Speaking

Sales & Operations Planning

I have been working in the consumer goods industry, specializing in fashion apparel, footwear, and accessories for 3 decades but I don’t want to date myself. As you age gracefully, you discover it's better to say I have 2 decades of experience.

In my 20’s I knew everything, by the time I got to my 40’s I discovered I actually knew nothing and I am still learning every day.

How I started in the Industry

I started in the industry building my own brands in my early 20’s. I am grateful I made my first million before I was 25. In my late 20’s I worked with Aritzia helping them to transform their brands, fits, market, business, growing from a regional to a national chain.

This is where I learned about the importance of Sales and Operations planning,

Once we developed the product demand planning systems and implemented the processes we were able to increase revenues by 50% well as reducing costs because of operational efficiencies on tens of millions of dollars in purchases.

My 30’s

In my 30’s, I got tired of building brands, listening to agents tell you what you need to do, looking at how to grow my business, the market, and financial challenges.

In 2006, I started building a B2B software platform to help with global sourcing, supply chain management, industry challenges, and the “Disconnect” in the apparel industry.

I attempted to build and launch the platform in Canada but had financial challenges of a start-up as I was looking at a minimum $200k investment. At the time Alibaba was worth $20B, I was hoping to take away 1% of their business. Today Alibaba is worth over $500B.

Mainland China B2B Sourcing

In the spring of 2008, I ventured on a trade mission with the Canadian government to look for technology partners in Mainland China. I ended up choosing a partner in Chongqing, China-based on the right price.

In late 2008, I decided to move to Mainland China to build and launch a B2B software platform to help with the industry “Disconnect” between buyers, suppliers, and industry professionals.

I amassed over 10,000 suppliers and attended, exhibited, or worked with over 100 tradeshows in Asia.

It took 7 developers, 2 managers, and 1 director one year to build the platform.

My 40’s

I had spent close to $400k developing my software platform, which was all the cash I had including the money I raised from friends and family round. I had investment interest from Silicon Valley but they needed me to achieve milestones, which were impossible to achieve without additional financing.

I decided to take a contract to help a struggling Canadian business that had an established Hong Kong business for the past 12 years. They were struggling with a 20% quality issue, 50% late deliveries, and rising product costs.

I transformed their supply chain by regular hands-on visits to all suppliers, creating policies, procedures, processes, systems, manuals, and workbooks where there was minimal before.

I helped grow this start-up from zero to $100m retail revenues in two years.

In 2016, I returned to Vancouver for personal reasons and to reconnect with my values and principles.

About This topic

In my career, my main strengths are branding, product, supply chain, sourcing, and operations. I choose this topic today, as I do not believe it gets enough attention.

I presented this presentation to a retired UBC history professor and he said this topic would be great to add to a school curriculum. So if there is anybody in schooling let's talk after the presentation if your interested.