Supply Chain & Logistics Awards – 2015 Future Leaders Winners

During this year’s Supply Chain & Logistics Association of Australia (SCLAA) Awards, the Future Leaders Award was presented to two outstanding industry future leaders, Samantha Lowry, Senior Procurement Advisor, Department of Education & Training and Danielle Brennan, Category Specialist, Stanwell Corporation. LMA is proud to be a key sponsor of the Awards and support the development of leaders in the industry.

For Samantha Lowry, her move from being a solicitor to developing her career in procurement was one that saw her step into her potential in a whole new way.

“I learned that I don’t enjoy giving advice from the side lines and that I’d much rather be making and informing decisions,” Samantha explains. “When I rotated through the graduate program to the procurement branch, I really began to find my passion, and that is leveraging my legal experience to negotiate the best possible outcomes, both financially and otherwise.”

With her recent completion of a Diploma of Government (Procurement and Contracting) with career aspirations of becoming a chief procurement officer, Samantha’s future in the Supply Chain industry looks bright. Her current projects see her establishing a Software-as-a-Service Community of Practice to connect key personnel in providing consistent advice and assistance to help schools to balance the benefits of new and accessible technologies alongside the privacy and duty or care concerns of their students.

Samantha shares her Future Leaders Award win with peer Danielle Brennan. Danielle’s skills in the procurement industry have developed through a series of strategic roles at Queensland Health and Transport & Main Roads. A self-starter and innovator, Danielle has utilised her skills to drive the ICT procurement and engineering services of Stanwell. With an ability to break-down barriers and create new opportunities, Danielle has been awarded for her continuous drive, passion and enthusiasm for her work. Already an effective leader in her own right, Danielle notes that “Leaders must ensure that any value created should contribute to the business, its needs and direction.”

Both young women in a career path traditionally dominated by their male counterparts, Samantha and Danielle are aware of the underlying need for diversity in their roles and in their industry. “All industries benefit from diversity,” Samantha notes. The SCLAA actively promotes women in the supply chain industry – in 2015, for the first time, half of the State or Division Presidents are women.

Along with this significant Future Leaders acknowledgement from the SCLAA, both Samantha and Danielle will be given the opportunity to increase their skill base with access to LMA’s ‘The Performance Edge’ program. Through the program both Samantha and Danielle hope to obtain skills to increase the productivity of themselves and their teams.