44. Sonia Ferreira: Inside Maersk’s Innovation Ecosystem

Sonia is a global executive, board member and strategic advisor with over 20 years of experience across Europe, USA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Bringing a blend of commercial strategy, technology leadership and innovation expertise, with a focus on enterprise-level decision-making, long-term value creation and responsible growth.

She's led and overseen digital transformation, product innovation and global commercial initiatives across multiple industries, supporting organizations as they navigate scale, complexity, risk and disruption. Contributes a forward-looking perspective on innovation, AI, sustainability and ecosystem partnerships, grounded in practical experience operating across mature and emerging markets.

Sonia serves ona number of boards and advisory councils including Stanford Seed, Harvard Business Review and the European Innovation Council, contributing to governance, strategy, and long-term value creation across global organizations.. Recognized for sound judgment, constructive challenge and the ability to operate effectively at board level across cultures and geographies.

Transcript

Intro 0:00

What's it worth? Uh uh. Uh-oh. Uh-uh. What's it worth?

Simon Hill 0:07

Uh uh uh Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the Total Innovation Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Simon Hill. Innovation inside a global industrial giant is very different from innovation inside, let's say, a startup. It's about operational complexity, long investment cycles, customer commitments often measured in decades, and thousands of people across terminals, vessels, logistics networks, and sustainability programs all moving in synchronization. Now layer into that challenge are the idea of co-creation within a vast complex ecosystem, not innovating in isolation, but building new capabilities with customers, partners, suppliers, and more, trying to test them together, scale them together, sharing risk, sharing learning, sharing as much as we can. Today's guest sits at the center of those questions inside one of the world's most influential logistics organizations. She leads the global innovation ecosystem efforts across ocean terminals, ocean terminals, sustainability and integrated logistics, helping connect customers, partners, and internal teams in ways that make innovation real, operational, and scalable. Sounds great, right? And with all that, I'm delighted to welcome to the show Sonia Ferreira. Welcome, Sonia.

Sonia Ferreira 1:33

Thank you. Thank you. Uh nice being here, and thank you for having me on your show. I'm really excited to be here.

Simon Hill 1:39

No, this is this is what I've been looking forward to. You and I, you and I met um, I guess sort of in in in less usual ways, I think sort of more online than than in the real world, but maybe you can correct me on that. So yeah, I'm glad we've I'm glad we've come together and we're gonna have this discussion. Maybe you can start. I gave a kind of high-level introduction as I'm prone to do in this, but start by introducing yourself and your role at Mesh, particularly focusing on how you how you got into this position and how you're trying to drive innovation within such a massive and established global logistics company.

Sonia Ferreira 2:13

Sure. So um I have to say that uh the journey has been nothing but uh fulfilling and and really rewarding over the the all the years that I've been in the group. So I've been in the group for more than 20 years. I've started in operations in what we call supply chain management and move into many different uh uh sales roles within the organization. Um, and then uh experience uh working with startups as part of our corporate venture capital armors growth. And so this is where I actually saw the need to drive innovation at a broader level within the different operation teams and um uh commercial teams and across the broader organization. And so right now I'm uh leading uh uh the global innovation ecosystem as part of our product, uh one of our own products, which is uh uh leading uh supply chain management. We have other innovation teams also uh within the organization, but I also help them uh be in contact within global innovation ecosystem and our innovation partners.

