Susanne Hundsbæk-Pedersen is the Senior Vice President - Devices and Supply Chain Management of Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk has been producing insulin and helping people cope with diabetes for more than 90 years. Today it supplies half of the world’s insulin and serves 28 million patients in around 170 countries. Employing approximately 41,400 people globally.
Discover more details here.
Some of the highlights of the episode:
Follow us on:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzX
Linkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQX
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd
Susanne Hundsbæk-Pedersen is the Senior Vice President - Devices and Supply Chain Management of Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk has been producing insulin and helping people cope with diabetes for more than 90 years. Today it supplies half of the world’s insulin and serves 28 million patients in around 170 countries. Employing approximately 41,400 people globally.
Discover more details here.
Some of the highlights of the episode:
Follow us on:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzX
Linkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQX
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd
Hello and welcome to the leaders in supply chain podcast. I'm your host rather problem REU managing director of elephant global. Our mission is to connect the supplanting ecosystem in Asia and globally by bringing forward the most interesting meters in this world and I'm very happy to have with this Dave Suzanne, who's Beck Bederson was the senior vice president for devices and supply chain management that Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk has been producing insulin and helping people cope with diabetes for more than 90 years. And today it supplies half of the world's incident and serves 28 million patients in around 170 countries employing approximately 41,000 people worldwide. Suzanne join Novo Nordisk in 2002 and has since been holding positions as head of procurement division as CFO for local products. Plan it before taking out her current position. I seen it go something to devices. She's responsible for the noble[inaudible] management operations, ranging from procurement to manufacturing, the time, the distribution all the way through the seven local affiliates and certainly 170 countries. And she's also responsible for the manufacturing development of the assembly and packaging operations across the globe. The sites, her organization who does efforts in R and D with operations with a global reach across U S Brazil, Europe, China and manufacturing in Japan, Russia, Algeria and UNO partnerships, setups in multiple countries. So Zen thank you for making the time and it's a pleasure to have you with us today.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3:So wanted to ask you, Suzanne, as a start of the discussion you've achieved, um, some incredible things in terms of supply chain and your infant supply chain activities that[inaudible] is, you're only one of the two healthcare companies that have been recognized in the prestigious top 25 supply chains in the world by, by Gardner. Um, which is a very comprehensive and thorough process to get on that list. So I'm, I'm curious to start maybe with asking you, what are some of the accomplishments that you have, you and your team have, uh, have achieved and you're most proud of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the thing that I am most proud of is how the supply chain is positioned in the company today. We came from, when we first established the global supply chain management organization from being a planning engine and, and today I would say we're a partner to the business. We are a closely integrated into early decision processes in the R and D phase in the development of products and the choices of materials and the manufacturing processes. So the, our ability to today integrate into the agenda and be a partner and sit at the table when discussions are taking place rather than planning on the back and of, of decisions made. That makes me really proud that that means that that isn't evidence I believe of my organization delivering value to the, to the company. And I think that's what makes me most proud is the positioning of supply chain today.
