Welcome everyone who's joined a very good evening in also, I should think I should say, Good morning and good afternoon. We do have viewers from all parts of the world today. And it's a special occasion for us. We have what industry wants series, the second episode that we're doing this year. And this time it's on the impact of D technology on the supply chain revolution. I just take a quick couple of minutes and briefly introduce who we are and what is our purpose of doing this, this particular event today and also like to really excited about introducing our speaker here. So, we are talentsprint, a National Stock Exchange group company of deep tech scaling organization, which have been here in this space for the last 10 years now, we focus on all the emerging deep tech areas like AI machine learning, IoT, blockchain cybersecurity, and, and a lot of other innovation innovative technologies which have been emerging and we offer really transformational learning programs both for college students as well as working professionals. And this we do in partnership with top academic institutions in the country like IIT, Madras, iisc, Bangalore, IIT Hyderabad, deployed to Hyderabad, I am Calcutta, IIT Kanpur and also global corporations like Google pega, systems, automation wear blue prism, and many more. Today, we are conducting the second what industry wants episode. This is an initiative which we had started in order to promote these technologies and create an awareness and give industry exposure, which is much needed among the college students, also working professionals and the entire college community. And through this, we've been able to, you know, at least do a little bit in terms of getting ready for the future. And today, we have a very special guest. I'm very pleased to introduce Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Eric. Good to be here. So Jennifer is joining us all the way from London, from London. Copenhagen, actually, oh, you're joining from Copenhagen, or London. So great to come London. Very glad to have you here. So to all the viewers, Jaffer is the head of HR for the global technology and finance organizations and a member of the HR leadership team at Maersk. I'm sure Myers does not need a longer introduction than that. So he is the he is he is a senior member of the HR leadership there. Prior to this Jaffer was a Global Head HR business partner for technical functions at Mercy oil in Denmark. jefford has more than 17 years of experience in HR management, organizational development and change management and talent acquisition and management and workforce planning and employee engagement. Prior to this current role, Jeff was the head of human resource at Myers Coyle dhanesh operations for three years. Since joining Microsoft Mike Myers oil almost 11 years ago, Jennifer has held a number of senior HR positions within the organization, including senior HR business partner, HR, head of HR for shared services, and organizational development leader on a change management project. Before joining myristoyl, Jennifer was HR senior generalist at alfursan. Autumn Venus Jaffer holds a Master of Science in Human Resource Management from Birkbeck College, University of London and a Bachelor of Business Administration with emphasis on management from the American University of Beirut. Hi, Jeffers. Once again, we're very, very happy to have you here. And before. And like I asked you to speak, I'd like to inform all the viewers that already we have had a huge compilation of questions, a lot of curiosity in the community as wanting to ask a lot of questions to you. We have sort of compiled all of them. And that's what I think we can have. As a discussion for us throughout this session. I'd like to request all the participants to use the Zoom chat option and interact with us, you can share your thoughts, questions, comments, any time using the zoom chat option. And we will definitely try and address. Like I already said most of the questions we've already kind of compiled and kept it ready for you. So my request is to just really be patient and listen to all the questions. Your question will also be answered. And if you've made it as somebody would have asked for it up there in the list. So until then I'd request you to use the chat option in Express with us.

And I think right now we can Get Started. So I'd like to ask the first question, refer to, which I think is the starting point for the discussion. We usually identify Maersk as a shipping company. We've seen it in movies as well. But recently, we have also noticed a change that the company talks about its technology transformation. And that's, that's what we are really excited to know about. So what is behind this?

