Traci Chernoff

00:04 – 00:51

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Leading the Frontline sponsored by Legion.

Thank you so much for being here for our second official episode. Hopefully, you enjoyed the first one as much as I did.

We’ve gotten some great feedback, which I love to see and hear. And, just a reminder too, if you haven’t done so yet, please don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast, whether you’re listening or watching.

As I had mentioned last time, you are for sure going to have an amazing time. And this this episode, I have Nabil Malouli with me, and he is a recognized leader in the logistics and distribution centers industry.

He’s the SVP of Global E-commerce and Returns at DHL, and he brings deep insight into scalable e-commerce solutions, automation, and customer-centric supply chains. Nabil, thank you so much for joining me.

How are you?

Nabil Malouli

00:51 – 00:56

I’m great. Great to see you, Traci.

Looking forward to the conversation.

Traci Chernoff

00:56 – 01:24

Yes. Same here.

Same here. And thank you so much.

And, I think it’s really, really cool to actually reflect on your experience, which we’ll get into. But I do want to let all the listeners know, as a reminder, that we have some intro questions that we ask all of our guests here at Leading the Frontline.

And so, Nabil, you are not exempt from these questions, unfortunately, but I think you’ll have fun answering them. The first is, please tell us what was your first hourly job ever?

Nabil Malouli

01:24 – 01:39

My first hourly job was actually to be a waiter. So I’ve done I’ve done actually many jobs, when I was, you know, studying in my teenager years and, and then a bit later.

So waiter was was the first one.

Traci Chernoff

01:39 – 01:46

Oh, cool. Well, I can only imagine the life lessons you learned while waiting on other people.

Nabil Malouli

01:46 – 02:28

Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s interesting because I still use a lot of of the learnings from that experience definitely every day.

I think, the customer centricity that I’m trying to apply in my business every single day and also the way I build the culture in the in the organization around customer centricity, I think, is highly influenced by that. But, also, you know, for anybody that has worked in the hospitality business, it’s very similar to supply chain in term of you need to be very resilient, and you need to be able to adapt to change, and you need to be able to be, working long hours and be very dynamic.

And I think that resiliency is also something that I use every single day.

Traci Chernoff

02:28 – 03:17

Wow. That’s amazing.

And we’re we’ll probably come back to this because, you know, there is this unique element that connects our first job to our current job, whether it’s, like, the thing that inspired us to go into a particular career or industry or, as you mentioned, some, you know, characteristics or skills that we acquire along the way. So we’ll definitely come back to that.

And resilience, I think, is something that the better we are at possessing that, the easier our lives probably will be, especially our careers for sure and certainly in an industry like supply chain. And so as we think about or kind of understand who you are, can you share a little bit more about your background and what led you to your current leadership role?

Nabil Malouli

03:17 – 05:47

Yes. So, I’m originally from France.

I was born and raised in France from Moroccan parents. So my parents were immigrants in France.

I studied in France until I was 20 years old, and then I decided to study abroad. And I studied abroad.

I liked it. I started to work actually internationally.

And the last twenty two years, I’ve been living in different places, in China, in the US, in Mexico, in Brazil, in the UK. And I started actually I did a very weird, I would say, career change very early, but I started in investment banking, in a very large institutional bank, a a French bank.

And I didn’t really like it, and I I always liked international trade. So I moved into I had an opportunity to move into supply chain, actually, at DHL, where I started to work on international freight forwarding services, so airfreight, sea freight, global transportation, projects.

And I really liked it. And then I found, you know, I found my, myself into this industry that is, you know, for many people might seem not the most exciting industry, but it’s the industry that moved the planet.

Right? And, and, you know, if you look at everything around you, wherever you are, you know, 90 to 95% of the products would have been transported at some point internationally, across, you know, either the creation of the items or or even as finished product. And so I, you know, I started a a maybe not like the usual career because I think today, not so many people stay that long in the company.

But, you know, I’ve been working for the organization since 2017, 2000, sorry, ‘7. So, like, almost eight, eighteen years.

And I started as an assistant manager, and then I worked my way through through resilience, a hard work and results, a a, you know, a different jobs, of course. You know, I did, I did eight jobs during this time, but I also moved across the organization in different areas of the business.

