Supply Chain Decoded | Feat. Tanzil Uddin, Manifest & Hyve Group

[Music] Hello and welcome to Supply Chain Decoded where we decode the fascinating elusive world of the supply chain one guest at a time. I am your host January Reeves and today I have the pleasure of sitting with Thunziut Uden, SVP of Content and Partnership at Manifest, quite literally the largest conference of supply chain professionals. It was a beast of a conference that I mean that in the best way I'm so excited to go back next year, Thunziut, welcome to the show. Amazing. Well, I'm first going to say I appreciate you for saying my name with that accent and its pronunciation and I'm such a so glad to be here being able to talk about Manifest with you. Listen, I just learned that you are a fellow bronxite so I got a respect and put some respect on the name, you know. Yes, fellow bronxite indeed. That's right. It's very small world indeed. Yeah, so you have been building, you and a huge team have been building content and programming for Manifest for several years now. First through Connective, which is where you came from, right? And now directly through Hive Group, what drew you to the supply chain world, the logistics space and also what's kept you here because it is quite literally, it's ever changing and quite fast. I mentioned elusive up top. So tell me, tell me how? Yeah, well, me on a personal level, I have a maybe boring but at the same time interesting journey to where we are today. I actually started as a full-time college student and intern that was working at a relatively mid-sized events company, a global events company that runs events in different industries. And so I had my hand in several different verticals like life sciences, aviation, finance and supply chain. They run an event called Home Delivery World. Some of your audience members might know it, you might know it. I'm actually one of the original members that worked on that event during their it's earlier years with a team member that is currently at Manifest with me. His name is Dan Reese. I was basically Dan's intern at a terrapin for three years. At that point, I became a very overqualified intern. But once I graduated college, I started full-time and worked my way up a good story. The Home Delivery World scaled to a really massive event for that company at that time. And I throughout the years was fortunate enough to build close relationships with the shipper audience retailers brands. And basically Dan and the team reached out to me about this opportunity that is now called No-one-S Manifest about what we are trying to build and what some of the needs are from a shipper audience perspective. And that's what made me kind of join the team. It seemed like a great opportunity. And what kept me drawn or drew me to the community is as I've kind of worked on this industry throughout the years and with this industry, there's never a dull moment. And it's you know what I've come to learn is that it is a very resilient community. And it's very cliche to say that about many different industries. But I think it's especially so for the supply chain and logistics leaders where you've just always had to stay nimble. And on top of what is happening domestically globally. And I've just grown to really appreciate that. The people that make really quite frankly the world move no matter what's happening, even reflecting on what's happening today as we speak globally. And our industry just has to continue to keep things moving. So I've grown to become very passionate about it even despite working on so many different verticals, supply chain just kept me hooked really. It has a tendency to do that. So once you're in your stock. Indeed. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. I want to shift focus just a bit into content curation, right? Because at this scale, you've got 400 plus speakers. You've got a global audience. People literally fly in and curate their entire month around Manifest. It's a serious craft. I mean, how do you develop your approach to building event programming that actually moves the needle for attendees? Because this is the first time, honestly, that I felt like this ROI is matching exactly what it is that we came in for. No, I appreciate that question. And content is close to my heart. I pretty much worked on content my entire life or career. And for Manifest, I work alongside Pam Simon. And so we kind of take a two-pronged approach to programming throughout any event cycle. So for example, we are now already deep into the 2027 event cycle. So the rest of 2026 will be dedicated to building out what 27 will look like and programming, of course, is central to that. We the two-pronged approaches, Pam works with pretty much all of the investors that come to Manifest. And then she's able to tap into the key technology players startups as a result, kind of naturally. While I continue to work with that operator, primarily if you're a chief supply chain officer, a chief procurement officer, or some leadership person overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars or over a billion in budget all across your supply chain or procurement or manufacturing or logistics or transportation or whatever operations. And we're just having these conversations from now through the entire year of understanding what these people care about most. I actually just got off with people like Gap, Merck, and Sonofi, just to give an idea. And those calls really center around what is that top of mind for you? What are some of the things you and your team prioritizing? And what do you need from an events