Jill Coleman

I would attribute my success to strong relationships and being open and willing to jump into new opportunities. Also, being flexible and adaptable has been really important. I've always worked at really small brands where things change a lot - every new day is different. So much of my role is about planning and making that goal plan, but knowing that things are going to change. Having that adaptability and building that muscle, and not getting too stuck in a 'this is how we do things' sort of mentality, has been crucial to my success.

I would say that something that's really helped me in my career is being open to new opportunities and not being afraid to jump in or make a change where you can learn something new or potentially experience more personal growth or career growth. Keep your eye out for new opportunities and continue to build and keep relationships. Something I've found as I've gotten further along in my career is that a lot of my 3PL network, or other vendors that I work with, or any time I've started at a new role, often those connections come through my network. That's been something that's been really beneficial for me - continuing to maintain strong relationships within my network. So, doing that, and then not being afraid to jump on new opportunities when something feels exciting comes up.

The biggest challenges I face are the global supply chain challenges. Right now we're seeing gas prices shoot through the roof, which has a significant impact on our freight spend, and we've seen the tariffs that went into place last year, so how has that impacted our supply chain spending and different strategies that we had to enact to respond to that? I think those big global shifts are always really challenging to adapt to, especially as a small team. Trying to keep your finger on the pulse, but also knowing some of these things are so big and out of our hands. Understanding where we can really impact change or maybe insulate our supply chain from any of those potential risks, and picking and choosing what are the battles that we want to fight and what can we do in our supply chain to help react to these massive worldwide shifts and changes that are so far out of our control - that's the key question of how do we want to adapt to them.

I would say working with high EQ is really important to me. I come at my personal life and my work life from a people-first perspective. I value all of my relationships, whether they're a supplier, or a freight provider, or a customer - treating everybody in my network with respect and working with my partners in a really collaborative way. I'm always curious to understand how other people who are working on the same project are viewing it, and not necessarily going in with a 'my way is the right way' sort of attitude, but approaching things from a more collaborative standpoint.