And today, I lead, what is the contract logistic business. So all the warehousing and fulfillment operations for e-commerce, retail, and omnichannel clients, which is a global business.

And it’s one of the area that has the highest growth and also complexity, and that’s, also an area of the business that is evolving very fast. That’s why that’s why I love it.

Traci Chernoff

05:47 – 07:03

That’s amazing. And I love how you talked about this pivot in your career that you made, that you were in, you were in banking, investment banking, which, you know, some people, aspire to be in that their entire lives.

And for you, you were like, yeah. This is just not for me.

This is not where I feel most fulfilled. And I think what’s really interesting about that story is that you were able to apply whatever skills you had or acquired from that experience to this new experience, where you’ve been with DHL.

And I did of course, I did look at your LinkedIn before we started talking, and I noticed that you have this extensive experience at one particular organization, DHL, and you’ve had all of these opportunities for growth. And so when we think about or reflect on what you said initially around the, you know, the idea of resilience and what that taught you and how you apply that today, I’m curious what other skills or, even characteristics or traits or or ideologies you’ve taken with you from the time that you were, a waiter and serving others to now being a leader and how that’s maybe transitioned for you or how that’s had an impact on your career.

Nabil Malouli

07:03 – 11:53

Yeah. I mean, there is there is a lot of things.

Right? But, I think if I reflect on what was really for me important, there are a couple of things. Number one, I chose very early on into my career to go in developing markets.

I went to China in 2006. Obviously, today, China is is, much more developed, much more mature than what it was at the time.

But the fact of going to work in developing economies usually gives you more opportunities. Simple mechanics.

Right? I mean, things are moving faster. There is less people.

There is less competition. There is more opportunities because companies are growing faster.

So you just get more opportunities for the equivalent of work that you’ll be doing in a metro market in a in a developed economy or in a market that is going fast, and growing fast, you will get more opportunities. So I think that was that was one choice.

That was a very good choice, I think, early on, and it was on purpose. Then, you know, after Asia, I worked in Latin America, and I had the same, which allowed me to grow very fast in in the organization in in terms of what I was doing, my my my opportunities, and so on.

The second thing is, you know, I come from a very humble family, and, I didn’t have, like, I didn’t have networks. I didn’t have people to really, like, rely on.

But I learned very early that this was very important, and so I started to create, you know, mentoring, relationship with multiple people. You know? I don’t think mentoring you know, oftentimes people think about mentors as, you know, the person that’s gonna help you your entire life and so on.

I don’t think that it, that way at all. I think, actually, you need to have multiple mentors for different purpose, personal life, you know, maybe relationships, maybe, business career.

I mean, there’s different people that will inspire you from different perspectives. And I think you go to these people and you ask them advice and you ask them if they would be willing to create that type of relationship.

And usually, people would say yes. Most of the people would say yes.

I would argue if not, everybody would say yes. If you go and you ask it in the right way, and it’s genuinely advice.

You’re not you’re not selling anything. You’re not trying to do, you know, influence that person or anything like this.

It’s really just really advice. I think if you do it that way and do it well, not only you’re gonna get, like, very good advice from people that you admire or that inspire you, which is amazing, but also you’re gonna get very good shortcuts as to how you do things in a way or or the other and on some of the difficult decisions.

Also, to have somebody that maybe you can really be honest and say really what you’re thinking and get, you know, a second opinion on on things. I think the the the other one is, whenever you work in a in a company or in a in an area, I think you really have to think about how, quickly is the space you’re working at or in is evolving.

So, you know, I took a bet in 2016 to, you know, as some people say, why it’s not really a big bet. I agree with that.

But in 2016, I realized that the transition from traditional commerce to online commerce was a big challenge for many companies. And and I I really, thought, oh, this is, you know even the leading companies have, challenges to go through the transition, which means everybody else also has the challenge.

And so I was working on the project in The US for a large, sports and apparel company. And based on that, I said, oh, you know what? I really like this.