Yeah. Excellent question. Real quick. And before I get into, I just wanted to say thank you for the invite. Thank you for the great production, really excited to be spending the next hour with you and our audience, and happy to answer all the questions and share as much as I can. From what we've learned in the last few years in particular, on the technology market. to your question, yes, mask is really talking about technology now, and striving to become a technology company. And it's amazing, because Merck is also heavy in steel assets, when it comes to our shipping company. We're a leader in global shipping. We've been in the shipping industry for more than 100 years. And a couple of years ago, we realize that to be in this industry and the industries that are related to it for another 100 years, we need to do something different. So we're using our position as a leader in shipping to become a leader in global integrator container logistics. And we know for sure that that is not going to happen without building our technology, competencies and capabilities. And that's why you hear him talk a lot about becoming a technology company. It's really exciting. I've been in the company for 15 years, and I was I joined the company as most glow mask was a conglomerate. And in 2016, we basically saw that in order to survive for 100 years more, in order to be successful for another 100 years, we needed to look at the industry different and we needed to focus on a new vision, which is to become the global integrator of container logistics. We want to connect and simplify for our customers their supply chain, and become that integrated supplier of end to end solutions. In order to get our customers to use our ocean and logistics and services all together, then technology is going to be our competitive advantage. And that's what's exciting about my job. And that's what's exciting about the jobs of all my technology colleagues, we know that we are central to the transformation of the company today. And we know that we're going to give that value to our customers that they need and strive for. What it means for our technology organization is with insourcing, we're building, we're going from an outsourced model to an in source model, we're building that capability. And we've been doing that for the last few years as well. And I'm happy to say today, and our quarterly results just came out recently, our annual results for 2020 just came out. But we're starting to see the fruits of that labor was exciting to see how the value is being translated into what our customers need, as well. So I encourage you all to also check out our website, look at our annual reports and see what's in there around technology and how our CEO talks about technology being central to the transformation. So so long answer or it's work, but but I just wanted to share that journey from you know, being the leader in shipping and being successful in that industry 400 years, and needing to actually be that leader for 100 years as well and what we need to do to be there.

Thank you for such an elaborate response. I mean, this is this is great, because it's a huge transformation that we are witnessing in our time, and we should feel lucky to be witnessing that too. And so now I think I'd like to ask, What does technology mean at Marist or what are some of the most exciting technology projects, which are going on at Moore's currently?

Yeah, yeah, let's let's exactly let's deep dive I can that's, that's a very relevant question in terms of what is technology at Maersk. And Firstly, let me tell you what we've done in the last year. So in the last year, we've been investing heavily in the technical expertise and in leadership roles as well as our technology colleagues roles. We're an organization today if we include our external calendar in organization, so they have about 6000 people, and about 3500 to 4000 of those are internal. We've hired more than 3000 people in the last few years, and we've designed and implemented a new operating model and structure that has clear accountabilities to in a box and brings our technology organization closer to the business, which means that today, we don't talk about technology and business we talk about both being the same. Our strategy, so what are we doing? What is what is technology at Marist, the first thing is about modernization of our legacy a state. Of course, we're a company that's been around for so long, we have a system landscape, we have a setup that has worked. And now we need to further modernize that and build out new digital platforms, automation and IoT is huge in that, that leveraging data is going to be really really big as well, in terms of the value it brings to our customers and the value it can bring to our enterprise and how we actually run it. Enable in a target architecture framework, so that we draw out the future in a solid way. cloud first strategy in this really then cyber security, I don't have to tell anyone how important cyber security is, I think governments, the biggest governments of the world are talking about how important cyber security the g7 recently had that on their on their main agenda. So obviously, for us, it's huge. And it's about developing, therefore, a diverse top quarter, a world class organization, and our people. When we when we then talk about our people will deep dive more. But it's also essential that our people have the right setting, have the right organization have the right operating model of free to be able to do what they do best. So what's important for me is when I when a new technology colleague joins us, that they have the little rope to express themselves in what they are most passionate about as well.

Thank you so much, Jeff. Well, I think immediately while you're speaking, a couple of words struck me one is this world class technology organization. And the other is, of course, people as part of this. So I think yeah, I think we'd like to kind of understand that a little bit more. And you talk about what was your pitch? What What does that be?