Simon Hill 3:22

I'm always interested in what the route is into innovation, right? There's no there's no sort of natural, you know, starting an early sales role and you wait all the way through into something else. Um the journey from sales is is an interesting one, actually. And and we did maybe we should we should talk a little bit more around what whether that gives you a health or perspective in some of the things that you're doing. Um before we do though, is like we're gonna talk a little bit about uh co-creation and ecosystems a lot and a little bit. I'm gonna talk a lot about it in this in this in this conversation. In that context, maybe you can just uh just set the scene a little bit. Many organizations struggle to move beyond simply doing innovation to understanding its broader impact. And I understand at most that innovation is closely linked to customer need and co-creation, right? We've discussed that. And I think that's customer need pieces, it's obviously critical. So, how do you approach innovation through partnership with customers, with ecosystem? And what are some of the challenges that you see in doing that, particularly well? I was gonna say particularly around sort of getting to impact, but but maybe maybe that's leading the witness a little bit more, and um, maybe it's from the early journeys of discovery work to, you know, as we said earlier, you're making long-term investments here. So, like what does what are some of the challenges? Just set the scene a little bit for us, and then we'll go a bit deeper.

Sonia Ferreira 4:38

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest uh decisions that we've made over the last few years is that we really want to drive innovation uh uh together with our customers and making sure we meet their needs and and also uncover some of their challenges that they're also facing with their own uh companies and their own consumers or other uh clients in the future. So uh we tackle a really broad uh, let's say, uh type of industries, right? So we work with other B2B industries like chemical or industrial, but we also work with B2C industries like retail lifestyle, our FMCG clients. So the differences in challenges and the ways that their own innovation works for the for our clients is something that we've been uh paying a really uh big attention to in the last few years. And this is where like we really want to make sure with wherever we're building, if we're building together with our clients. And we have also their commitment that they we will work together towards what we are uh bringing to the market, right? So it's not that they see us also uh only as a service provider, but also a partner where they can build some of this innovation. And sometimes we also feel that some of the innovation that is needed is so um time consuming and resource consuming that no company can do it on their own. So if they will try to do it on their own, it will be super difficult. And if we also try to do it on our own, it is also very difficult. So because we have this cross-industry um approach and also with a lot of information and historic information and data that we can use to also understand what we should be focusing on, we try to make sure we leverage that to focus on the the right things and and and bring innovation that is important for our clients.

Simon Hill 6:37

How do you know what some of those right things are um in terms of what you're what you're focusing on? And as you as you said, and maybe you can just talk a little bit uh to the scale of marriage. I'm sure people are somewhat familiar with the name, they've probably seen it in in various places, but perhaps don't don't fully comprehend the the scale, you know, talked about it a little bit in terms of of in my in my introduction, but it's it's a hugely complex arena that you're working in as well when we're thinking about innovation.

Sonia Ferreira 7:04

Yeah, so we are a 120-year-old company that is present in 130 countries with 100,000 people. Um, and we are present at uh terminals uh with also different transportation uh um modes. So we have our own vessels, but we also operate with uh uh landside, what we call landside, which is inland haulage. We have customs, we have air, we have warehouses, we have e-commerce also, uh is one of the latest products to be added to our portfolio for the last years. And we have also the area that I work, which is within the supply chain management, which is basically the technological layer that links all the different products together. So uh it's highly complex in terms of um teams, but also in terms of cultures, because of course we have to operate at a very high level and efficient level to make sure we deliver for our clients wherever the cargo is coming from or wherever the cargo is going to. Um, and also give them the right information at the time that they need it to make the best decisions.

Simon Hill 8:16

So, and I and I guess I mean there was lots of big numbers in all of that, right? The company's been around for a long time, it operates in a lot of different jurisdictions, and it has a lot of people before you even get into the multiplier effects of your supply chain, your customers at the other end of it. I mean, we're talking about you know millions and millions of people and the the fabric of global global commerce in many ways, right? The way that stuff moves around the around planet Earth is underpinned by all of it. How then how do you do innovation in that context? Um, uh you've talked about this approach of in partnering with it, but you know, many are struggling to innovate in a far less complex setting than that. So, how how do you how do you build a true innovation ecosystem? How do you even know where to start?