Speaker 3:And that ultimately is his business partnering. So definitely, um, definitely a lot of, um, from, from our chest and from our talks across the industry also. I think it's probably one of the main and key criteria for supply chain to be a partner with the business. And um, and great to hear that, that you're at that level cause stealing a lot of organizations. I think you'd say it's a challenge to be, to have that seat at the table from a supply chain perspective asking you in terms of, cause I know you're doing a lot of interesting things in new initiatives as part of industry 4.0 um, would like to ask you, what are some, the, some of the most, um,
Speaker 2:uh,
Speaker 3:exciting, sexy projects that you're working on? Let's call it a knock on artist and where you're putting a lot of emphasis in terms of future developments for, uh, for the industry 4.0
Speaker 2:well, I think we have, we have so many things I'm going at this moment. I mean in, in all corners of the organization. Um, the elements of digitalization and the next generation of automatization is, is changing how we look at our processes. It's down to the planning processes, how fast we can simulate scenarios and drive forward positions. So very much into the space of analytics, providing a guidance and predicting better shipment routes or better packaging options for our shipments. If we'd step into the factories, again we basically rethinking our processes, what it takes to do them. So adding next generation robotics is one, but to a very large extent, it's leveraging the data in our system to make smarter and better decisions or even guide our people on the shop floor to make the right interventions. So there are pretty cool things happening where we are trying to shift how we think of complexity, things we use to pay perceive as complex. For instance, product mixes or shift overs or former changes. We're trying to eliminate and reduce some of these barriers it through technology. So, so how can we move towards continuous manufacturing, not have patched games over then we're less sensitive to product mix and, and changes. And that technology leaves us a lot of opportunities to address. I think that's, that's quite interesting. So we basically more or less trying to look at it from an angle of what creates complexity and difficulties in our current processes and then completely rethinking this. It's in, as it's in the production of our products, it's also an all the supportive administrative processes. So we have a big back office support to generate data to demonstrate the integrity of our products. And in those processes there was a huge opportunity as well to to improve introducing RPA, getting unstructured data structured and accessible to people to make better decisions. So I must admit I'm super excited about this notion of being a 95 year old company and rethinking the core of how we, how we perform our prom, our key processes.
Speaker 3:And I would, I would want to ask you in terms of if you may, if you make an an exercise of imagination and, and also working on your objectives,
Speaker 2:what
Speaker 3:do you think your supply chain organization and capabilities will look like in three to five years down the line? What would, what would have, you know, what would have improved and, and
Speaker 2:how would it look like? And I would say to a large extent, we would have automated many of the things we do today. I believe by excess data, ensuring data quality is, is, is high. We are, we can allow, um, automization of many of the decision and planning processes we have today. That means we can upgrade our focus to work more on development together with our, uh, our colleagues across the company on, on upgrading our business model in terms of providing scenario, um, evaluations. And you can see people become more sophisticated in how we approach our opportunities and even more up front in predicting things that can disrupt and address these more proactively than we do today. So, so I foresee a shift in focus from, from a here and now planning effort from any of the people in, in the supply chain to, uh, to forcing, predicting and mitigating risks, scenarios and, and optimization opportunities.
Speaker 3:And in terms of specifically from now to then and to bring it also in to make it sort of a bring it down to the, to the practicality for some of the listeners that have many, many challenges themselves and, and of course you have your own set of challenges. So I'd like to also ask you from that perspective of main problems and challenges that lie ahead of you in order to achieve that, what do you see as some of the, the top ones that you will need to overcome?
Speaker 2:Well first and foremost, I think for every one of us it is getting the, it is getting the quality of our data in control. So we do have still an effort to go to make sure that the, the data we work on in the way that we try to become more sophisticated on holds the right level of quality. It's, it is real time and it is accessible. So, so there is a lot of infrastructural elements that needs to come together before we can change our focus from the task that we have today. And that's an ongoing effort. It's a journey we've already been on for some time. I would still say that from a very practical perspective, we still need to invest into ensuring the quality of our master data, how will it reflects the reality in our, you know, in the value chain, our transactional data quality and the timely accessibility of that and down into the factory floor, eh, getting access to the data that helps us understand, eh, upcoming disruption. So there is a lot still to do even though I think we've come far stale in terms of ensuring infrastructure in data quality.