I’m just gonna dedicate myself to that because I think they are gonna be a sequence of opportunities that are gonna come, if I’m I’m specializing that space and I learn and I build knowledge in that space, I’m gonna have a lot more opportunities than if I work in, you know, maybe today, maybe the automotive industry, for example, which is way more stable. Even if you could argue there is things that are happening in the automotive industry today that also creates some disruption, but the growth of the automotive industry is is is certainly not the same that we would have seen, like, forty years ago or fifty years ago.

A good example of this is today, AI is at the center of everything. Right? I mean, if you want an advice today and you’re figuring out where you should be working, you should be working, you know, in businesses with probably an angle like that will give you a lot more opportunities in the coming years.

If there is an AI component, whatever job you’re doing or whatever career you are pursuing, if there is a component of that into it, I think it’s gonna be really helpful, for your development. So I think these are a few things that, definitely, I think made a a difference.

Traci Chernoff

11:53 – 13:19

Yeah. It sounds like you’ve especially when you were talking about the relationships that you focused on and have built over the years that you have, in some capacity, met some people or, you know, tapped the shoulder of some people who have really helped you to maybe just, like, open your mind to these opportunities in front of you.

And, obviously, your achievement is your own. And, certainly, I do think that relationships play a huge role.

Like, to your point, mentorship doesn’t have to be this lifetime long, arduous, extremely, energy, involved process. Like, you can really simply say, hey, you’re in this very interesting role that maybe I’d be interested in doing one day.

Can you tell me about your day to day? Can you tell me about, you know, what that looks like? And I can only imagine the reciprocal effects when someone, ultimately, I agree with you, like, is interested in helping someone else. Because most of the time, people are really willing to go out of their way to help others.

That then there’s a sense of fulfillment for them too. And so I’m curious.

Have you had people reach out to you, whether someone on your team or even outside of of your company who’s like, oh, Nabil has a really interesting job or a really interesting background. I wanna learn more.

Have you had that come up over the years?

Nabil Malouli

13:19 – 15:00

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, I mentor many entrepreneurs myself. So I’m part of a high-impact, entrepreneur network called Endeavor.

And I’ll mentor, you know, at least, yeah, at least twice per month. Entrepreneurs from, you know, from everywhere, from South Africa to Chile to the US to Indonesia, I mean, across the globe.

And with different with very different level of maturity in their journey, you know, people that are you know, older than me that have, achieved amazing things already that, you know, you could say, well, you know, what can I really what what can I really say to that person? You know? They’ve already achieved so much. But sometimes people, they just want to have another perspective from somebody that’s from another industry or have done a different path or or just, you know, knows some some specific or technical, or has specific or technical knowledge about an industry.

And so this relationship, they are different. But yes.

So I do that. And then, of course, across DHL also, I do have all the time new joiners, not only in my team, but across the business that will that will ask me, you know, hey.

You know, we’ve seen you evolve. You’ve been in the company for so long.

Why is that? You know, how can we how can we learn from that? You’ve moved across the different areas of the company. Why did you do that? And so I have this all the time.

And, not only do you join us, sometimes people just want to have a view, from a you know, from somebody else that maybe they, they either respect or they think they can identify themselves with. And, and I’m certainly very happy to do it, and I do it, very often as well.

Traci Chernoff

15:00 – 16:22

That’s amazing. And, you know, this idea of, like, having a community that you’re a part of, I think that goes a long way.

And when I think of even the concept that we’re focused on here at Leading the Frontline, like, you know, understanding the impact of so many industries and so many businesses on hourly employees, on employees who are at the center and the front line, ultimately of kind of, like, the way the world works. Like, one of the things that you had said, and I’m gonna paraphrase probably pretty terribly here at the beginning, is that, you know, this idea of trade and how, you know, things are going from one place to another around the world.

And like I said, I’m totally botching the verbiage that you used. But what it made me think about was how small our world has become because of industries like supply chain, and just the way that we are so directly connected to countries that are fifteen, twenty hours away from us, depending on where we are in the world.

And so I’m curious when you think about your own team and even the teams of your teams, what are some of the things that inspire you to be a better leader or to to lead the way that you do lead at DHL?

Nabil Malouli

16:22 – 18:53

I think, what inspires me is really, you know, the improvements of things. And when I think about improvements, I’m talking about, like, personal development as an example of somebody.