Yeah, yeah, good question. And, and, you know, firstly, when we say world class, we mean it, right? This is not just to say, you know, world class, because it sounds good, we really want to be, and we'll be world class when it comes to talent. And the way to look at it rhetoric is, you know, I said before, in order to earn an order for musk to be successful in its transformation, then technology is critical for that. And in order for technology to therefore be successful in enabling the transformation of MERS, then our people is critical for that as well. And it's not a coincidence that I as the head of HR and talking to you today, because the people is the central part of our transformation, the competencies of our people and abilities for them to make this change and navigate that change is really important. We're also going into this change not exactly know and how to do it, which means people even more important, because it's us, it's the colleagues that are going to figure it out that I get to drive it and build that technology capability and competency and the organization. And remember, it's only the first step to build that technology organization within most, what we're striving for is the whole of musc becomes a technology organization. So it's essential that we do have a world class technology organization that spreads that capability across the organization. What does it actually mean? In terms of world class, I would say there's there's four areas to it. The first area is about developing our people. Like I said, we've we've got 3500, we're recruiting heavy this year alone, we're looking to recruit more than 1000 people. And what that means is, therefore, we need to be able to offer them the development opportunities. We've got a technology Academy, and we spend millions of dollars in developing our people every year in various different learning activities all the way from heavy online activity and online resources. Where we know our employees are spending hundreds of 1000s of hours on that to actual directed learning specific learnings on what we need them to do. As well as other development opportunities. We also have a talent management test drives that development for our people. And this is all based on a new form and industry best practice job and skills career model where we look in To what we've implemented is basically a model that gives clarity to our technology colleagues on how their career can look in most technology. Another part of it, which I've talked about already is, of course, recruitment. We've hired so many, and we are looking to hire and we will constantly hire. So as we have built our recruitment team in the last few years, we've built it to last where it's not just a, a peak, and then we'll see it go down, we're always going to need technology competencies, new technology, skills, and talent. And what that means is, as we spread technology skills and talent across the organization, we're not only going to be recruiting for technology, we're going to be recruiting for the company, we're going to be looking to hire technology expertise across business positions as well. So the third one is a fit for purpose organization, what's essential pratim ology colleagues is it's clear to them, how they work, what their roles and responsibilities are, how they interact, and how they collaborate with their colleagues and in technology and the rest of the organization. So what's important is that we have an agile organization that is really able to allow our talent to fry to do what they're doing, and work out what they can do best. And to basically lift those barriers off them. A slime I would say is leadership engagement and the right culture. We knew

in the last few years, we've always known and especially when navneet joined early last year, as CTO chief technology and information officer, we knew that the first step was getting the leadership at the top to be the world class leadership. So all the way from the top leadership team, to the top 100 leaders to all our people, managers, we strive to have the best leaders that know their stuff, and are able to really dig deep into the technology areas, but also able to lead and develop people as well. In terms of engagement, our engagement is increased, almost doubled in the last year and a half. We're close now to the top quarter of engagement. And the reason I talk about engagement is that is linked to her and coach said in terms of development in terms of allowing the progress in terms of having the right culture, having the right colleagues having the right viewership, etc. And we're seeing really positive trends on that. And ultimately, this will create the right culture for our technology organization.

Thank you so much. For I think that's a very inspiring vision to build a world class organization. And, and also, I thought, I can teach a truly holistic approach in building where I believe most of the participants we have today are technology enthusiasts are there, in fact, completed or are about to complete a bachelor's degree in technology. So I think the next question will be what does this mean for them? And why should a technology talent join Merced?

Yeah, excellent question. They're at work. And, and you know, of course, we have the big technology giant. That's right. So So in a way, the first question I think our audience is going to have is, why would I want to join Merce compared to a big technology giant? First thing I'll say to that is, is we are building a world class technology organization. And that also makes us compete in terms of the opportunities we are able to give.