Speaker 3:And I wanted to um, to ask you, um, specifically, so that is on the data side. How about on the soft element of mindset of people side? Do you see any challenges around that in terms of, cause usually when it comes to changes and it's an ongoing change in today's work really, but usually we as humans are a little bit reluctant to change. Do you see that as potentially a challenge as well that the constant retraining reskilling the, almost the learn under and then we learn a type of a type of a situation. And how do you normally address that
Speaker 2:you think you're actually touching on the most important point? I think when I listen in on the digital transformation journey of many companies, there is a strong emphasis on on onboarding the new talents, the digital natives. I actually think the bigger challenge that is is upscaling an onboarding the existing organization. And one of my realization was that I needed to live this, no, no, not only into onboarding of new skills, but actually into the, the skill level and understanding of my, my management teams, my direct reports, their management teams. Actually I saw managers being a barrier to making the trip or conducting the transformation because they were ignorant to the opportunities. So, so a lot of what we spend time on the past two years period has been in terms of exposing our leaders to the opportunities by visiting institutions that are more mature than ours. Visiting other industries is also, I cannot expect my, my leadership team to drive forward the transformation I want to see unless I also invest in their resources. And that then is the truth for all layers of the organization. The legacy or organization needs to, to be part of the journey and we need to make sure we investing in that as well. So I would much rather train an operator in the ability to, to, to a program and then I would provide an app that would ease the work. And that's what we're trying to do. We are onboarding our technicians. Operators are our get them X, our leaders in terms of understanding what, what are the tendencies and giving them the basic skills thereby they can start pulling the solutions where they see the value. Because another danger is, and I think many companies struggle with that is there is a hype around the technologies. And so if you push technology into the organization, dangerous, it doesn't deliver value, the adoption rate is slow because people are not that excited about it. It's, it's pushed on them rather than it becoming a poor where the actual need is. So I would model rather make that investment and have my organization the actual value, adding opportunities into their operations and by being inspired and, and until CS stick about the opportunities that they can see once they begin to understand some of the things technology can do for them. So, so people is as much part of the journey, if not even more than understanding the technological opportunities.
Speaker 3:[inaudible] for sure, for sure. And it's, it's quite a, it's quite a task to, to accomplish. So would you, on top of your mind, and I know that that sometimes is not easy to remember all these numbers, but maybe would you have some sense of, of, um, success KPIs or success, uh, numbers or achievements in terms of what you've managed to drive by doing? Doing? So whether it is a cost, whether it is, uh, optimization, whether it is effectiveness, whatever might be the measures that you've, you've seen that you or you've measured the success of this initiative.
Speaker 4:Yeah. But the first, the first objectives we set was actually more that of harmonizing our approach to our businesses because we didn't even have a language to talk about our planning. We didn't really have a proper understanding of what defined the sizes of our inventories. We didn't have a co coherent measurement systems in terms of our service levels. So whereas my vision and ambition was to to think of it into an integration, I, my main story from the very beginning was getting the basics right. It was getting everyone out of their, their, their individual planning system into one global ERP platform. It was closing the gap in our planning system to have everyone working in the system. It was to develop the planning functions in our current system that, that wasn't there. It was developing, um, the, um, the framework of how we defined our inventories. Um, up until then, I would say it was, it was more so a function of experience and individual preferences. Then it was actually a such a, a, um, an inventory management systems that was defined based on design of the supply chain. So my initial pot was lists. So pressing on KPIs more so talking about getting a harmonized approach to how we were running the supply chain, getting our measurement systems in place and, and having um, yeah, a coherent approach to uh, to pretty basic supply chain things only. Then after that we started, um, we started becoming more ambitious in terms of how we could integrate more across the chain and, and adding onto that what, what we've most recently been investing quite a lot in is the, the analytics. How do we, how do we get the full transparency? How do we know who make the right decisions based on, on, uh, on data that everyone trusts us to actually moving away from discussing whether the data is right to, to having discussions where we don't discuss data, but actually discuss what are the business opportunities that we should pursue. So the journey took an off stop or an offset in, um, in, in connecting the organization. So our ability to supply patients has always been a very high priority. It's Chronicle diseases, PA patients do not easily shift around between products. We serve this as a, as you mentioned in the very beginning, eh, 29 million patients across the global hundred 70 countries. We do that no matter the turbulence that may be there due to political turmoil, um, natural disasters, war zones will supply anything. So, so we, we have through out Kip a very high circles. What's been more, my attention points has been the efficiency in terms of delivering to that high service level.
