Supply chain is no longer a hidden career path. It is where strategy, technology, operations, consumer behavior, product management, data analytics, and resilience meet. In this episode of the Supply Chain Revolution podcast, Sheri Hinish sits down with Liz Raman, founder and CEO of Supply Chain Gals, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree (Transportation and Mobility, 2025), MIT and Georgia Tech alum, and senior product manager in tech.

Liz built Supply Chain Gals because the community she needed early in her career did not exist. Starting as a transportation analyst, she navigated her way to becoming one of the youngest supply chain directors at Nike by age 26, ran a multibillion-dollar third-party sales division at Amazon, and founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional network that now connects over 20,000 women across career stages through workshops, mentorship circles, networking nights, case competitions, and a Slack-based membership with 120+ active members.

Together, they explore why supply chain is the ultimate connector career for professionals who get bored easily and love learning new things, how Supply Chain Gals is building AI and technology fluency through hands-on workshops with leaders from Microsoft and Accenture, why community is career infrastructure (not just a nice-to-have), and how case competitions simulate executive-level decision-making that early-career professionals rarely get to experience. Liz closes with a lightning round that includes one of the most important career messages: go before you are ready.

Chapter Markers:

0:00 Introduction: supply chain as the career

0:51 Meet Liz Raman: Forbes 30 Under 30, MIT, Georgia Tech, Supply Chain Gals

1:07 The gap: why Supply Chain Gals was built

2:48 Supply chain as a connector field: twenty careers in one domain

4:28 Every job is a sustainability job, every job is a technology job

5:08 Community as career infrastructure: workshops, mentorship circles, Slack

7:11 Building AI fluency: Microsoft and Accenture workshops

8:56 Case competitions as executive simulation

10:08 Lightning round: misconceptions, skills, talent, and going before you are ready

11:17 Where to find Liz and Supply Chain Gals

Key Topics:

Supply chain careers, women in supply chain, Supply Chain Gals, community building, career development, mentorship, Forbes 30 Under 30, AI literacy, technology fluency, supply chain talent, career infrastructure, case competitions, next generation leaders, supply chain education, professional networking, career growth

Connect and Learn More:

Liz Raman: @itsLizRaman on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn

Supply Chain Gals: supplychaingals.com

Become a member and join the Slack community at supplychaingals.com

Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com

Subscribe to Supply Chain Revolution on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

AI workloads are forcing a reckoning. The mega data centers being built today will impact communities tenfold more than coal mines did during the Industrial Revolution, and most organizations still cannot answer a basic question: what is the carbon cost of their compute? In this episode of the Supply Chain Revolution podcast, Sheri Hinish sits down with Dan Versace, Senior Research Analyst for ESG Business Services at IDC, for a conversation about energy intelligence as the new operating discipline for AI, sustainability, and enterprise growth.

Dan brings an uncommon origin story to corporate sustainability. He started in environmental science, studying the effects of large operations on watersheds in New Hampshire. He then moved to the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee to conduct invasive species and climate change research, where he spent a year working in a single four-square-mile plot. When he asked when they would move to the next area, the answer was ten years. That was the moment he decided to scale his impact, earned a sustainable innovation MBA from the University of Vermont, and joined IDC to lead their sustainability strategy and services research.

Together, they unpack the cynical and the hopeful answer for why AI is forcing enterprise leaders to rethink energy and infrastructure. Dan explains why sustainability linked to business value operates on two axes (brand and market cap on one side, operational efficiency gains on the other), why the talent retention argument for sustainability is underappreciated, and why the measurement gap for data center energy consumption remains one of the biggest obstacles to credible sustainability commitments. He makes the case for small local models (SLMs) as a counterweight to cloud-dependent AI, argues that sustainability subject matter experts need to be physically present in data centers, and delivers a lightning round that includes one of the most important metrics enterprise leaders should understand: energy consumption per rack.