Sonia Ferreira 9:01

Yes, I I think we we try to make sure we stay as close to our customers as possible and we understand where where they're go what they're going through and where they're heading in terms of their own struggles or innovation, let's say, challenges. Uh so we think that's very important. Uh, we also stay very close to the market and try to understand what is happening, for example, with all this geopolitical uncertainty and what does that mean in terms of uh some of the uh things that we feel that are needed for our customers that maybe were not so needed uh uh before. Um so also we feel there's a lot of disruption from um what's happening um across the different supply chain from the what we call the fragmented data sets, because uh there's information that only sits in within parts of, let's say, the bigger uh pool of data, and then how you link it all together. So if you, for example, think about something uh what we call, for example, a stock keeping unit of a t-shirt, right? Or of a jacket or a shoe, uh, what are the different components where that comes from with the different raw materials that that needs to come from? So then it's produced somewhere, but then it's uh shipped from one location to 20 others or 30 others with many different components of part of the transportation part that can go wrong. Uh, and so managing that complexity is something that our clients, of course, have been doing for uh quite some time, but the challenges are new, and then we try to make sure we understand those challenges and come back with solutions uh as much as possible. But I think the biggest, one of the biggest transformations that we also see is the technological side of it uh recently with AI, um trying to uncover some of the uh decisions uh uh that are being made in supply chain and how we can also use that to bring our clients more certainty or uh um reliability in some of the decisions they make, or postpone some of the decisions because in supply chain, because you're always trying to predict what the custom what the final consumer or what the market will need, sometimes the what you're trying to decide maybe the wrong decision, because you make you're trying to make that decision 30 days in advance, or sometimes even more, six months in advance. So the more, the later you can make the decision, the better the decision will be. And so this is also some of the things that we uh try to uncover. Um, and we also learn a lot from different innovation partners that we work with, that that of course going through the same journey as we are.

Simon Hill 11:43

Huge amounts of complexity. And you've said you said many times, you know, sort of listening to the customer needs. How just you talk a little bit about how you how you get to those again, and how do you deal with the signal-to-noise challenge that many of us have, but you must have coming from all different directions in uh in everyday life, I would have thought.

Sonia Ferreira 12:01

Yes. So we're staying really close to our colleagues that are in the frontline talking to our clients on a day-to-day. So the commercial teams, the customer experience teams, and other teams that uh talk to clients on it on a frequent basis. We also gather a lot of information from our um regular meetings that we have that uh uh from the account teams and manage different accounts, and they come back with some of the information of things that are not working or things that the client is needing. So a lot of them is structured through this constant flow of information that we have with some of uh or most of our clients. Some of it also we we we are doing it in a different way right now. We're also engaging with clients directly just on innovation. So some of them through different uh uh events that we uh attend that are innovation-specific events, and our clients are also there with their innovation team. So we have conversations around innovation together in this event. Um, we also have uh a recent uh uh structure where we deal with some clients directly just to discuss innovation uh in a broader way where we go through ideation process with them. So we try to understand what they would like to focus on on the future of some of the struggles that they have. We also share some of the ongoing initiatives or projects that we are doing as in terms of pilots or proof of concepts, and then we uh co-create together. So they either we decide to launch a new proof of concept or something that they have brought up, or then they uh decide they may want to enroll in some of the things that we are already discussing and testing. And so this is how we we we prepare uh our different uh innovation portfolio together with our clients and manage some of the ideas that we are currently uh testing.

Simon Hill 13:58

I know that you and I have spoken about the topic of uh measuring and demonstrating impact. Um this feels like it's a particularly complex one for for you guys, but so many different stakeholders and potentially the uh the impact lying elsewhere in the value chain of the work that you're doing. So when you've got such a complex setting, when you've got uh long-term investment cycles invested in involved as well, I guess how do you think about measurement and also how do you think about how does the company, too much you can talk about this, think about innovation as a uh you know longer-term strategic bet than perhaps you would think? It feels like it's it's absolutely essential in a business like this, perhaps less so when you've got sort of big long-term capex investments happening alongside other other investments as well. What can you can you talk about on that?

