Bonus Insights: Jane Burkitt - Vice President Supply Chain Operations EMEA, LEGO Group
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Jane Burkitt has spent over 30 years working in supply chain across a range of industries, most recently focussed on consumer-oriented businesses including Kodak, PepsiCo and Dairy Crest, and has spent the past eight years as Vice President at the LEGO Group.
She has led organisations with in-house and outsourced warehouse and transport operations, leading teams across multiple countries, and has experience of building capabilities at speed in rapidly growing businesses, restructuring and cost optimisation in low margin businesses, and leading through operational disruptions.
DELIVER Europe 2023 Keynote topic: Modernise Your Thinking About Supply Chain LeadershipKey Fact: 54% of global business leaders say business leader DEI efforts and employee perceptions are misaligned (PwC)
Leading by Welcoming
“How do we freshen up and modernise the way we look at leadership in the supply chain? At DELIVER, we've been talking about sustainability, digital enablement, omnichannel, all these good things. But even with the best technical answers in the world, you need to lead in the right way to bring it the stuff to life and make it happen. It doesn't just mean ticking boxes. It's about truly embracing and welcoming a broad range of perspectives into your business.”
The Power of Representation
“You need to represent the people that are out there in the world, the people that are buying your product. When you walk around this event, what's the male female gender balance? I don't know. But the minority is bigger than it was before. One of my accountabilities is to pull up through the organisation people from underrepresented groups of any gender, any ethnicity. How do we take full advantage of the neurodiversity in our population? Because those people with non- neurotypical brains can bring a different perspective.”
Energising through Engagement
“It's quite fun working for a toy company – you can have all sorts of a lot of analogies with playgrounds and play. And we talked about creating a space where everyone is energised every day. And then we talked about our leadership behaviour, and our expectations. For me, there is such a clear direct link to inclusion, because if you want to create an environment where everybody is energised every day, you better start with being inclusive in your leadership and engaging lots of different people.”