perspective? What draws you to events like ours? And we really take that and curate what our programming looks like. So when it comes to key topics that we're covering, key tracks that we are covering or introducing, it's really kind of from the lens of that supply chain leadership's leadership's perspective. And really everything else falls into place naturally when it comes to technology that we invite investors that we invite kind of starts backwards from the operator's point of view. I love that. I mean, so it's really it's keeping them a pulse, right? And a live one at that, which is incredibly important because what I was going to ask as a follow-up was you're looking at 2027. Part of what I do on the on my side is I'm always trying to figure out like, you know, what is the market look like in the next few weeks? And I equated to almost that, but on a much grander scale, when you look into 2027 programming, how are you identifying like themes and new topics that you know will be top of mind then that may not be even scratching the surface today? Yeah, no, absolutely. And that goes back to my point about it. There are never being a dull moment because you just never know. It could take a simple as something as simple as a tweet that you know triggers so many different events and I won't go too deep into that, but really come to and so you have to make sure you keep your program as nimble and flexible as possible. So the way we do that is like to your point, you keep a pulse of what the community cares about, which is what we're doing today. So already Pam and I will have them in mind, okay, procurement is coming up a lot or control tower is coming up a lot or sustainability is coming up a lot. So we need to make sure we watch that and monitor it and read up on the news and articles and all that good stuff while also asking others the same questions, you know, what are you doing with your procurement so on and so forth? And we really just take that domino effect throughout the years and our conversation throughout the year in our conversation and that dictates some of the topics and then the other side of it is yeah, something just happened, some global event, some corruption, what are we doing to cover it? Who can speak to it? And so that's to my point about remaining nimble where you can feature some of those topics later in the year that come up just naturally given the industry that we serve. And then what's new? So what's new again through these conversations and keeping a pulse, you'll always hear people, hey, you know, we didn't get enough of xyz or we didn't get enough of abc, you know, at this year's manifest, we think you should really look at it or look into it. We will take that and do our research, ask others the same questions, but also look into what kind of funding is going into that topic. How much for growth is that vertical in? The best example that I will give is Colchane. So Colchane came up in our conversations back in 2024 after the 2024 event and something that, you know, people felt we weren't covering enough. We had a large food and beverage and life science community that attended, but also other verticals were interested to hear from them because a lot of it kind of a lot of the challenges although far more complex resonates with those in retail, for example, or manufacturing. So we looked into it and then come to find out it's that huge, huge amounts of money is being being put into it. There's a lot of innovation that's coming out of that space and a lot of key partnerships that are still in the weeds of being formed and you know, seeds being planted. So we introduced the Colchane segment or stage at manifest 2025 and we took it a step further this year where we had the Colchane Pavilion and so there was an entire area or Expo Hall that was dedicated to showcasing the new next gen and established technology players that are really thriving in the Colchane area. But yeah, that's a very good example of a new addition and procurement is another one that I mentioned. It had its own state this year because it occurred from a lot of the chief supply chain officers telling us that, hey, you need to go further back in the supply chain. You need to look at new plan and source and not just making deliver. And so here we are widening that pool if you may of things that are available pretty much to make sure that we're accounting for the full ecosystem. Yeah, I mean, let's talk also about the past, right? Because without every example that you just gave is reiterate a new iteration of where manifest will go. But manifest launch as a new and entrant into the space that already had established events. You named one of them that you were a part of home delivery world, right? What was the original thesis and then what was the gap that you were trying to fill with it with manifest? Yeah, absolutely. And this is kind of a great question and what really drew me to what this team was doing before launching the event. So I'll go back into along into his history without boring, you know, without risking boredom. So basically, was an event it was formally known as the future of logistics tech summit. It was an event that my counterpart Pam Simon and her team ran in Miami working for a lab venture. And that event already encompassed like your startups and investor community. So it did have a presence of some of your funds and your your technology players and a lot of the Latin community that was there. The connective CEO whose name is Jay wine trough. He is very worth a conversation separately, by the way. His brain just operates so