Sonia Ferreira 14:52

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um so uh we normally try to, when we measure innovation, we always try to measure based on again, like uh coming from customers' feedback and what do they really need and what they verbalize and tell us that they really need in terms of drive uh uh for innovation for from a technology perspective or features or capabilities that they tell us that the market uh uh already has, and we should also focus on. So we it always comes from, or most of the times comes from the client's uh ask and specific uh uh requirements. And and at the same time, it also uh we're also trying to measure in a way that it brings us back to not only the size of the market or size of the opportunity or size of the innovation and the impact of that innovation in the market, uh, but the urgency of that innovation. And this is where like uh reading your book was super interesting to also uncover some of how we can track and measure all these different uh parts of the variables that make a difference in getting a final, let's say, number that allows us to compare some of the initiatives and innovations that we're working on against each other because some of them are so different, right? So we of course we compare within our own scope, within the supply chain management scope, but there's other initiatives that are happening, uh especially with investments and and others. So um I think that it is really important that we have something that uh supports us in making better decisions as we move along, especially with this need for speed that we feel from the market now. So uh, and and this is something that I feel sometimes it is difficult to make decisions fast because to your point, there's so many stakeholders that need to be involved and decide on that decision. So uh yeah, so we need to take continue to take steps to um to decide better and faster.

Simon Hill 17:04

Work in progress. And thank you. Thank you for the feedback on the book. I know something that you guys are are digging into and and exploring, and I appreciate that massively. Thank you. Um I'm gonna I want to dig a little bit more into some of the specifics, right? We we've spoken about your role within the supply chain management innovation ecosystem, or and and I guess kind of open innovation ecosystem, maybe maybe as well, if I may. Um the term ecosystem is often used. It's I think we're gonna see it even more often used. Hopefully, not to the point where it gets so so abused that people don't use it anymore, because I think it's gonna be super important. I saw a start recently from I think McKinsey that as much as 30% of all global money will pass through ecosystems by the end of this decade, which I couldn't figure out, I thought was small or big, but whatever way, it's a very big number, right? Um, it also made me think a little bit about how much still doesn't, right? There's a lot of very local, local money still moving around in a variety of different ways. Uh but even that makes you think, well, what the hell is this ecosystem, right? And what does it what does it mean, right? An ecosystem is designed to be symbiotic, right? What does that mean in a large corporation uh setting, right? Like is a true symbiosis possible? And maybe you can give some concrete examples and in your explanation of this of what it really means, even right? Like it's you know, there's the the description's good, the pinpoint is complex and well articulated, but what does it mean? Or does the day-to-day look like? What are you what are you doing? And and you know, the more tangible you can be, the the the better. And what is an ecosystem in your in your in your in your world?