But the way to look at mask and based on what I said, we're basically disrupting an industry from within, we're a leader in an industry, we're disrupting it, we're expanding it. And we're offering solutions to our customers through technology that our competitive advantage to unlike those big players, you get to build from the start, you get to change an industry you get to you get to basically disrupt and improve well trade. And we all know what world trade is, we just have to look around us to know what what world trade mean is and how we get our day to day items, and then food etc. So there's a purpose to our company, there's a strong purpose to what we do. And as a technology, talent that comes in and makes a difference to an industry and also helps build technology capability. I believe we have a unique proposition. What we also look at, and this is the view of the technology colleagues so what I've been striving for with my technology leadership peers is how do we look at things in a different way from just you know, this is our people strategy, how do we look at it? from a technology colleagues perspective? What do they look for, to be happy and to strive and to do their best For our organization, and like I said, purpose is important. What we know is everyone looked for a purpose in their job, what am I doing? What am I making a difference in, if I could tell you, you can make a difference in changing world trade and making it better. I think all of us would agree that is amazing. But the other thing is about what is the job I'm doing, what's the content of that job. And that's also about the challenges that we give you, the meaningful challenges, the stretches, and having fun and all our data shows that actually people appreciate working in the culture that we have in our engagement, increasing means that that engineering culture, that world class talent, culture we're building is something they all appreciate. It's, of course, linked to development as well. So I've just talked about the development opportunities we're giving our people, and that is essential for people to be able to feel like they are growing, they are progressing, they are learning. Another one, which I've also talked about is leadership. So we know that in order to have the best technology organization, then we need the best leaders as well. And it starts there. And it starts with them all the way from the top to the next layer. So that's an important aspect of how we strive to get the best leaders how we train our leaders to be the best leaders, but also how we don't put distance between our leaders and their teams. So one of the things we look at is how far down are engineers in the organization. And we strive to keep that at a minimum. And actually, our target is four. So no engineer in our organization, no technology engineer, should be far away from the Chief Technology Officer, we also look at span of control. We don't want to have micro teams within our teams where people interact, and learn from each other. And that's all linked to leadership and how leaders include and develop our people, rewards and recognition is also very important for us. As I telling you, all of these are important, not only one of them. So what I would definitely say is reward is not the only focus that all of us should have when joining a company. But of course, we know we need to compete. And I believe we're very competitive, and what we're offering our people, both in terms of the structure of what we pay, and what we pay as well. And then recognition, recognizing our colleagues have told us they want to be recognized for what they do. And we're striving to do that in so many different exciting ways as well. Our team environment I talked about before, is great. Even the people we do exit interviews for for people that leave us for various different reasons, just like any company. And by the way, our attrition is below the below the market. But even people that leave us tell us that we love the culture, and the environment and our colleagues and our leaders in the organization which which to me is a huge message, in addition to our own colleagues today saying that as well. work life flexibility and harmony, I think in the world we live in today, we all know that that is really important. We've lived it for the last year and a half. Our colleagues, for example, in India have been I think at home for more than a year now working from home and we've made it work, and it's excellent. But even before that, and let's see the pandemic work from home situation more as practice. But even before that, and not because we want to give flexibility to our people, we know that to get the best talent, we also have to be flexible about whether they need to be in the office every day, whether they need to be in a certain city. And that's something that we strive for, and provide in terms of flexibility as well. And the last thing which to be honest, is close to my heart is is the diversity aspect of what we do as a company. And what we do in technology. Diversity is huge for us both in terms of gender, and all the other diversity aspects that that we can look at. We want the best diverse world class technology organization. And that means that we strive to hire diverse thought. And that means diverse gender, diverse nationality, drive diverse ethnicity, diverse sexuality, etc, etc. everything for us, is important. And we're looking at that really, really closely. And all our leaders are aware of that. And yes, we do have targets. But this is beyond targets. This is a culture that we build that is also inclusive, as well. So again, rhetoric, a very long answer, but I really wanted to sort of share the world of mercy from a technology colleagues perspective.

Thank you so much for that. I'm very sure now that everybody in this meeting for sure, would be aspiring to be working at Mercer the way you will operate it. I think it'd be a great place to definitely not just to get into any job but have a long and fruitful career. So I'd like to ask a more sharp question here. What are the profiles and skills that Musk is looking to hire for now? What does an ideal candidate look like? Yeah, great,

great question. I read through it. And I have to say, I mean, even as the technology leadership team, we have spent so much time on defining what does good look like, what is it that we are actually looking for? And that's both in terms of, you know, what do we what is world class talent look like for us from us, but also in terms of how can we be consistent in hiring that world class talent so that we have a benchmark to go by in terms of what's the best. And the first thing we really look for in terms of profile is someone that has the proven ability to build and deploy world class technology solutions. And that doesn't mean you have to have years of experience, it means you have that skill, you have that passion, you have that practice, to be able to do it. We're also looking for curious and flexible mindsets, right? The curiosity is important here, because we're building stuff new, I told you, when we went into this transformation, as a company, we didn't know how to do it, we're gonna figure it out on the way. And that's amazing, because we have been doing that. And we do that for our people. So we need that curiosity and that flexibility in the mindset. And then we need that mindset to focus on problem solving, and eagerness for continuous learning eagerness to just continue picking up learning the industry, learning the solutions, learning the business that we're in, and how we operate. And then destruct disrupting, and striving to change for the better. So that's sort of the profile at a high level in terms of what we look for, in our technology talent, in terms of this specific competency. So I talk to you a lot about engineering, we're looking for engineering, we're looking for cloud, industrial infrastructure, integration engineers, quality engineers, software engineers, we're looking for that engineering skill set that's able to move us forward in terms of the building deploying. Architecture is really important for us in drawing out the future. So enterprise platform, infrastructure, architecture, really, really important for us. And then later, I spoken about data, I think the world's delimit when it comes to data and data engineering, data science is also critical. cybersecurity, I spoke about before, we need the best cybersecurity in the world. Like I said, it's it's a it's a world focus right now. heavy focus. It's a focus for organizations. And it's obviously a focus for us. So we need the best their services and operations, we shouldn't forget that area as well. You know, I talk about engineering and architecture, data, etc. Let's remember, service and operations is also exciting. And it also has all of those skills, as well. And in order to keep going in terms of building these solutions, running these solutions on a technology platform is essential when it comes to service and operations as well. So a big message from us is that area is just as exciting, if not more even in terms of the rest of the areas that we're talking about. Let me stop there and see if there's anything further rhetoric from your side.