Speaker 3:No, but that's fantastic and it's, it's true business partnering, that's, that's what we would call lynching as being a true strategic business partner. And um, great to hear that you are involved even at such an early stage in terms of the product development, which makes a lot of sense once you have the right data in place. And, and I guess this question popped into my mind and I would make a little bit of a link and I heard it that the conference recently, I don't know if the statistic is correct or not, but there was a, there was a a number which was extremely high in my mind, but it's probably close to reality which said that most of the manufacturing as legend organizations, and this is not mostly MNCs but it's smaller medium sized companies as well, still rely heavily on Excel and they don't have centralized data and so on and so forth. Obviously a novel Northeast and a lot of other companies that top fortune 500 or top fortune 100 have a lot of advancements in supply chain. But I want to throw you this scenarios and if you were in the shoes of a, maybe a smaller company, maybe less access to all the tech or you're running steel, a lot of the supply chain in Excel, what would be some of the basic fundamental steps that you will take to digitize fast or fastest or the low hanging fruit? And the basic principles that you will do to get them up to speed sooner is because a lot of organizations are in that situation where they're unfortunately or fortunately, that's just the reality. They're still kind of incipiently starting on the journey and they don't know what to do first. So what would be your thoughts to this question?
Speaker 4:Of course it Emmy, he steps into the analytics world, takes an offset in what, what is the most critical critical performance parameters? So I would certainly start out by by saying where do I have my biggest question marks? What is the most critical agenda item to be addressed and start building the data around that? Is that the, so no notice, no doubt that I would start with with my most critical business process. It's not a huge team that started this off. I'd even say less than 10 people. So, so I would say smaller companies can do this too. Eh, importance becomes making data accessible, becomes trusting your data that you need abilities to clean that out. But that's not the effort of the big organization. That's it. That can actually be done by a few good data guy. So probably make an investment in if, if not, those are already in the company to hire in a few to help you, uh, help you do that. There are a lot of good visualization tools. Um, available data is, is uh, is is great, but data that is not converted into intelligence is, is it's not that exciting. So you need to be able to present it in a way that it becomes in an intelligence for you on that business topic. That was, that is most critical. And then I would say intelligence is worth nothing if it is not converted to actions. And so take that what you see and make sure that you act on it. One of the concerns I had when I saw started seeing the, um, the many dashboards evolving was are we actually using them now? Is this just a hype of being able to visualize things we didn't see before is action actually happening? So I did a lot of walking around trying to, uh, you know, visit the dashboards to know that we were actually taking actions on the back of those. And so data converted to intelligence, intelligence converted to actions is really the journey. So start small and start with the most critical business aspects. If you need to hire in a few people to help you do that, good and not, not necessarily huge systems needed to her to, to get started. Then once you pick up on those impacts that you're able to create, hopefully that allows you to reinvest into building a stronger muscle. And that's basically how we've gone about it. We didn't start out with a, with a big program on this, we didn't start out establishing a big organization. We started out with a handful of people. Once we saw the effect and the impact it created, we added more resource sources into it. And, and today the fact that I have more 400 data stewards being able to, to help themselves to a lot's extent and, and we, we drive this kind of self service environment. My central team is, is across manufacturing and supply chain is probably 30 people at this point in time and they work on the mall. The more complicated matters they go out and help in the line organization. And so the pull from the line organization basically then means that I know that I'm creating business impact because the line organization would not pull on my central team unless it was actually making a difference for them. So I do central led, but I also, to a large extent believe in the distributed knowledge. Also goes for how we work with robotics, how we work with different types of types of digital tool, a push of knowledge and the pushup capabilities. But a very strong poof from the, from the, from the broader organization is, is how I would like to go about it. I don't believe in this central push of solutions as the only means of driving transformation.