Sonia Ferreira 18:46

Yeah, so um I think ecosystem can mean different things. So for us, we actually see it both internally and externally. So externally uh we do work with the innovation partners for some time. So either through our uh uh CBC arm or scrolls that with other VCs or CBCs, for example, and startups. Uh uh, we have other innovation teams that also work with other startups or uh incubators, accelerator programs. So we've been doing it for uh some time. Um we also uh work with academia, uh leading academia in different locations, US, uh, Europe, Asia, uh, trying to learn what they're doing and also a lot of the information that they're putting out there in terms of the market. Um but but I feel that the ecosystem, let's say, meaning, it it uh it has to be both ways, right? So it's not only what we get out of it, but also with our what our partners get out of it and how we can learn together. So it is symbiotic in this co-learning uh, let's say, mindset. And in that sense, I think that our customers are also part of the ecosystem. So we because not only they they help us co-create and ideate, we ide together, but because we're also uh very much uh in touch with their own innovation teams, which are also going through their own uh challenges or different opportunities, and they also have their own ecosystems with their own startups and other partners and suppliers. So it's almost like we learn together in terms of what not only what we should be doing, but how we should be doing. Uh, and I think this is uh uh one of the most exciting parts. Um, and internally, um it's also uh very important because we are a massive organization, as you mentioned, and because we are uh very B2B focused, we are very, of course, execution focused, and we need to perform and deliver at a very high level every day uh for our clients. And so innovation is not front of mind for a lot of our colleagues uh uh across the organization, right? Because of course there's other things that they also need to uh focus on. So we really want to make sure we bring uh um our colleagues along and make sure they also feel empowered and part of the innovation journey and that they can feel that they have a voice and they can participate and be part of some of these conversations and feel that they also created new solutions and new products together with us, right? So it's a continuous journey, uh, but we feel that we're also taking the right steps to drive this internal and external ecosystem uh together. Uh, in terms of some examples, so I think which is not within exactly our um the scope that I work with, but for example, one of the good examples of MERSC uh uh bringing innovation to market through an ecosystem is this new Gemini network that we've designed and we launched recently, which we completely transform how the industry operates in terms of uh uh ocean transportation. And we created this network of different hubs that we've been uh creating and investing for a real long time to make sure we can bring the reliability of the ocean transportation to above 90%, which was what it was in the past. But after COVID, on general, it was reduced to like 60%. And this was the industry average. And now we've completely redesigned the way that we work as a company from the ocean perspective and brought something to the market that is completely different than any other player. So this is it takes a really long time, and of course, has you have to have the vision to see how you can do differently, and of course, then the time and resources to uh put it together and launch it. And but it's it's a very successful um launch for some of uh the things that uh my uh ocean colleagues were have been working on.

Simon Hill 23:00

Amazing, and uh it's always nice to hear some impactful, impactful stories. There's a few things I just want to pull on on on in the in the answer you gave, um and a little bit from something earlier as as well. Um I'm gonna start with this question around AI. Um, and you know, it's everywhere at the moment in terms of topic of conversation. I'm not sure I had a strong opinion on whether I thought AI would, you know, obviously master. I mean, there's lots of areas of your business I can imagine it would be hugely trans transformational for. And in many discussions with people, there's also vast areas that perhaps it won't really have much impact in in at all. How are you, how are you as a maybe I can talk about it in your role rather than me asking you to speak on behalf of the whole company, but how are you thinking about AI? And how would you say if you look back, I don't know, a couple of years, you said you've been, you know, you've been in and around the business for 20. Um, does it does it change the lens of innovation um within the context that we're working within the sort of sense of the paradigm shift that it feels like it has from a discourse level, actually at a sort of practical level in the business?

Sonia Ferreira 24:08

Yes, so I I think the biggest difference is speed. So the speed with AI in terms of either getting to a conclusion on something, for example, on data, having to assess or extract information from data, now it's extremely fast, right? So yeah you we may say that we're not sure it's 100% correct all the time, but it is extremely fast to extrapolate trends or analytics in general, or uh things that we should look into, for example, when we uh analyze big sets of data. Another thing is the velocity that you can uh build things or at least test things. So I think in the past there was uh a lot of um time that had to be considered for testing uh and building. And I think now what we see from a lot of uh from internal teams but also innovation partners that we work with is that something can be built really fast because of uh uh the different AI involved in those products. So the decision can be made faster. Of course, again, to our previous discussion, it doesn't mean that the mechanisms for making decisions allow them to be made faster, right? Because there's still a lot of confidentiality concerns, privacy issues, uh data usage, of course, uh regulatory uh concerns and legal concerns. Um but at the same time, the the possibilities are there. Uh it's just to understand like how companies can actually change the way they work to uh make the best use of it, right? Um and I think it also brings like it almost democratizes a lot of access to innovation because it will give you access to things that maybe you didn't know before. I remember being in this event and there was a speaker there, and he was saying that his daughter wanted to build an app and he helped to build an app, and then he incentivizes all to build apps using a specific tool that I won't mention here. And he's actually, I've tried it and it works. It's like it's almost like you see the output of what you were you had in your mind. Well, in the past, you couldn't actually do it. You have to hire somebody to do it on your behalf, and then you didn't know how it worked, right? So now everybody, uh uh one of us can actually do it. And there's a lot of companies that are being built on these like open source tools. So, like it also democratizes how much you can build your own company and use all these open source tools to launch and scale and bring value to market uh in a very different way that uh we will do in the past. So it means that competition can be also bigger and larger than that.

