Hannah Kain is the CEO and Founder of ALOM, a global supply chain, contract packaging, and fulfillment company with a footprint on five continents and 19 locations. headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. ALOM serves Fortune 100 and leading customers worldwide in the technology, medical, automotive, telecommunications, and government sectors.
Prior to founding ALOM in 1997 in Fremont, California, Hannah Kain held various management and executive positions dating back to 1983, with a wide range of experience in the packaging industry since 1990.
Listen to the full discussion here:
- Listen on Stitcher
Connect with the Guest:
Hannah Kain: LinkedIn
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- The journey of a female entrepreneur creating a global supply chain pioneer across 19 countries
- Being the first to invent extranet in the industry
- Prioritizing connectivity, flexibility, and cybersecurity
- How COVID-19 is going to shape the future of supply chain
- Gender diversity – one of the keys to success
Show Notes:
- [01:25] I wanted to first and foremost, start with your personal story because it’s absolutely a unique one. Tell us a little bit about that.
- [03:03] One of the things that are really important for me is to live a life of no regrets and to fight to find things and to have an open mind.
- [03:51] For a five-year-old, how would you explain what you do as a company?
- [04:54] Generally, all customers have their own technology, so we tend to help them configure products and get them out to the consumer in a manner that really makes it easy to use.
- [05:52] Tell us a little bit about the story behind the company.
- [07:42] When we started up, we were probably the first company in the industry to have extranet as it was called at that time, now you call them a customer portal, but in 1997, that was unheard of.
- [08:06] Could you share some of your client’s success stories and how did you help them?
- [10:07] What we typically would do our client is we build a website, it is branded for that client and that automaker. If you go in, you will think that you are doing business with them but we are running everything in the background.
- [13:52] Can you tell us a little bit more about your technology systems?
- [14:38] What we have done over the years is taking off the shelf systems in as fast as possible and customize them for all our needs and for our customer’s needs while prioritizing connectivity, flexibility, and cybersecurity.
- [19:09] How do you see this major health crisis and economic crisis shape the future of supply chains in the next 12, 24, 36 months?
- [20:04] We will see e-commerce growing and lots of opportunities, shift in demand and we’re going to continue to see a supply problem.
- [23:18] In Africa, truck drivers are tested each time they cross a border and the entire supply chain has been disrupted with what would normally take maybe a week, now takes six weeks.
- [25:31] There’s been a lot of discussions, especially in the last years in terms of how do we achieve more diversity? Any sharings for women out there who may want to step on this journey? Any war scars?
- [27:15] So my advice for the five-year-old girl who is sitting and listening to this is if you have a dream figure out a way to make that dream come true.
- [28:33] In the last couple of years, there has been a strong push across fortune 500 companies in terms of having more women in the C-suite or having more women on board, how do you see that?
- [29:04] I believe that there are going to be winners and losers in the marketplace. And I believe that the losers are the ones who don’t understand that you need to have an intrusive thought process. I feel that diverse companies have a much better chance of success.
- [34:26] I think that women are very used to having their competency questioned and that creates shyness. If you’ve got to justify all the time your competency, you want to be 100% sure that you’re competent before you sign up for something.
- [37:06] What is the best career advice that you could share for the young folks out there who are listening and trying to make a career for themselves or trying to set up their own business?
- [37:20] Love what you do. So when you get a task or take a job, always give your best; always think about how you can make it better and what it takes to be successful. So be very deliberate about how you want to spend your time and your years, and what is important for you.
Quote from the Episode:
About the Host:
The host, Radu Palamariu is the co-author of “From Source to Sold – Stories of Leadership in Supply Chain”. He has been named one of the top 3 Global Supply Chain Influencers on LinkedIn and was featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, WEF, Bangkok Post, and MIT Supply Chain Talent magazine. Radu invites executives to share stories and perspectives around technology, logistics, e-commerce, supply chain, and manufacturing, and their views on how the future will look.
Alcott Global connects and upgrades the supply chain ecosystem by finding the right talent through executive search, developing talent through learning solutions, and meeting supply chain technology needs through a comprehensive crunch base marketplace.
The supply chain executive search has been our focus since the very beginning, offering recruitment services for top-tier supply chain roles at every level of the end-to-end supply chain: plan, source / procure, make, and deliver. Our consultants have years of experience in placing top talent, in North America, LATAM, Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and APAC, and besides speed, one of our biggest strengths is our network within the supply chain industry, and we capitalize on it to find the best solutions.
Through the years, we have grown as an organization and our offerings with it. One of our initiatives, the learning solutions- training and supply chain academy, is focused on transforming leadership- self-leadership, executive presence, influence capital, and business acumen. Through Supplify, we aim to match corporations with the top technology companies to solve their supply chain and logistics challenges with a focus on innovation and digital transformation.
We are in constant touch with the leaders in supply chain, inviting them to inspire the supply chain professionals in thought-provoking podcast episodes and events, and showcasing what is possible at the yearly Leaders in Supply Chain Awards.
Related Episodes:
#04: Roxane Desmicht Head of Supply Chain at Infineon Technologies