Speaker 3:Got it. Moving the conversation slightly to the agility and flexibility required for global supply chain and you run a big global scope of 170 countries and there's big differences between established markets versus emerging markets. And this, uh, as you rightfully said, high volatility of demand for emerging markets. How do you build that, uh, agility and flexibility in your supply chain to make sure you're not caught by surprise? Maybe some principles,
Speaker 4:there's, I would talk to them on two different aspects. Then. One is of course the very close collaboration with the markets to get the best signals I can from, from the market. So the fact that whatever is picked up in the local markets is in a structured manner feeding into our planning decisions. Um, so that, that's one element of it that I understand what could potentially happen, that I can at least bring that into the scenarios. I do particularly I would say around launches where we see in our business the most positivity. Once we start developing market to a large extent, um, patients are loyal and, and we w we don't see the volatility that fast moving consumer goods do not fall for diseases. So volatilities then we'll relate it to to a tender markets versus the other markets so that that creates some turbulence. But picking up demand signals in an inefficient manner is one element of it. Another element that is developing the responsiveness within the supply chain. How fast can we act on the decisions that we see? And um, and that of course is again down to how we design the supply chain. Where are we decoupling, how can we, how, how fast is the lead time within our facilities? Eh, distinguishing between the products portfolios that that requires to, um, that require, that has a higher mix. For instance, differentiating our lines so that we know some sort of the most steady, stable markets. And some factories and, and lines and organizations are designed to fit more the responsiveness of Fastly times or, or fast changeovers. So and then which we're looking at at and, and working on how can we modulize for instance in the device area that I'm responsible for, how do we modularize our products that, that we postponed variations, uh, as as far down the chain as we possibly can. And that is actually an effort that takes place when we work with the development organization to make sure that that is, is helping us build the right level of responsiveness later on.[inaudible]
Speaker 3:and I wanted to ask you in terms of your suppliers, because there's some really good case studies that you mentioned in the past we've picked up on collaborating with your suppliers and especially because you don't have a strictly to protect the IP, then you can share a lot of things and you can develop longterm relationships to the point where you are sharing that you invite them to your factory, you do joint value stream mapping together. It, could you share with us, uh, some, some case studies of collaboration maybe for other people within supply chain and manufacturing to learn from on how to work best with their suppliers?
Speaker 4:Yes, I, I, I strongly believe in partnerships. Um, as we talked about internally, the company of course that also goes externally, the company. I, I, I think we, we miss out on the potential whenever we try to stay. Um, eh[inaudible] eh, I, I truly believe in, in trying to join the agendas and it seems we would rather have long lasting relationship with our suppliers. There's very good reasons to try to phone common agendas. So what we've done, let me pick out a couple of examples. We've sat down with some suppliers and, and done value stream maps together internally we take, um, when we go on and on an optimization journey to a large extent, we will do very start out with saying, let's try to map out what's happening today. Sitting down with the supplier to see what is that value stream look like when it cuts across the companies is actually an interesting one. Sometimes we find that the requirements we're pushing on the supplier, so how we communicate our demand or controls where we're asking for is, is maybe not filling their systems very well and, and sometimes we don't even know all the good stuff we can get from a supplier on this. We go through that exercise. So, so trying to put together a jointing doing joint value stream maps, figuring out how can we align our processes internally has, has uncovered a very nice potential fields. Um, in terms of removing redundant work or just trying to help each other out improve. Um, we also have areas where we have outsourced the majority. 80 90% of our processes was still doing some internally. Quite often when we say we meet suppliers and we say, let's share what is, what best look looks like, they're a little hesitant at first because they're thinking all, you're only doing this because a, and then, then we don't have a competitive advantage any longer. We invite them in to our factories to see how we're, how we're doing, sharing our better practices, sharing within what we find is difficult and allow them to look in depth into our, to many of our processes. And that kind of opens up a dialogue where we can sit down the technical teams and talk about what, what are the, the learnings or the experience that we've built up over the years to uh, to, to, to drive really high efficiencies. And over time that mutual trust that we both parties gain more from that close collaboration develops. And then I'm a strong believer, of course we have intellectual property we need to protect, but there are so many opportunities to share. And then, and, and doing, doing that is, is built close, close collaborations but also helps us develop. And I, I do also humble the belief that we sometimes help our suppliers develop their businesses as well in terms of how the they, they set up or the choices they make in, in their factories. We have teams meet up even at operator levels to share experiences and see how can we do that. Particularly when we have similar processes internally and externally. So partnering is a big, is a big thing in my mind and we need to become even, even, even better at that. Also when we talked on the environmental journey without partnerships there, we are never going to achieve the objectives we put up on that subject. We are all in it together. Businesses, organizations,