Simon Hill 27:04

Like it feels like there have there have been huge motes of defensibility around the business for a very long time, many of those big numbers of years that the business has been around. Does it feel like that there's a bit more vulnerability in certain parts of the organization as a consequence of this? Or are those big modes still mostly mostly there, in your opinion?

Sonia Ferreira 27:25

No, I would say yes. I think that is it it is important that we understand there there's a lot of uh new incumbents, you know, new entries to the market that we would not expect. Because it's it's much easier for us to be disrupted by, of course, companies that build something, which is sometimes like specifically niche, but it really uh resonates with customers or really brings something that it hasn't been tested or been able, we haven't been able to crack before. So it's not only for us, it's for all the traditional players in the industry, I would say. Um of course, we have to be uh very uh attentive to what's happening in the market with the newcomers, um, because they also bring a very fresh perspective in what what they're doing and how they're doing things, right? Um but I think it's a good challenge to have. So I think uh it's good that when we see things that we haven't thought about, uh and that is why we it really is it's also part of the ecosystem uh benefits, right? So we engage with them afterwards and see how we can do something together.

Simon Hill 28:32

Yeah, I uh I like this positive outlook on it as well. It feels like it's a it's an exciting time for the industry in many ways. You talked you talked about you know fostering this culture where employees also have access and can innovate together. Sometimes, and I'm interested a little bit in your journey in this as well. The route into innovation, as we said, as a job inside the business is one thing, but this idea that we're trying to get everybody to innovate with and for us is is can sometimes feel quite daunting to people, right? You know, is innovation a dark art or not? Um and I'm curious how I guess in two bits really, how do you go about making sure this feels like it's something that is accessible to people? And and maybe there's a skills element to this, somewhat linked to the AI discussion we were just having as well. Um and uh I'm gonna ask the bigger the other question alongside it because I somewhat hesitate because I think there's an element of building specialism and building general general skills in all of this, but what was your the your journey in from you know not innovation to innovation in terms of I guess building your professional skills around innovational management?