Yeah. You have talked about an ideal profile, and I am sure everybody wants to get there, but they're not sure really how to get there. So this does my astrology invest in people development, and how does my most technology invest in people development?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, exactly that. That's, I think, a big thing we need to say here is, of course, you know, we strive for world class, we strive for the profile. But we also need to help those that we hire and those that we have as colleagues today, to also grow into that as well. And we don't expect everyone to tick all the boxes if that's the right way to describe it. So the first thing to say is, we see people learning the most on the job, the challenges, they're given the assignments, they're given the exposure, they're given to solving problems, exciting problems that make a difference to our company make a difference to our industry. That's the biggest learn. So before I go into tech Academy, and the job and skills career model, we have excetera that I've already spoken about. Let's remember that it's on the job experience. That is the most exciting for our people. It's what they're exposed to. It's what they build. It's what they see their colleagues working on and it's what their leaders grow them to. That is the biggest learning. But in addition to that, of course, we do have a struggle. Should we have clarity and transparency, and this is what your career can look like. So I've just mentioned, for example, the key competencies, the key positions we're looking for, they are all part of a job and skills career model where you can match your skills and competencies to those roles. And what else would I need to build to get into other roles, etc. So there's that encouragement for, for our colleagues to take advantage of that transparency to also be in the driver's seat when it comes to the career. The tech Academy, like I said, offers 1000s of different online activities of learning, as well as directed learning on specific areas that we're looking at in terms of, for example, agile, cloud, etc, really, really exciting learnings there. And then we also have a special focus on top talent and succession planning. We want to strive to develop everyone, everyone is a talent for us. Notice I use the word talent, a lot, everyone has a talent for us. But we also have top talent, we want to accelerate as well. And we have a process around that. So it's all about that learning continuous learning culture that we want to offer. And I have to say, and this is also a piece of advice for all our audience as well. Remember that it's not only your leader, not only the company that's in the driving seat of your development, you have to be the main driver of that development. So it's about what you strive to be involved in what you strive to achieve what you strive to learn. That is really important, we can give you that basis, we can give you that foundation, we can give you that opportunity. But then what I have seen is the most successful colleagues we have in our organization, is are the ones that actually take opportunity of that challenge and that opportunity.

Thanks, thanks a lot for that response. You already touched upon the different areas of engineering where Maersk is actively investing in looking for talent. According to you, what are some of the top skills which are which may be possibly high demand in the next two to three years?

Yeah, great. This is where we can get even more specific about, you know, what are we recruiting for? And what are we actually even finding challenges in, in finding diverse world class skills and, and the first one has to be data science and machine learning, and AI, right organizations now rely on data driven decision making, we have a huge opportunity to do that as mask just based on our presence based on our activities based on where we are at sea on an on roads today, the data aspect of running our business, the data aspect of customer value is huge for us, a kind of skill is really truly important. And it is difficult to obtain, it is something that all organizations are looking for when they go through this transformation. And therefore they're really looking for that it links to data engineering and clouds as well scattered in diverse formats and diversified structures in organizations. And getting that one view, right so data be in that scattered and diversified and, and in different areas. And if you just imagine how much data we have, as an organization, being able to make sense of that, and make value of that is huge. And our data engineers and cloud can do that. DevOps is another one in terms of continuous integration and development of the software project lifecycle is really important for us and what we are striving to be the world class out as well. full stack engineers. So New Age, application development is key for digital transformation, such as our journey, expand expectation is that an individual should be able to touch and work in all areas of application development, front end back end middleware, you know, all of it needs to be something you grasp and you work with and you integrate with. And it just makes it really exciting because you see that full view, as well. And then lastly, digit automation. So companies want to invest in areas that maximize their return on investment. This means, you know, how do we invest in the right areas. The goal of the digital automation is to streamline business processes and eliminate humans. And that's not to say we want people to lose their jobs, but it's to say we want people to do the other stuff I've just talked about, and then have that digital automation that does the stuff that is not necessarily that competitive edge stuff that we need as well. So I would say we hire for a lot rhetoric, but they are the main main skills. They're the main top skills that we look forward to today, and they're actually the main skills I would recommend our audience you know, decide on which areas are the most interesting and exciting for them if they haven't already, and just become world experts in.

