey, so much for being on. It's always just an absolute pleasure to chat with you, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

[00:34:29] Audrey Ross: For sure. Thanks, Brian.

[00:34:36] Brian Glick: Thanks again to Audrey for just an excellent conversation. As you probably can tell, she's one of my favorite people in the industry to talk to. We'll make sure to get the show notes Audrey's LinkedIn, as well as the organizations that she supports, be sure to follow her and also follow Let's Talk Supply Chain where Audrey often is an emergency guest host on some of the shows there.

[00:35:02] And she always has great insights and just brings such a positive attitude. Don't forget to check out Chain.io blog. We've got some exciting things coming up and we're doing some really interesting new product development. So look for some things coming out real soon. And thanks for listening to Supply Chain Connections.