Women in Supply Chain Leadership: 5 Lessons from Laura Hay
Supply chain has a leadership pipeline problem — and it's not a talent problem.
The women are there. They're delivering results, managing complexity across global operations, and quietly outperforming in roles that would make most people flinch. What's missing, more often than not, is visibility. Recognition. The institutional scaffolding that tends to show up more reliably for their male counterparts.
Laura Hay knows this firsthand. A customer leader in transport and logistics recently nominated for the Everywoman in Transport & Logistics Award, Hay has built her career without a formal mentor, without a sponsor opening doors behind the scenes, and without waiting for someone to tap her on the shoulder and declare her ready.
In a candid conversation on the Trax channel, she laid out what she's actually learned — not the polished LinkedIn version, but the real one. Here are the five lessons that stood out.
1. Growth doesn't wait for readiness
The roles that accelerated Hay's career were never the comfortable ones. She's taken positions where she didn't meet 100% of the listed criteria, led programs bigger than anything she'd managed before, and stepped into situations with no clear roadmap.
"Most of the opportunities that accelerated my career were the ones where I thought, 'Can I actually do this?' — and then just figured it out along the way," she said.
This isn't recklessness. It's pattern recognition. Confidence, for most leaders, follows action — it doesn't precede it. Waiting until you feel ready is, functionally, a decision not to go.
2. Visibility isn't arrogance — it's strategy
Hay is direct about what she sees holding capable women back: the belief that results speak for themselves. Sometimes they do. Often they don't.
"I've seen incredibly capable women delivering brilliant work while somebody else is actively talking about their achievements, building relationships, creating visibility around what they're doing," she said.
She illustrated the point with a friend who owns a successful salon — managing staff, finances, operations, customer relationships — but describes herself simply as "a hairdresser." The minimization is automatic, almost reflexive. And it's not unique to that industry.
Making your work visible, Hay argues, isn't self-promotion for its own sake. It's ensuring that the value you're creating is actually understood by the people who make decisions about your career.
3. Communication is the leadership skill
When asked what separates good supply chain leaders from great ones, Hay didn't lead with technical expertise or systems knowledge. She led with communication.
"As you move into leadership, your success becomes less about what you personally know and more about your ability to bring people together around a common goal," she said.
The best leaders she's worked with can simplify complexity, influence stakeholders across competing priorities, and make decisions when information is incomplete. Supply chain is structurally unpredictable — the leaders who thrive are those who stay calm and adaptable when things go sideways, not those who never face problems.
4. Build your network before you need it
Hay is candid about never having had a formal mentor or sponsor. Most of her career progression came through consistent results and deliberate relationship-building — not because someone opened a door for her.
Her advice: don't wait for a mentor before you start developing yourself. Learn from peers, customers, managers, books, people you've never actually met. Make your achievements known in a factual, not performative, way. And invest in relationships before you're in a situation where you need to call in a favor.
"Some of the most valuable opportunities in my career have come through relationships and reputation, rather than formal sponsorship," she said. A sponsor is a bonus — not a prerequisite.
5. Your inner critic is not a reliable narrator
Imposter syndrome shows up in rooms full of accomplished people. Hay learned this firsthand at the Everywoman awards ceremony, surrounded by highly decorated women in transport and logistics — all of them, it turned out, wrestling with the same questions about whether they belonged there.
"I've sat in rooms with incredibly accomplished women who still question whether they're good enough, experienced enough, or qualified enough — while outperforming everyone around them," she said.
The reframe she found useful: stop asking whether you feel ready. Start asking whether you can learn. Those are very different questions, and only one of them leads somewhere useful.
Why This Conversation Matters for Supply Chain Organizations
These lessons aren't just personal development advice. They have operational implications for any organization trying to build the next generation of supply chain leadership.
The industry is facing a well-documented talent and leadership gap. Retaining and advancing capable women — and giving them the visibility infrastructure to succeed, not just the job title — is a competitive issue, not just a cultural one.
Hay's conversation is worth watching in full. It's honest in a way that most professional development content isn't, and it covers ground that rarely gets discussed openly in supply chain circles.