Speaker 3:government and all the like pretty much moving to the, to the last part of the discussion, I wanted to bring up the subject of talent, the subject of, of skills and, and, and the future kind of future proofing the supply chain, uh, kinda needed in organizations. You mentioned in an interview that, um, in terms of how you, you, you understand management and managing teams that you would rather that people stretch themselves and play safe. And I wanted to start with that and ask you how, what does that mean to you? How does that translate in your management style in the way that you recruit and develop your leaders at NovoNordisk?
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is, it's interesting you've picked this up. Um, fundamentally I would at all times prefer an organization that is daring. I think any job description or any current doing always has the opportunity to push the boundaries and do more. And having people or asking people to be daring- You can do that in words, but it doesn't mean a lot. It is about creating an environment in which people feel safe to be daring. So that, actually comes back to me and any, any leader in the team knows- you kind of get the organization you deserve. And unless you create and promote a culture and an environment in which people feel safe to experiment and push the boundaries of what can be done, it will not happen. I can not ask people to think out of the box or be creative or innovative. It's just words. But I can create an environment in which people dare to and where they see that this is promoted, acknowledged, and stimulated. And so I will always ask my people, how do you know what good looks like? Who inspires you? What could we dream of? Where can we learn? I mean this feeling of not being, not being content with current state, but let's see how can we push the boundaries. But it all really boils down to have I deserved the trust of my organization, that they actually dare to take those steps. And when things are t hey not going as expected or we are failing on elements. How I deal with it is probably the most important moment because if I react to that in a manner of disappointment or I'm upset with it or then that sets the tone for the next time. Being curious then on the learning or should we try it again? What can we do different next time or let's try to go another route. Those type questions is becomes the proof to my organization that I'm willing also to take on failure on the journey to do great. So to me too, to me, this thing of stretching an organization or having people that are willing to stretch themselves actually stands at the foundation of trust. And I think there's, as I said, only one way to go about that. That is making sure you actually to serve that trust of people from your organization. Then I'm a rather than patient person myself and I do love to go new ways. So being on a learning journey, exposing myself to new ways of going about things, trying things out is, is a personal belief as well. I get a lot of energy from, from trying out new things and going new ways and so I put myself out to to stay curious, to learn new things. I push my management team to be had to go out and learn. It's visit companies, different industries, academia, what do we do to stay current? And no, I think actually sometimes leaders and managers can be the barrier to transformation because of lack of knowledge or insights or because of too much pride in what we've accomplished up until now. I would rather try to be an environment of humbleness where we know there's always more, we can learn always more organizations that can inspire us and create a culture of, of curiosity. So, so that's what I mean when I say let's, let's, let's try to see how we get an organization that's rather willing to stretch them to play safe. And it's just more exciting to be in such an environment.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure. And I, I loved also, um, I was reading that you, um, you use one of, uh, one of the African Proverbs that I also personally resonate a lot with, um, in, in terms of working, working with the team. And then the program goes like this. If you wished to travel fast travel alone, if you wished to travel far, travel together and, uh, you were saying that you always prefer to travel together. So I think that's a, that's a very good mantra. And, uh, and also you've kind of highlighted it all throughout our discussion. So when you mentioned suppliers and I hear it very strongly from you as well as when it comes to your management style. So that's a, that's a great, um, that's a great way to approach things I think. Um, and, and the team will always have more, um, more perspectives and a better judgment than one individual for sure. Um, and I wanted to ask you a big question that it's on top of, uh, most agendas of companies. It's like it's bigger sustainability I guess. And nowadays or, or, or on the same page, which is gender diversity and gender diversity and supply chain is a big topic. You're a great example of that. Um, you're a woman in the top echelon of supply chain and I wanted to ask for your perspective of