differently. He is in the business of looking at different industries and understanding what is missing from an events perspective and applying this ecosystem approach to those verticals. And so manifest is what ended up being the product of one of those thoughts where he looked at that event in Miami. And basically it's all an opportunity there where we can take it and turn it into this ecosystem event. And to your question on what what's kind of missing or what hole we fill, it was just that. So when you look at many different events and I have the pleasure of working in last mile, e-commerce packaging, very different segments, you know, you got trucking freight, you know, ocean and maritime. But there wasn't one that was dedicated to the whole value chain. When you look at the end source making deliver and then every moving part within those four pillars from startups and investors to the shippers, manufacturers and logistics service providers. And then everyone else in between. And that's kind of what we Jay wine trough and the team and we saw as a daunting need. And that was the original thesis. And to this day remains the same where as you scale an event like this, the belief is that it will quite frankly grow organically as you stay true to that philosophy of are you serving the full ecosystem that is supply channel logistics from a global perspective. And inside note, that's also the philosophy that we're taking into Europe with our manifest Europe launch in 2027 is the same kind of yeah, we announced that you know, at manifest just recently to our community, we haven't kind of put it out there publicly yet with materials, but it is in the works of us looking into the European market and announcing or launching it there formally. But it is the same philosophy of applying that ecosystem approach to the industry. Wow, talk about scaling. What a great story for a manifest and watching it go global at this point. It's such a it's not surprising. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so you work primarily with C-suite from Shippers and Logistics Service providers, right? I mean, from you just mentioned a bunch of verticals that manifest covers. I'm curious what's the hardest part of convincing senior executives of that caliber to commit their time to an event. And has that conversation changed? I would imagine it as as manifest reputation is grown. Yeah, I'll start with just just how it started and where we are now. And quite frankly, yes, it was it was very hard. It was very difficult. So that's kind of one of the things that I was brought in for is to develop that audience. But it started with we need Shippers. So, you know, of course, we want VP level. And we still that's still a core of our audience. But I kind of saw further of like we don't have the leadership from these companies coming. We don't have that chief supply chain officer. We don't have that chief procurement officer. And I will say there was a lot of perception battling what I mean by that is. And this is kind of it just happened that way to be honest naturally given where we were in 2022 when we launched the event. And also it was during the peak of the Omicron variant. It was a whole lot going on. And so we also had a lot of a lot of cancellations during the lead up to the show. So maybe some of that was hindered. But what we ended up finding ourselves in is that we ended up the perception and that of being is that you're a strong logistics event. There's a lot of logistics out this event. And to this day, of course, logistics is such a big part. It is, you know, one of the key pillars of what we do. But at that time, the perception was you are dominant logistics. And so it was very hard to get into that manufacturing leadership person, that person that's spearheading procurement and sourcing or even beyond that person that's looking at planning and looking at their supply chain from a five year to decade point of view, hence the chief supply chain officers, because we were just the logistics show, quote unquote. And so it was battling that perception throughout the years where, you know, I took it on myself, the team, we took it on ourselves, to, oh, hey, can we feature more content that goes further up the supply chain? Can we make sure we featuring the innovation and funds that are investing heavily in plan and source and not just deliver? And so you kind of plant those seeds from year two to three year four. And this is kind of where to put into perspective, we had maybe a handful of chief supply chain officers in years one, two, and three. This past every we had 80 of them. We had 80, he's watching officers from a Bay of different verticals, life sciences, telecommunications, airlines, aviation, retail, and what ends up happening is the quality then ends up being they bring their VPs, they bring their SVPs, they bring their EVPs of these different functions, and we're able to build that audience that naturally as a result. So that's worked in our favor a lot. So yeah, convincing them that, you know, we're working, building this with you, we're adjusting this event with you, it was one of the battles. Then the second battle, of course, to your point earlier, there are just so many events that you have to choose from as a leader and you're probably invited to hundreds of them throughout the year. So it's positioning ourselves in a unique way where this can we confidently say that this is the only event that caters to the full ecosystem. And if we can answer yes to that every time, it builds well for us. Yeah, absolutely. And it does, it certainly does. I