Sonia Ferreira 29:40

Yeah, so um I was just thinking if I would start with the first question of the second. No, so um so I think what we try to identify internally, and I completely understand what you mean about being a little bit daunting too, for uh uh the the different parts of the kind of of the organization feel that they need to execute, perform, and deliver, but I also uh uh need to now uh be contributing with the idea. So we open the floor and we we have different mechanisms for people to contribute. Of course, they don't have to contribute, it's not a mandatory feature. Uh what we're trying to do is excite them, excite them to feel that they want to be part of it and they can be part of it if they want to, right? Um, but we're also selecting a few profiles with people that have the right uh um experience and and also access to also support us in driving innovation uh together with the uh the local teams. Um so it's not only uh, let's say, a centralized uh effort, because we really want to make sure this is driven from uh uh the frontline uh colleagues as well. And they they have sometimes different needs or different perception of what is a priority in regards to maybe what we may be focusing on. So we really try to not only give them access, but of course making sure that they know that we are available, but uh instilling the tools and the mechanism and the network within the local organizations that they know that they can have access to this ideation and co-creation uh methodologies and innovation workshops uh whenever they are, uh whenever they feel it's needed and whenever they feel it's relevant. On my own personal journey, so again, because I have uh started with uh operations and then sales, traveled extensively with clients from many different uh parts of the world, uh and and I actually really saw how important it is to for you to really go deep into the challenges and the problems and have an open uh uh mindset and trying to see what you can bring more than what you already have, right? So I think a lot of the innovation uh uh, let's say, drive came from this deep knowledge of what clients uh needed, and also given like the global reach of what we do, how sometimes one thing that worked in one location maybe didn't work in another location. So, how how important it is, of course, we we have a lot of uh standardization, but we also have things that we understand that need to be um uh customized for specific locations, for example, in terms of offering or uh a way that we we manage a specific product. So um, and then uh I had uh some years ago an experience of working with a startup that became one of our clients. I think is one of one of the first clients that we have that was a startup. And the way that they work was quite really quite mind-blowing in the how how fast they iterate and pivot and change and make decisions. So I think this really opened the door for me in terms of um understanding the big differences between the traditional corporate world and the startup world and how important it is that they work together. So in this case, they were still uh a customer of ours, but then we tried to understand how we could actually collaborate in some of the uh uh solutions that we were looking into. And and with that, I started working with startups much more in my personal time and being a mentor and an expert with different uh uh uh incubator accelerator programs, and and and I this is where like it all made sense for me, right? So when you when you actually see that you have your corporate perspective and experience and how you can learn from how startups uh bring uh uh innovation to the market and how fast they they uh um move and also change whenever something is needed, um, and how you can take those learnings uh inside to the corporate world and also how you can help them talk to the corporate world because eventually they most of them want to sell, uh the ones that are in B2B. Most of the startups want to sell to corporates eventually. So you're also uh trying to support them and see how um corporates make decisions and uh and can uh facilitate some of their own uh growth and expansion journey. So uh, and with that, it's when I also so most more or less at the same time that I moved to the CBC arm, I've also started to working with uh other institutions like uh MIT, Sandbox Innovation Fund, Stanford Seed, and now the European Innovation Council Scaling Club with deep tech scale-ups in Europe. So trying to bring some of my experience and my knowledge uh from the both worlds, working with both worlds to how we drive innovation at a broader scale, um, and and trying to make my contribution to the innovation community.

Simon Hill 35:02

So it's a constant learning journey that's built on a deep knowledge of what the client needs. I love that. I think it's I think that's that's that's a nice summary. Um thank you. There's there's one term you used, and we're gonna start wrapping us towards the close in a bit at a comments. There's one term you used in in some of our prep discussion, um, which I hadn't don't think I'd heard before, but I quite liked. So that I think you said it as this concept of invisible innovation. Um I'm gonna give it to you as one of yours, even if it's not, because I hadn't heard it before. So you can have it as a Sonya term. Um can you just talk a little bit about what that means um and why, you know, I like the concept of it, but it comes with its own challenges to a degree, but I think it's it's a big reward mechanism somehow. So what is it? What is invisible innovation?

Sonia Ferreira 35:45

Yes, so I think what I meant with that was that uh so a lot of logistics, it's almost invisible to the client, for the final consumer, for example, right? So what we do when somebody goes to a store and buys something, like there's so much things, so many things that happen in the background before that garment or that book or that uh whatever article you're buying uh got there, right? And and so it's almost like we have this invisible, I sometimes say that we work in this invisible layer that nobody knows like exactly how things get somewhere. Um and and whatever you're driving innovation, because it's what whatever you're working on is invisible, the innovation is also invisible. So uh when you're a final consumer, you're not really sure if the car uh uh arrived earlier or the production was facilitated because the raw materials were all on time, or because uh you can keep track of decisions and then the right product at the right place at the right time. So there's so many things that a lot of the people from the industry are aware, but the average consumer maybe is not aware because it's completely invisible. And even if you change a lot of things, they they will still be invisible for the final consumer because they didn't know how they were before or or the impact. So this is where like it is quite an interesting um world to uh to be part of because uh you know what you're doing, but uh, of course it's it is still uh quite invisible for a lot of people. Um but don't do it for the recognition, right? We do it because we know that we can. Exactly.