Chapter Markers:

0:00 Introduction: energy intelligence as a new operating discipline

0:43 Meet Dan Versace: from environmental science to IDC sustainability research

2:40 Where organizations are connecting sustainability to business value

3:38 Two axes: brand/market cap and operational efficiency gains

5:38 The talent retention argument for sustainability

6:29 AI, automation, and the race for sustainability unicorns

8:40 Why AI workloads are forcing a rethink of energy and infrastructure

9:22 Mega data centers, community impact, and grid resiliency

10:18 Energy security, energy inequity, and social license to operate

10:42 Tenfold the Industrial Revolution: data centers in communities

11:37 Small local models vs. cloud: a sustainability pivot point

12:12 The measurement gap: why energy data is not granular enough

14:16 Cross-functional accountability: who owns energy intelligence?

14:54 Sustainability SMEs in the data center

16:56 Lightning round: biggest misconception, energy metrics, and optimism

18:14 Where to find Dan and the United in Green podcast

Connect and Learn More:

Dan Versace: linkedin.com/in/danielversace

IDC Sustainability Research: idc.com

United in Green Podcast (sustainability + soccer): available on podcast platforms

Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com

Subscribe to Supply Chain Revolution on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

Key Topics:

Energy intelligence, AI sustainability, data center energy consumption, AI workloads, grid resiliency, energy equity, small local models SLM, ESG, sustainability ROI, talent retention, carbon measurement, energy consumption per rack, IDC, sustainable digital transformation, community impact, cloud sustainability, embodied carbon, Dan Versace, United in Green

Simulation is the missing layer in supply chain talent development. That is the thesis of this episode of the Supply Chain Revolution podcast, where Sheri Hinish sits down with Rada Lazarova from Inchainge, the company behind The Fresh Connection and The Blue Connection, the world's leading supply chain business simulations used by over 40% of the world's top 100 manufacturers and nearly half a million learners across more than 100 countries.

Rada, based in Utrecht in the Netherlands, brings a perspective shaped by her own journey from Bulgaria to Wisconsin to the Dutch experiential learning ecosystem. She explains why traditional supply chain education falls short: it teaches theory without context, creating professionals who understand frameworks but freeze when confronted with the cross-functional complexity of real supply chain decisions. Inchainge's simulations drop participants, whether university students or Fortune 500 executives, into virtual companies where they take on VP-level roles and discover, often painfully, that optimizing their own function can bankrupt the entire business.

Together, they explore why silos are the root cause of supply chain underperformance, how the human behaviors of students and C-suite executives are remarkably similar when placed in simulation environments, why sustainability thinking only takes hold when every decision is linked to impact metrics, and how Inchainge's new AI tutor responds like a teacher (with more questions, not answers) rather than a chatbot. Rada closes with a challenge to every supply chain leader: stop saving the day, start solving the problem.

Chapter Markers:

0:00 Introduction: simulation as the missing layer in supply chain talent

0:24 Meet Rada Lazarova: from Bulgaria to Wisconsin to Inchainge

1:29 Why traditional supply chain education falls short

2:21 Inside the simulation: VP-level roles, cross-functional decisions, and sandbox failure

3:58 The power of going bankrupt with no consequences

4:33 Context engineering in the age of AI and automation

5:08 Silos as root cause: how one client restructured their KPI system after training

5:57 40% of the world's top 100 manufacturers: students vs. executives in the simulation

8:06 Recovery in a simulation vs. recovery in the real world

8:26 New AI and circularity capabilities on the Inchainge platform

9:12 The sustainability hands-up moment: before and after the simulation

11:00 Circular metrics: return on material, circularity of inputs, alternative revenue models

11:52 The AI tutor: why it asks questions instead of giving answers

13:35 Rapid fire: the biggest misconception about supply chain talent today

14:18 What every supply chain leader should unlearn

15:29 Rotate, explore, get your hands dirty: career advice

15:39 What excites Rada most about the next five years of supply chain education

Key Topics:

Supply chain talent development, simulation-based learning, experiential learning, Inchainge, The Fresh Connection, The Blue Connection, supply chain skills gap, cross-functional KPIs, silo breaking, supply chain education, AI in education, circularity simulation, supply chain sustainability training, core skills, context engineering, supply chain gamification, workforce development

Connect and Learn More:

Rada Lazarova: linkedin.com/in/radalazarova

Inchainge: inchainge.com

The Fresh Connection (supply chain simulation): inchainge.com/learning-solutions

The Blue Connection (circular economy simulation): inchainge.com/learning-solutions

Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com