Member Article

Living in a materials world

Supply chain management is traditionally thought of in many quarters as a male-dominated area of expertise, but one woman at a supply chain solutions company in Warrington is celebrating 15 years in the sector and at the age of just 36, is also one of the firm’s longest-serving employees.

Kim Hunt arrived at Warrington-based supply chain solutions specialist Flextronics in 1998 and has worked her way up to become the company’s Customer Services Manager and a key member of the Senior Leadership Team.

Flextronics works with some of the world’s largest consumer lifestyle and personal computer companies. Kim leads an award-winning multi-lingual team that responds to thousands of product enquiries from the customers of these brands every week, speaking to consumers from all over the world.

Born in England, Kim spent several years of her childhood in Chicago and Singapore before returning to the North West and joining Birchwood High School when she was 15. She is now married and lives in Grappenhall with her husband, daughter and two stepchildren; managing to juggle both her family life and her career, whilst still finding time to manage her local netball club – Shooting Stars in Latchford.

Despite her obvious passion for the sector and her achievements so far, a life in supply chain management wasn’t always the plan.

Kim said: “I actually joined the company, which was then known as Service Source, from college after a friend had asked me if I was interested in working with her. I didn’t enjoy studying at the time so I jumped at the chance to get full-time work. I didn’t think too much about the sector I was entering back then, it was more about the opportunity to work 9-5 and earn my first salary.

“I started out as a sales administrator but I quickly found myself looking for something more challenging and was soon promoted to team leader. I think this role is where I really developed a passion for management and teamwork.”

Kim continued to impress and went on to take up positions in business development, materials development and original equipment manufacturing. Just over five years ago, she earned another promotion and moved into project and customer service management at Flextronics.

Kim says: “I now manage a team of 35 people and collectively we handle more than 1,500 calls and emails each week from a variety of residential and business customers, relating to things such as compliance issues, customs, IT and technical support help. Our site specialises in reverse logistics and service parts logistics, so the calls we get often relate to faulty, damaged or out of warranty goods that our specialist teams will look to repair or replace.

“We’re really on the front line of the business as the primary contact point for customers. This makes our role incredibly important and Flextronics recently invested in a new customer service centre with the very latest technology, allowing us to be even better at what we do.

“I have a fantastic team and, because we work with customers across the world, we invest in talent with a variety of backgrounds and our team can speak more than ten languages between them. It’s created a really diverse working environment and it’s one that I really enjoy and wouldn’t change for the world.”

Despite Kim’s success, industry figures suggest that women only account for around 20% of the logistics workforce in England, whilst fewer than 10% hold managerial roles in logistics*. That’s something that Kim thinks is just a consequence of working in a sector that is relatively unknown to young people, and which tends to attract those interested in engineering and other male-dominated activities.

“The supply chain and logistics industry is definitely seen as male-dominated, and maybe that’s true, but I see no reason why being a woman in this industry should hold anyone back,” said Kim.

“Over the years it’s never been an issue for me personally as I’ve been able to progress my way through the company with the full support of my peers and my managers.

“I think the key thing is to have determination and ambition to be able to succeed in any job you do, not just in this industry. After I became a mum to my daughter Emily, who is now 11, I was working full-time hours and continued to work my way up the ladder. I believe hard work and commitment counts for a lot and people with the right character and attributes will always earn recognition and more responsibility, whether they are a man or a woman.”

“I would like to see the industry as a whole do more profile raising with students at school age to ensure that we don’t miss out on the next generation of supply chain professionals. This is something I’m always keen to do in our local community and I think doing this type of thing will go some way to addressing the imbalance we have in the supply chain management.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Elle Brunton .