Simon Hill 37:29

That's almost that's that that's that's that's even more profound now, I think. Um all right, we're gonna get on the bandwidth again of Sonia's invisible innovation. I think this is uh it's a future book for you in this, I'm telling you. Um I I'm gonna close us with a question. Again, I I didn't surprise you with many in this one. Um, but you've been on this, you've been on a learning journey. You're on a learning journey. Um, many would love to imitate and mirror the types of successes that you're having. It seems like you've got a hugely supportive organization around you in terms of learning as well. Um, you're not allowed to say my book, it's not a tee up for like pleasant you know, compliments here. But is this is there one, it can be a book, it can be a network, it can be an event. Is there something that you would say, look, if you're if you're around the space or if you're looking to sort of follow in my footsteps a little bit, this is my one area I would go to that that will that will help you to move from, I don't know, zero to one or one to two in terms of of learning and accelerating some of that learning for people.

Sonia Ferreira 38:26

Yeah. So one of the things that one of the books, early books that I read and that really changed my perspective on uh a few things was a book called Range. And it really shows like how different people from a very different part of the industry can incorporate and add value to another industry. So it's not like everybody should know only about their own thing and the the importance of expanding your knowledge and bringing and connecting the dots from different areas. Uh, so because I felt that I was already doing that, but uh at the time I didn't know exactly why I was uh uh following that path, but everything made sense for me and I understood uh how it changed my perspective because I could uh connect the dots from many different areas, and and this is also drove my uh approach to connecting the dots between corporate and and the startup world, for example.

Simon Hill 39:26

Um I love asking this question because I always discover books that I haven't read, even though I feel like I've read all of them. So thank you. I haven't read that book.

Sonia Ferreira 39:33

That's so pretty. And then more recently, I also have to uh uh express my uh I'd say admiration for uh one of the events that we've been uh participating in. It's very interesting. It's it's called Innovation Roundtable, it's uh uh where different corporate innovators meet and discuss innovation challenges and uh the future uh together. So we are a member uh and we also get to learn a lot from these uh events.

Simon Hill 40:08

I think getting getting getting like-minded people together and being able to do that. It's just uh a mixture of learning and therapy in many ways. I so um thank you very much. If anybody listening wants to contact you, how do they best find you?

Sonia Ferreira 40:24

Uh they can just reach out to me via LinkedIn, or then uh if they want to send me an email, it's uh my first and last name and then at MERS.com.

Simon Hill 40:35

All right, great. Um, you're pretty active on LinkedIn, people can find you on there, and you've got some great content as well. Uh Sanya, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. I'm glad we finally made this happen. Um, between my logistics and and life, um, I'm glad we finally got here. What stands out for me here is this discipline of linking the direct knowledge and deep knowledge of customer needs and the courage to co-create in these complex operational environments, still recognizing that it's complex, right? That we're dealing with the challenges of, as you said, decision intelligence and measuring uncertainty earlier. But it also feels like you've got a hugely supportive organization around you, right? And I'm sure that there's lots that we couldn't talk about and didn't talk about today that that are still big challenges. But congratulations on what you've done and on this evolving journey of you know trying to drive net new value into what is this invisible layer of innovation that we're that we're working towards. Um, as a deep lesson for organizations that are facing similar challenges in this ever accelerating world, innovation at scale is not about theatre. It's not even really about activity, I think. It's about partnership, it's about operational integration, and you know, a lot of this about long-term value creation. So thanks again for joining us, Sonia. We look forward to seeing how MEIS continues to shape the future of global logistics or maybe not seeing if it's nicely invisible and how through innovation led through ecosystems. So, everybody, thank you again for listening. As always, please hit subscribe. Sonia is one of many interesting chats we've got this season, and obviously there's legacy seasons gone before as well. Until next time, thanks everybody. Keep innovating, and I'll see you soon.

Intro 42:21

Uh uh. Uh uh. Uh uh. What's it worth? Uh uh uh