Somebody that joins the team and maybe, just starting their career or are very early in their career or even more advanced in their career, but maybe very knowledgeable in one area of the business and then are looking to expand. So I think personal development for me is something that I think, you do not want to wake up and just do the same thing over and over.

I don’t think that’s that’s a good, I don’t think it’s a good way of living. I think it’s it’s, you know, it’s not the way I think about life.

It’s not the way I think about, you know, how, you know, you continue to get excited when you wake up and so on. So I’m a big I’m a big, big, promoter of continuous improvement.

And, again, not only in the context of business, but also in the context of personal, development. So I myself, I take classes.

I recommend always to my team members to also take courses outside of the company and so on so they can continue to learn and and develop. So I mean, this to me is the biggest.

Right? Like, developing talent, having somebody in your team that gets promoted and becomes, you know, a director, senior director, VP, change their life, improve their life, give them more opportunities. That that that’s the most amazing thing.

Right? So I think that part is definitely, like, I think central and is the most important in my view. And the, you know, the second one is really to do the right things across the business.

You know, when you have, large P&L’s or when you work in large businesses, you have actually a big impact around what you you do can be meaningful. I mean, there are a lot of projects I work on or my team works on that are gonna change the way maybe you buy, Traci, your favorite apparel.

They could be cheaper. It could be a better, more sustainable way that that company operates as a result of a project that we do with them.

And I think, you know, this is, you know, maybe more on the day to day, but thing we’re talking about, like, doing the right things is, obviously, all these projects we work on because they are such a large scale and they are primarily with very large companies, they also make an impact around the world on access to products. They make they make an impact on how sustainable a company can be.

So that’s, I think, it’s very exciting as well.

Traci Chernoff

18:53 – 19:17

That’s amazing. And, actually, one of the questions that I had for you was how your team makes an impact that’s maybe different from other teams in similar industries.

And, it’s really interesting, actually, to hear about the direct correlation between what your team does and how we as consumers are impacted. Is there anything else similar or dissimilar to that that maybe sets you and your team apart from others?

Nabil Malouli

19:17 – 19:49

I think the really, I think the scale of the impact, I think, is the biggest thing. Right? I mean, we are a global team.

We can bring best practice from one country to the other. We can bring, sometime we can leapfrog an entire business, like, couple of years because we we will bring the knowledge or we will bring the technology that we’ve seen in a more mature market into.

I think the the the biggest aspect is really that scale of the impact at the global level. I think that’s that’s the the big differentiation.

Traci Chernoff

19:49 – 20:42

Yeah. That’s so interesting.

I feel like I could because I have so many questions, even just on some of the logistics elements of logistics. I feel like I could go on and on and on, but I wanna stay focused too because there’s so much that I think about even in relation to your team. And that is, like, if I can articulate this the way that I’m saying it to myself in my mind, when your team, like, gets up every day maybe maybe you have some, understanding of this because, of course, you can’t be in the heads of every single person that works for you.

But when they get up during, you know, in the beginning of the day and they are getting ready to go to work, what do you think drives them? Is there is there an element to this where they’re, like, super passionate about the industry? Is it potentially the way that you lead? Like, what are some of the things that really motivate your team?

Nabil Malouli

20:42 – 23:08

Yeah. I think look.

I think, obviously, it’s hard to respond. I think, but some of the things that I will, I believe, to be to be, you know, realities.

I think, putting the right environment for the team, where people are happy to go, where they work with people that they trust, where they feel they belong is the basis of people waking up and being happy to work, and go to work. If you don’t have that, if you don’t have a sense of belonging and you don’t have a sense of trust with your peers, not only with your boss, but with your peers, with your boss, and with your team, I think the rest is really, really hard.

You know? I think the rest becomes really hard as simple as that. So you know, I, I spend quite a meaningful amount of time.

I also use, you know, an external coach to help us as a team, you know, that comes, you know, on a quarterly basis. It’s part of my team meetings and so on.

And and and that that external coach is is, is specialized in coaching teams in the context of athletes, in the context of sports. And I really like that because I think, in my view, there is two type of teams that are very effective, sports teams and then in the military.

I think these are, like, kind of, in my view, are some of the of the biggest, I think, examples of how teams can operate and function. So that’s why we work with that coach.