Thank you so much. I think we kind of answered almost all the questions that we received earlier. I, before we close up, I have one final question and maybe possible if there's any new question from the audience, we can try and reduce it. So we talked about my risk as a technology company, the investment areas and becoming a world class company, then investing in people and key skill sets that are required, and what kind of ideal profile are you looking? I think one question that, that strikes many people at this young phase of their career is how to get started. And also, what what, what career advice would you give the young students or we're just about to pick technology as a profession and build a career?

Sure, yeah. Excellent question. And, you know, as HR, we often spend time with leaders and employees talking to them about this, but I've learned a lot about the technology industry in the last few years, and what kind of profiles and talent we have in that industry. And, and my advice is going to be based on what I've seen, from the successful talent that we have, as well as what we see in in the media, as well as what we know from an HR standpoint, as well as what we know from a career standpoint. And the first thing I'll say is choose your favorite technology, and delve deep into it become specialized become world class, when you hear organizations saying they want to be world class in technology, it means we need world class technology skills, and therefore need world class people. So choose your area, specialize in it, be the best in it, and be someone that can actually stand up and say, I can make a difference and have that confidence to do that. But remember, there has to be content before behind the you can't have that confidence without being world class in that area and be in a specialist in that area. I worked in the oil and gas industry before. And the value that we brought as a technology as a mask organization was from those technical skills that technical specialists, we had, the petroleum engineers were the ones that were able to successfully get the oil out of the ground. It's the technology engineers, for example, that are the ones that are going to build and deploy those solutions, the world class and those tries to do that. And take advantage in doing that by the massive open online courses that are taught, you know, some all of you are attending a session like this, attend as much as you can. There's so much on your fingertips today. There's no excuse for you not attending, not really, they're not going into your own learning, and actually taking time and investing in that as well. Get deep on working on the practicalities. Rather than focusing on the theory, the theory is important. Don't get me wrong. It's the basis, the foundation that companies need people that build and deploy solutions, just remember that do your theory is the foundation, your theory is what you need, as a basis to then the deploy, build and deploy those solutions. And therefore, get deep and get deep on working on the practicalities. Keep yourself up to date, oh, my God is our industry moving fast, it moves so fast, that you've almost got to do a full time keep up to date type of investment in your time, keep up to date, it's those that keep up to date, that are able to keep up with having the most exciting jobs. And being that top class talent that we're talking about. tools and techniques changes. But fundamentals do remain the same as well. So while you're striving to keep up to date, remember that there are fundamentals of our technology landscape that are important. And you should always strive to also have that foundation that you then build on with the new solution.

Look at normal tech in terms of keeping up to date as well. So motion graphics blockchain drone technology, I'm talking to you about this and I am no way near an expert in this stuff. But I am I excited to read it. I have to say you know I fought I was an all my career is in HR. But today if you gave me an article on HR, and you gave me an article on technology, I would read the technology article because it's also about understanding the area you work in from you which is technology and business. And it's the same for our technology talent, become that world class in technology. And go beyond the normal to be able to talk about lots of different things. Because organizations also require you to come in and innovate. And then in order to innovate, you need to have that wide spectrum of understanding of beyond normal technology, what else is out there. And then we talked about it before, stay curious, continue learning, continue learning is really important. And curiosity is what also drives and drives that they'll definitely be open minded to learning new things as well. Now, I have to be honest, five years ago, if I also would have said to you Be patient, you know, the money will come, and the opportunities will come. And I will say that to you. But I will also say that you have an opportunity to accelerate as well. Because when you are working in an industry that is moving so fast, then if you're learning fast, and if you're growing fast, there's no reason why you're going to move in the right direction in terms of your career. But remember, movement does not always have to be upwards movement can be sideways, in terms of specialize in in different areas as well. And in order to do that, sometimes you need to take sideways steps to move up as well. Did that help protect?

Absolutely. I think from the questions that we received earlier, we did cover almost all of them, I believe all of them. We did get some questions on the chat, I think we'll be able to take one or two and then maybe you can give your closing remarks after that.

Look at some of the questions which have come up. And we can pick a couple of them. Okay. I think Shaykh Abdullah, has written three questions. Maybe I'll just read them out, maybe you can see if we can address any of them.

So the first question is what supply chain issues are being tackled using Internet of Things or analytics? Let's list the first question. The second question is the recent Suez Canal crisis that has disrupted the oil supply chain, in these kinds of disruptions are unpredictable and very new solutions which Maersk is working on to be able to deal with these kinds of disruptions. And this is the latest news. So everybody is certainly caught the attention. And based on your experience, can you give your views on technology adoption across the world versus India? Specifically in dealing with the supply chain issues?