would love it if you could give us a peek behind the scenes of what the month's leading up to the show looks like. I mean, walk us through how a theme or session actually gets from an idea to the main stage. And there's, I know there's a lot there to impact. So let's do it. Yeah, so we take a people first approach throughout an event cycle. So it's really just confirming speakers first. Okay. And as you have these calls, it's making sure you understand what those personalities care about. I say personalities because you also have the account for just that the different personalities that you're inviting putting on stage in addition to obviously their day to day and what topics they care about. So we'll keep that mind mapped internally. And as we get closer to the event dates, so let's say minus three months. Let's hit the event is in February around Thanksgiving break before or after. We'll start reaching out to every speaker that we've confirmed. Internally, we've already placed them where we think is fitting based on what we heard from them notes that we took. Making sure personalities coincide with each other, making sure companies play nice and are friendly with each other on stage. All that good stuff. But they can see now. Yeah. So when we reach out, you know, minus three months out, we kind of say, hey, Jenny, we're going to start our formal prep process. This is where we have you for now. Would love your thoughts if you have any objections, let us know for the most part, not on wood. We've had little to no issues where we've placed them accordingly, placed them correctly. They were happy. Now we have prep calls. So throughout the three months leading into the event, the content team, which is Pam and I will have formal prep calls with every single speaker that takes the stage. If it's a panel, the panel members will be on a call together. And that's when we actually flesh out the details in terms of where are we in the industry today? Where are you as a company as a leader today? What are some of the key areas that you want to make sure is brought up during this conversation? And what do we want to achieve out of a session holistically? And we do that with every session. And that really helps us ensure that everything that we cover is timely and relevant. And that's just content. And so our partnership team is working with our co-responsors and exhibitors. Again, understanding, where are you today? What are some of the audience profiles that you're prioritizing? We still have X amount of months before the show. We'll work on getting those people to the room, just making sure they're at least coming to me. And we do that with our partners, our media partners, Courtney Muller, our marketing team, our shipper audience, development team, we're all kind of working in our own not silos, but in our own areas, if you may, during the lead up to the show to make sure that we're giving each segment a highly curated experience during the lead up to the show. I also love in the app experience, you have recommended sessions for folks based on your profile to attend, which I thought was like such a great way to just quickly add it to my schedule and then know exactly where I'm going. Which also speaks to the fact that you're curating this so carefully based on who it is that's going through the experience, such a great way, such a great way to customize it. Yeah, absolutely. And of course our dev team does a great job with the app and some of the algorithms that are used based on what you're putting into the app that just make sure it's appropriate what is being recommended. But I from what I hear and I enjoy it myself and from what I hear it's pretty well received. Oh yeah. So manifest 26 just wrapped what for you were the two or three conversations or maybe moments that you think will define how people remember this conference this year. I think it's a hard one answer just so many to choose from, but I think number one holistically is and I think this is every year of manifest, but the biggest feedback that we get is when you're there. It just feels if you're in supply chain, it feels like your LinkedIn connections came to life. And so there's this energy that's already there and we're very thankful to our community for that, but everyone is just so open to have in dialogue either before and after sessions during lunch, during our networking receptions during dinners that happened after the show. So the networking really stands out to people where they got to just rub shoulders with the high level audience and so many different formats. And so that's number one, and kind of that stands out. I think we'll continue to stand out as the energy that's in the room. In terms of conversations and maybe this is personal to me, but we have what is called leadership suite at manifest, which we launched last year. It is a format again, just going back to how we've had to work on bringing the chief supply chain officers and the higher group of those higher number of those people to the room. Well, last year we had about 60 this year. We had 80 as I mentioned. So we created private forum for them where you're coming to manifest, but while I'm manifest, you'll have a couple of hours to also benchmark with your peers that are holding seats and billion dollar multinational organizations over searing. Overseeing supply chain procurement functions and it's off stage off the record. So people got very candid and honest with what's working, what's not. And I still get feedback to this day of how they appreciate it just being able to sit with their peer in a round table