But, you know, that feeling good and feeling you belong and feeling that you’re working on the bigger purpose, I think, is very important. So the third element is really that sense of purpose.

When it’s really set the tone to many other companies, it’s really set the tone to many other companies potentially. You know, if you think about sustainability, if you think about the way we are working on improving packaging, as an example, These things matter way beyond, our individual responsibilities.

And so I think this is some of the things that I’m definitely trying to convey and to have people get excited about.

Traci Chernoff

23:08 – 24:24

That’s amazing. I love the point on the coach and your reflection on which, you know, which types of teams in our universe effectively are some of the best or operating in some of the best ways.

It’s really, really interesting. And I think it also gives us a little bit of insight into how you lead and kind of, as you said, how you view the world also.

And just to shift gears ever so slightly, you talked a little bit about AI, a little bit ago, and you talked about how, you know, AI is the center of pretty much our universe right now and how being in some capacity, involved with AI can, you know, potentially be what takes you to the next level in your career or at least maybe future proof or give you the growth as you kind of talked about, within the industry that maybe someone is looking for. And so thinking about the future of work and the future of frontline workers even more specifically, are there any trends that you are seeing or noticing, maybe even specifically in the logistics or supply chain space that are kind of hitting the ground running that maybe some listeners might not even be aware of?

Nabil Malouli

24:24 – 28:19

So, I mean, in terms of, like, in terms of trends, you know, if I go deep into the industry, I think, most of these trends might be maybe a bit more technical for the audience. But I we continue to see, technology really being at the center of every disruption we see right now.

I think there is, you know, we identify trends in two dimensions. One is technological advancement and the other one is social changes.

And why they are important? Because if you have only one of the two, I give you an example. Technologies of drones for deliveries, have been very slow for adoption.

It is more for social reason than it is a technological reason. The same is happening for autonomous vehicles.

Technologically, I think it has progressed pretty well, but there’s still a very big, advancement that needs to be done from social acceptance and regulation and so on. And people always put it on the back of regulation, but regulations are result of social acceptance.

Because the people that take decisions, they are people. And so and so I think it’s important to look at this in this in this two ways.

But if we think about, like, like, I think the biggest the biggest trend that I see right now is really, like, people are all across all organizations trying to figure out how do they adopt AI beyond the use of consumer applications like ChargeDPD.

Or sooner if you’re doing music or whatever whatever whatever gadget or tool you might be using to, you know, to produce music or to produce content or to do research and so on. If there is another, obviously, entire horizon of applications in the enterprise space that we are very, very early on into the journey, very, very early on.

And some people might argue this with me, but I always go back to one one example is if you think you, Tracy, as a consumer and the way you’ve been buying products or you’ve been consuming services from the companies you buy stuff from, If you can give me more than five examples of how your life has meaningfully improved as a result of AI adoption in large enterprise, I would love to hear that because nobody can give you five examples of how their life has improved as a result of AI being deployed in the companies that they buy stuff from. You call American Airlines, nothing else American Airlines.

You call Delta, you try to resolve a problem with a retailer. It’s more or less the same thing than five years ago.

And no major they will come. They will come.

For sure, they will come, and they will come in a meaningful way. But I think it’s still gonna take a bit of time because in enterprise, it takes more time than, you know, it comes from the application for obvious reasons.

But I think the biggest trend that I see right now is really how do companies are looking at adopting this across the business for us, for workforce management, for operations. It it shows in different ways.

It shows in robotics and software applications across the warehouse. It shows on how do you improve employee engagement and how do you improve the conditions of the people working in the warehouses.

How do they collaborate with some of these newer technologies as well. So there’s, like, a a wide range of topics, but it does show, as one of the top priorities that you have to adopt AI into the business.

Where do you adopt it? What’s the right use cases? And how do you train? Now, we don’t talk a lot about this, but also how do you train and how do you upscale your people? Towards being able to go through that change as well? It’s it’s a big topic.

Traci Chernoff

28:19 – 29:19

Yeah. Change management is the single hardest thing, I think, for anyone at any level and probably every organization to actually successfully achieve when, to your point, there is new technology or something to roll out.

And maybe it’s not even new technology. Maybe it’s like a new policy or something.