Speaker 4:how,
Speaker 3:um, and, and what can companies do to encourage more women in, in, in senior positions, in, in management positions, in supply chain and specifically because there that tends to be a bit of a discrepancy still in terms of
Speaker 4:ratio. Yeah, it's, it's a question I+l get and I always find it really difficult to, to answer. The fact of the matter is that I don't necessarily think a lot about my agenda when I engage in, in meetings or doing it. I'm looking at the task more so, but I do realize that the statistics are definitely not reflecting the population in the, in the organization. And the same is this the case of the company I worked on when I, I go to conferences or meeting, I do see a, an imbalance in, in gender. So I think there is an unconscious bias. I also think I may be as guilty as, as anyone else. So I don't think that, eh, that is particularly men being biased. I think there is a, a bias sometimes to promote people that look more like yourself. And since there are more men at the top, they are probably more likely to promote more men that likes to have the same preferences in life that they do themselves. And so I think there was a, and what we've done in Nova Nordisk is working quite a bit with the unconscious bias, um, not only on gender but on, on multiple times. And I do think that's a good starting point then. I think there was a need to be deliberate, you pushing a hit in female talent as well. So to make sure in the talent programs there is a fair distribution, we're presenting the population in the organization and then you can start drilling that down. If that, if that is the case, then you need to start becoming better at spotting your, your diverse talents but not only on gender. Actually also on, on, on probably could be educational background experience working style. Like I think it's interesting to talk about diversity on, on, on many aspects. Um, but I, I do think pushing ahead on the telling part is probably the most, Oh, my most favorite, favorite way of going about it. So I'll make sure that when we send candidates for talent program, so when I pick out people to drive initiatives, that that is a diverse population. I believe that builds the, uh, the, um, the leaders of the, of the future. I, I'm not in for the quotas. I'm sometimes asked about that as, as well, eh, I, I don't think that is a respectful manner to go about promoting diversity. I believe in, in focusing on talent management and killing whatever biases. Maybe there
Speaker 3:big, big topic that I wanted to ask you about is sustainability because it's, it's very high and it should be very high on everybody's agendas and on organizations. The agenda is, and I know that you do, uh,
Speaker 4:number of initiatives in the area of sustainability and the circular economy. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. Say the circularity or the sustainability agenda has actually been with us for, for quite a number of years. 20 plus years Novo Nordisk has, has worked, um, with our environmental footprint and we report out on the triple bottom line, our financial, uh, our financial performance, our social and environmental performance is reported out in one report every quarter. So it's very high on the agenda and has been so for many years. And I'm really proud to say that by 2020, all of our manufacturing facilities will be supplied with renewable energy. We have built capacity around our factories by working in partnerships to create solutions that being windmills or solar power power plants that would supply our factories to the tune that we are 100% covered in our supply chain by 2020 circularity is also an agenda that's been with us for some time. We, we've worked in a symbiosis of 27 companies in one of our areas. Making sure that the waste of one company became the resource of another very, very exciting things. We just launched recently our new environmental strategy that aims towards 2030, and it is under the headline of circular for cereal. We want to make sure that we collaborate with our suppliers to find solutions to eliminate our environmental footprint. We want with all the choices we make internally, the company to uh, to redesign, to make sure that we leave no nowhere environment to impact. And we want to redesign and look at our products to see how can we, uh, how can we change our products to, to the circular principles in South. Actually also the end of life waste challenge that is, uh, associated with our products. So we've just launched the new strategy and, and it certainly, um, certainly a very aggressive one that we are now having mobilized the pool organizations to find solution to together with our partners as much as, as bringing along everyone in the company to find the solutions to do this. And that is, that is exciting times. It is how can we work with our transportation partners to make sure that the, there was a[inaudible] omission a coming from that when we can only do that in partnership, not as individual companies, but make sure that our suppliers with us on the journey, it is working and, and, and favoring suppliers that are thinking environmentally sustainable solutions as well. We want to make sure that the 50% of our key materials are sustainable by by 2030 that we have Ciro CO2 footprint from our key suppliers by 2030. Um, and, um, and that they, we can find solutions for, uh, for, for half of, of the products that we have out there by 2030. So quite radically rethinking the footprint. Ultimately we want to go for civil impact across the board.