Yeah, well, free really good and tough questions. And I have to warn everyone remember, I mean, hate. So I'm not a supply chain expert. And I'm not a technology expert. But I'm obviously passionate about both. I'll try to answer them. But I do know that my colleagues of course in supply chain and my colleagues in technology are definitely able to give more to it. So first question, I heard the rhetoric was supply chain. And what are the challenges that analytics and technology can actually help solve in terms of supply chain? Is that is that correct?

Yeah, that's good. So what can what kind of challenges in supply chain are being tackled with the use of technology?

Yeah, so so supply chain is actually our biggest growth area, or let's see, logistics and services is actually our biggest growth area. And what we tend to have is a very fragmented way of doing shipping and supply chain and, and everything else linked to that today. Some organizations have very good at doing supply chain, but only supply chain for example, some organizations are very good at doing shipping, etc. So remember, we're looking to integrate that whole thing. And in order to integrate that whole thing, it means we need to be able to build capabilities in it, and then join it up and integrate it. And technology is what will we integrate a technology is what will help us bring it all together, and then therefore offer those solutions to our customers. So I would go beyond supply chain in terms of being able to offer our customers solutions, rather than only being able to offer them a ship that has containers, is the transformation that technology has given us in terms of the Suez Canal and and what happened there. I think it really interesting and I think We all heard about how it happened. And we of course, had many delays based on that, just like all shipping companies had. Technology, remember is in a lot of different ways when it comes to our industry technology in terms of building and deploying solutions to our customers is one thing. But how we operate and how efficient we are in our organization is also the area of technology for us. And then IoT, and what we have on the ship. So what we call industrial technology is also critical. So we continuously strive to also have the best in our equipment when it comes to on board. But also, please do read more about the the strategy we have on becoming more green as an organization that is really, really exciting. The decolonization strategy that we have is amazing, and something that is cutting edge, and again, going to disrupt the industry. Without technology, we're not going to be able to achieve anything on that. I wouldn't be able to tell you anything specific about the Suez Canal and how we dealt with it. I think I'll leave that to the experts. But I definitely see an opportunity there for technology. Could you remind me real quick of the last question I just got,

based on your experience, sir, can you give your views on the technology adoption across the world, compared to India, and specifically in dealing with the supply chain domain.

So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, to be honest, be able to give you sort of the technology adoption and supply chain. I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in that. But I will retract, take the opportunity to just say that we're striving and I know you said we do have a global audience. But if I may just say a few words about the India talent base. And there's a reason why we're in India today. As as Merced when it comes to our technology centers, we're in Bangalore, me booni. We've got also offices in the big cities as well, but but Bangalore and Cooney is important for us. And we're in India today, and most of our growth in terms of people, and in terms of recruitment is in India, because we see the talent base availability, that we also see heavy, heavy competition, as well, to be completely honest, and I think we compete pretty well. And the data from the recruitment team, is is amazing. And given that, given us that insight, but let me just say that there is a unique talent base in India that we are tapping into. And we're consciously doing that we know what we're doing. And we have been in the last few years and many years actually as mercy. But in terms of technology, and in particular, I see a positive advantage for us to be in in India, I see that the talent basis there. I heavily enjoy going to India and meeting our colleagues there. Our technology team in India, in terms of recruitment is doing an amazing job of getting out there. So encourage everyone to to look at our website, look at our activities, that we have talent base in India, we are tapping into and that's why we invest in what we're investing when it comes to offices, etc. There.

Thank you. Thank you for taking three questions I thought we'll get it answered one or two. But just from one person, we had three questions. So there are some questions which are asking about, you know, any job roles that are currently available and how we can apply. And I think Natasha has already posted a link where people can check out the careers page and on their skin find out. There is however one question, it's a personal question. I think this will be the last question. But it's I found it very interesting. So maybe you can spend some time on that. So one should has asked, Can you tell us about your experience as the start of your career? And how did you start in order to go about your own career?