and just talk about some of the key challenges that they're experiencing. And I think that both well for us because they continue those relationships, conversations long after manifest and it both well for the startups that we're featuring because they also get a clear view of just what is moving fastest in our industry just by being at manifest and are bouncing those thoughts of all of each other while in a format like leadership suite. So that stood out quite a lot to me and we're excited to continue building that experience. Yeah, putting leaders in the same space, closed doors definitely is something that is rare for these sort of events, right, because you know you have a lot of the panels and there's audiences and so forth, but when you do it this way, this is such a great way to really like, I mean, it's again, it goes back to pulse checking, making sure we're in lockstep with what what are the trends that are happening in the supply chain. So it makes total sense to me. Yeah, absolutely. It's pockets of experience within the beast that is manifest. You have your own your promise to your own experience within that so you can kind of get a bit of everything. Yeah. Do you tell supply chain was the presenting sponsor this year? I would love to know, how do you think the relationship between sponsorship? How do you what how do you think about excuse me about the relationship between sponsorship and editorial integrity? Is there a line? Where is it? How can we think about that? Yeah, no, so DHL is a great example. They have been a gold star of a partnership with us and we treat it as a partner. They've been an ideal type of one of many, but they've been the ideal type of partner for us since we since our early years where you kind of want to look at partners like that where you can grow with them. So they have suggestions that they give to us. They they work with us in what are areas that you would value seeing out of manifest from an audience topics themes technology perspective and will always look to work continue to work with partners like that like you where we can grow with you versus we're doing what we think is best and this is it. This is the product and you'll come to the event and enjoy it hopefully and that's that we treat it as a year on process when I say our planning cycle is now we'll have conversations with our key partners like a DHL, like a trans fix like others that have been with us for years. And also new ones where they're now joining the party they're working with us now, but we treated as something that you're aligned with us and our vision on innovation. So you're very innovation forward. You to monitor investments that are going into the space you to have an aisle or a keen eye for new technologies and who are the players that we need to make sure we are getting involved in a show like this and will work with you and getting them to the show. And so true we would do the same thing for a programming and key topics that we need to cover, but we always value companies like that where you're kind of making the show with us without even realizing if you may. And that's kind of really what with our media partners as well. And that's so we have so many long standing relationships where it spans pretty much the entirety of manifest existence now going into Europe as I mentioned. But yeah, those are some of the some of the ones that always stay at top of mind for us. Let's move into the future of manifest did manifest 27 is set for February 8th through the 10th at the Venetian again. What is the content direction that you're excited to pursue that maybe hasn't been touched before if we can get a little sneak peak. I think. Biting a dead horse, I think, but I think the more we go into the planning side of it because especially now, you know, planning for excursions planning for disruptions. How many scenarios can you run scenarios one, two, three and four and so on and so forth. So the more we can understand how operators are actually doing it the better for our community because it just educates peers technologies that are in the audience of what the operator actually needs during this time. Versus looking for a technology to solve a problem. It's like these are the problems that we're looking for technology to solve. So I think more more content on planning other things that we desire is getting more deeper into like the life sciences and pharmaceutical logistics cold change is being one part of it. But there's so much more that goes on there that we surely are monitoring and would value featuring more. And then another area is ESG holistically and in sustainability is one of them, but just ESG looking at data governance, especially with AI being such a big topic and going, how do we look at the data governance piece of that holistically is also a key thing that will watch and I don't think it's something that we've featured as much as we would have liked to in past years. But it's just to say that we are indeed keeping it top of mind and are aware that there are some areas like we that we can probably dig deeper into like those areas. Yeah, you know, we're at a moment. Literally, you can't escape it where AI is being later into every part of the supply chain and all of our conversations, whether it's planning procurement visibility robotics is another cool example. How are you thinking about bringing that conversation to life in a way that's like genuinely useful rather than just having to, you know, making it be buzz worthy. Yeah, and that's to be honest, like reflective of the industry depends on the pace in which we're