Speaker 3:That's, yeah, that's, that's fantastic. And the sooner the better. We definitely needed them. The planet definitely needs it. Final question from you Suzanne. Um, what is the best career advice you have received? You have come a long way. You have had an incredible journey and incredible career and looking back, um, and especially we have a lot of young people and professionals listening to this. We have, um, mid level professionals, we have senior professionals. What would be a piece of advice that you've received and that helped you a lot through the journey?
Speaker 4:Well, there are a couple of good advices I've gotten. I think one of the more simple ones is this one of being yourself. I think I was so impressed with the, when I was right out of school when I met senior executives and thing, but, but I, I would say that at the starting point please just be true to your own beliefs. Be true to your own personality, be true to the thought that you have and, and voice out what you think. And not trying to be too much a mirror of what you think other people may expect of you. It's a very simple advice, but at all times I prefer to surround my people, be surrounded by people that are just speaking their voice and being themselves rather than trying to be something they are not. I'm sorry. It's, it's that simple. Second thing that I've, that I've learned in advice and that I also promote to people is that thing that the job that you've been granted is, it's just this, this starting point in all positions. Depending on your energy, your experience, your, um, your visions, there is a possibility to push the boundaries. So your initial job description, that's basically just filling the minimum but apply or push the boundaries of any job, the con job content where you think that you can make a real difference. So that's why I also like to rotate people in my organization. Not because I think I'm, I'm, um, I'm, and I'm addressing something that's not working, but because new eyes will see new opportunities and if people always try to apply and go where their, their enthusiasm and the energy is, they will push the boundaries to what can be done. And so at certain points you, you've, you've come so far in a job, someone else needs to come along and, and push new ways. And, and then for myself, what I try to do is I'd try to push myself as well in terms of my knowledge, my understanding at this moment in times is educating myself on, on the technologies that weren't there when I took my engineering degree 25 years ago. So that I can start pushing the boundaries of my current job, my current understanding of what can be done. So, so, so be yourself and push boundaries would be probably be the two key points I would promote.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Suzanne. Great advice. And um, many things for all the good, the sharing case studies and examples and uh, and in concrete the stories that you shared with us in the transformation journey thus far in Northern Orvis. And good luck to, to keep it running, to keep pushing the boundaries and to keep traveling far by traveling together. Thank you. Super. Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to go to www.ellicottglobal.com and click the podcast button for all the show notes of the interview. Also subscribe to our mailing list to get our latest updates. First, if you're listening through a streaming platform like iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher, we would appreciate a kind review five-star works best to keep us going and our production team happy and of course share it with your friends. I'm most active on LinkedIn, so do feel free to follow me and if you have any suggestions on what what to do and who to invite next, don't hesitate to drop me a note. And if you're looking to hire top executives in supply chain or transform your business, of course, contact us as well to find out how we can help.