And change management is usually it’s either, like, the single point of failure or it’s, like, the one thing that determines the success of that thing. So I really appreciate the insight that you’ve shared.

And as you were saying, like, name five things, I’m like, yeah. I totally cannot.

Like, thank goodness this is a rhetorical question because there really aren’t five things that we can name that larger enterprise has, impacted us positively or otherwise, I suppose, with their adaptation of AI and within their business. But it’ll be interesting to maybe one day reflect on this conversation and see, can we name those five things in a year or two, five, ten years?

Right? We will. We’ll get there.

Nabil Malouli

29:19 – 29:29

It will. No.

It will for sure. I mean, know that.

I’m not, skeptical of the technology at all. I’m just suggesting it does take more time, and that’s why I was.

Traci Chernoff

29:29 – 29:29

Yeah. I.

Nabil Malouli

29:29 – 29:36

was really reflecting on the fact that companies right now, the big trend is how do you adopt it really? And they are the price we owe.

Traci Chernoff

29:36 – 30:18

It’s a big question. And, I am certainly not a technical person, but I imagine that there with big questions, there are big obstacles to overcome, in order to answer that question.

And, so, Nabil, I have only a couple more questions for you, and these closing questions are, ones that I will ask every single person on this podcast. So, again, thanks for being so willing to be in the hot seat here, and all of the insights and all of the ideas that you’ve shared have been so wonderful.

And so I want to continue by asking what is the best advice you’ve ever received and that you continue to live by?

Nabil Malouli

30:18 – 30:22

Walk the talk, I think, is the best one.

Traci Chernoff

30:22 – 30:26

So do is exactly as you say you’re going to do?

Nabil Malouli

30:26 – 31:30

Yes. I mean, I’d like to, I’d like to, you ask only for one, but the combination, I think, of walk the talk and lead by example Yeah.

I think there are two very important pieces of advice that I got very early on, and I think they are they are fundamental to the way I lead and also the way I behave in the business. I think particularly when you have organizations that are rather large, you, at some point, if you are not conscious of that, you might disconnect yourself a bit from the business.

And understanding that many of the outcomes of whatever you work on ultimately depend on our teams that are in the warehouses that are working around, Thanksgiving and, you know, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and they’re working at 11 PM at midnight and so on. If you disconnect from that, or if you’re not able to do that yourself, then you already have a problem in my view.

So I think I think these are things that I’ve adopted very early on and, and I live by.

Traci Chernoff

31:30 – 32:05

Yeah. I love that.

The idea of leading by example, walking the talk, all of those things, I think do set leaders apart from those who don’t necessarily live by those by those mantras, so to speak. So thank you for sharing that.

And my final question for you officially, and then you can go on with your day, and you can say, who, I did it. We’ve talked about it.

We’re done. This question for you is, where can people follow your work and connect with you? So it was a trick question.

It’s not so it’s not so intense. It’s actually quite light for you this last week.

Nabil Malouli

32:05 – 32:40

Yeah. No.

No. It’s definitely light, and it was a pleasure.

I thank you, Traci. It was definitely an easy and great conversation.

Easy. LinkedIn is definitely the best, the best way.

I mean, my contacts are also there. Yeah.

My email for the audience is myfirstname. [email protected]. I’m open also on that.

And if people want to connect, they can, so they reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I usually respond, except when it’s sales, emails that get filtered out. Otherwise, if people are genuine about engaging, I’ll respond, and I’ll respond myself.

Traci Chernoff

32:40 – 33:23

Amazing. Well, Nabil, thank you so much.

And like I said, I think we learned so much about you and the way that you view the world and your own leadership position. And, certainly, there are a lot of things that I think you should celebrate about the way that you lead teams.

And, it sounds like an awesome place to be, not only in your career, but also when on your team. So, again, thank you so much, and we’ll for sure have links for everyone in the show notes so that they can easily get connected.

And so for all the listeners out there, don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you’re catching this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in.

And if you’re watching on YouTube, you know, maybe it’s not to subscribe, but it is to follow. Whatever you gotta do, we invite you to come back for our next episode.

Nabil, thank you so much.

Nabil Malouli

33:23 – 33:25

Thank you, Traci. Thank you to the Legion team.

Cheers.