seeing AI in operations, right. There are some very good examples and it's on us to feature them more. And so some of the ways that we're doing it is, you know, the bread and butter approach for manifest programming, if I look at it, you have panel conversations where sea level executives are on stage together from representing different verticals and they're having a kind of an informal conversation together on stage. And you have a lot of takeaways that come from that right panels just work so great in that in that sense, but there has been an appetite for some of those PowerPoint presentations where people can actually get into the weeds a little bit of their supply chains of their logistics operations and how they're actually applying certain technologies and that goes to AI automation robotics. We'd love to and we will feature more of those case studies where it is from the lens of the person that is actually vetting. AIs for example, a is application into their operations how they've applied it, you know, pilot or it's actually scaled. But we'll have more of those and we'll make it clear for our audience to know where they can find it. So that's definitely one way and another way. frankly, as we talk to the operators or 3PL companies, we just simply ask them, "Hey, who do you think is actually doing tangible stuff in this space? Who should we welcome to our program, welcome to the table?" We take that referral word of mouth pretty seriously and we make sure we're including them in some way, so you perform. But again, it will continue to go with where the industry is headed. It's being applied in some cases, but in many cases, people are still figuring it out. So we'll, to my point on growing with the industry and in key partners, this is one example. It's we'll continue to grow with the industry and make sure we're featuring those real use cases where the audience can take something away from them. I got to get a sneak into your wish list because I'm sure that there is one type of speaker or one company that on the stage in 2027, you want what you haven't been able to get yet. Who or what would that company be? You know what? I'm going to name names. Let's do it. Yeah. There are a few. So I'll first speak to who we did wish to have and we finally got them. So Gretchen McCarthy from Tariya is a great example. I hope she sees this in years. I happen to have a pleasure interviewing her myself, which was like the icing on the cake. But dating back to my home delivered world days, I've always wanted her on my stage in some way, shape, or form. And it finally worked out in manifest 2025 where she not only took our plenary stage, but I ended up being the one to interview her. So there's like a personal story as well that was amazing for me. And there's so many others I can think of. Chris Nielsen of Toyota. There was there was buyer's door of Michael Frey who spoke this year. They're chief supply chain officer. One person or a couple that I've always wanted and I'll call them out. It's Kathy Wengel from Johnson and Johnson. She is such an incredible leader in our space. And quite frankly, I've watched her journey throughout my career really. And her name comes up so often in many peer circles. We just haven't been able to make it work due to timing. It's not that she's saying, I can't, I don't want to come. Just timing doesn't work. And for people like that, it depends. Timing is so tricky, especially Q on where you have board meetings. So we've always talked about that. But it's one that I'll keep on working on. Hopefully one day, one year, we'll make it work for Kathy and Johnson and Johnson. They're great partners of ours. And we've had them on our stage in some way, shape, or form over the years. And another other companies that come to mind that we've just never had involved. But they're tough ones to crack, to be honest. I think of like Home Depot. I think of companies like Loves where I believe they've attended Manifest over the years. I just think they don't speak that much in events and we can respect that. But they definitely come to mind also as the programmer and me is always going to continue trying to figure out ways to just get in somehow and get them get them on our stage and make it comfortable for them. But those are the three I would say that come top of mind for me. Okay. Yeah, let's talk after it because I've got some friends over at Home Depot. I can love that. I would definitely. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. 10 years from now, we've got it. We know there's going to be, there's Manifest Vegas. There's Manifest Europe. What else is in store for Manifest if we were to look that far into the future? Where do you think it could go? Yeah. And that's kind of why we're super excited about the high part of it. We were acquired by Hive back in May. Hive runs in several different events with ShopTalk being one of their core events. And what they've done with that event over the past six years should be motivation enough for us and a good example because they've not only scaled the USA event to what it is today being this flagship gathering for the retail and e-commerce community. But they've taken a global where it's in Barcelona. It's in Abu Dhabi. They launched Abu Dhabi just recently. And that's one way that we envision Manifest where, you know, what are the Geos that we feel is underserved with respect to that thesis of there isn't an ecosystem event at this scale. And once we ask that question and Europe is the first stop hope that you're not going with and you go into other Geos like that. And that's kind of where we see us maybe over the next 10 years where we are truly serving these geographies in a meaningful way, giving them a platform where they can engage with peers and the full ecosystem in industry that they serve. Again, in that meaningful way, it's not for the sake of making an event just to make it, but you're actually serving that community because you believe there isn't one that exists like it where they're able to benchmark with people that are on their level representing the full ecosystem as one. And number two, when I look at just the way the event is growing, we continue to ask what areas have we not served. And if we can always answer that question, we'll always continue scaling the event. So cold chain was the environment was the other plan source making delivers the other. So those areas and we're thankful to be in an industry where it just continues to evolve the way it is that we can keep featuring new things every year. Similarly, right? I have a question for you. I mean, you've spent years recruiting the best supply chain minds in the world to share what they know from your perspective. What's the best piece of insight that you've personally absorbed from those conversations that really changed the way that you think of the industry? Yeah, I think the best piece, it's maybe, it's probably common sense at this point, especially since 2020. What I've learned is not everyone has really figured it out. And quite frankly, they probably will not. And that is okay. And that is what makes the partnerships so key in our industry. That is what makes consolidation, collaboration, vital, especially since 2020 in our space. So even if you're talking to the highest level of the highest in certain organizations, I'm able to approach it, understanding that they too are figuring out so many areas of the supply chain just like their peers. So I don't approach it thinking they know it all. It's obviously there. The highest level of the supply chain that you can imagine and the highest quality of leaders in our industry, but they too are figuring it out with their peers in the industry. And that's also why we try to enable that energy where when you're in the room, you're talking to people, they're talking to other leaders in different supply chain environments, you're talking to startups, technology leaders. And you're all really just trying to continue figuring it out and keeping this world and wonderful industry moving no matter what the world throws at you. And so that's kind of one of the biggest things is we all are part of a journey, just depends on where we are in that journey. It's a big fear to understand that but the approaching from that lens has helped a lot in curating a lot of what we do. All right, Danzeal, the time has come. The name of the show is supply chain decoded. And I know that you've got something great for us because you're sitting on all ends of the supply chain and all verticals. So for you, what is the one topic in supply chain that you think everyone gets wrong and can you help us decode it in under a minute? I am going to say because we're such a showcase of technology and I've had the pleasure of working with the actual operators that vet these technologies. Maybe a message to the startups community that we feature a lot, but it is you want to understand what the challenges are first before pitching or posing a solution. And likewise for the supply chain operator, you want to fully and firmly understand what are your challenges before you can welcome or onboard a new tool. And it's probably a simple statement, but it goes and miss for so many organizations and you'd be surprised. But the ones that are kind of separating that gap between the leaders and laggers are those that first take a step back understand what challenges in our supply chain do we want to solve. And then how can technology help it and then it also benefits the technology players that do their due diligence and understanding what those challenges are first while co developing or co building their solution with them. So that's really that in a nutshell, what manifest tries to achieve one of the biggest things as we bring people like that together. It's such a great way to tie it all back, right? Because these are the meaningful conversations that are not only helping you build and scale as a conference and a meaningful one for the industry, but also the kinds of conversations that are reflective of what attendees are having. So it all fits. It all works and it makes sense. And you're totally right. It's often something that goes overlooked quite frequently. So it's good to get back to basics and really assess and have like, let's just have a conversation about what's not working and how we can approach it together, you know? Yes, absolutely. You have been such a pleasure to speak with. I say this. I probably said this a million times, but I'll say it again. Manifest is absolutely my favorite conference to attend. I'm so excited. For next year, I hope that we can get more involved. I know we will. But any last words for our listeners to walk away with? No, absolutely. Complete absolute pleasure talking with you. Always appreciate your support. Yeah. Yeah, we're building Manifest 2027. So if anyone wants to get in touch and brainstorm with me and members on our team, we are very easy to find on LinkedIn and we are having these conversations as we speak today. So what love to hear from some of you. Awesome. Well, we'll see you next week with another new episode of Supply Chain Decoded. Until then, you say? Thank you so much. (upbeat music)