Yeah, sure. Well, great question. So firstly, what I would say rhetoric is what you need to do is strive to to have a good foundation of education. But education gets you in the door. And then it's about going from theory to qualities and my career was was I have a diverse background in terms of my parents being in the Middle East growing up in London, and today, I've been an expat for 15 plus years. So an international career personally for me has been an amazing experience. I mean, experience my family's I think my kids have had that international experience and also I think well versed in that Accepting and being part of diversity and actually, to be honest, not even seeing diversity. So so that's first thing I would say, um, but I have to say, you know, if you're good at what you do, the opportunities will come. So become good at what you do become well versed in what you do become confident in what you do, and the opportunities will come. And that's what I meant about patients before, patients is not about oh, my God is going to take me 10 years to be here or their patients is about, be focused on what you do and do it best. Because then you'll get those opportunities to do different and do more, and go up into organizations into new exciting positions. And my career personally has been where, you know, I started in HR as a generalist. And in my early days, I, I don't ever think I've done you know, talking to leaders about developing their teams, to coaching employees to spending time in the filing room, to make sure that the employee files were good. And and slowly, I learned to to, to become expert, and partnering with the business has HR working with the leaders working with the employees and growing from there, I ended up getting opportunities and every opportunity made me grow. And therefore the last piece of advice I would also give is, plan your career. But also be ready for opportunities that will come if you're good at what you do. If you're good at what you do, you will get those opportunities and have a have a plan on what you want to do as a career. But also be ready for surprises and be ready for those that may open that you didn't expect. And then be very decisive and whether you want to go in that direction. But as well, what I can say about my career, and most most of my career has been in my own skin. What I can say is Mariska grows on you because of the excitement, you have the entrepreneurial spirit that Merce Kaz in wanting to grow and go in different places and transform. And I think in my 15 years, and Morris, I don't remember a year where we haven't been transforming. And sometimes it's exhausting. But most of the time, it's exciting, and it's what's kept me but also work for companies that you can connect to work for companies that you can connect to from a purpose and an environment, culture perspective. I connect to Merced today, because I believe in the values that we provide, which is not only a page on the website, that is actually what we have, in terms of everyday life. So everything from our uprightness to humbleness, to our focus on people, it's it's in there, it's it's our name, it's our brand, it's in there, it's everything we do. And trust me, I'm in HR. So I know what the decisions are that we take towards our people. And I know how linked they are to our values. So I connect with Merce from a values perspective, I also connect to us from a purpose perspective, the World Trade, enabling world trade, some of the stories we have are amazing, even recently, in terms of how Musk was involved in the pandemic and helping countries transport goods during the pandemics that were critical in terms of even transporting the jobs that people are getting around the world. There is a purpose, tomorrow skin helping that small business in a remote area in the world, or that small farming community remote area of the world be able to bring their products to the world as well. There's a purpose to that. So make sure you work for a company that has a purpose that you can connect with as well. That would be a few things from my side. ritvik.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I think that was very inspiring. This has been a very inspiring and motivating session for all of us here charged up to have much more aggressive pursuit of our dreams and, and build a very strong career. So I think we're almost at the top of the hour now. And it's it's a Saturday evening here. And I'm sure the questions will keep on coming. But it's beyond the scope of this particular session. I request all the participants to feel free to write to us whatever questions you have, we'll try and share with Jeff and his team. And we will get back to all the questions with answers. On that note, before I end, I'd like to ask you to just share some final closing remarks and then we can come to you.

Sure, sure. So let me let me split my final remarks into two one would be around just closing the topic we've talked about in terms of most technology in the technology world that we have today. But then also talk a bit about event. Firstly, to summarize, I think I personally truly believe in the fact that having a world class diverse and engaged technology organization in verisk, will be the greatest competitive advantage we will have as a company in the industries we're working today. So, like I said before, technology is central to the mass transformation, having that world class diverse and engaged technology and colleagues in our organization is going to make the biggest difference. And we're disrupting an industry. And that is really, really exciting, because it has purpose, it has value to our customers, to our people, to our societies, as well. So that's been really exciting. But I also want to fact tank the the event, I want to thank you earthquake, I want to thank the event, I think the National Stock Exchange and, and what you guys are doing is amazing, offering this space for for organizations to talk about what their experiences and what they're looking for. And then given the space to the audience to be able to think about and challenge themselves in terms of what we should really be thinking about for our career, I think is an amazing opportunity as well. So definitely a talents for him. And I love the name the way talentsprint you know, Sprint, your talent, that that's amazing. So big, big thank you for the invite, and a big, big thank you for organizing this. And I really do hope that we were able to at least share some of our experience. And I was

we should thank you for taking out your time and joining all the way from Copenhagen and, and, and sharing all your wisdom with us. I thank you for so much for supporting us in this initiative where we are trying to reach out to young professionals and guide them through these changing times and very interesting times. And I think this has been a very fantastic session when I'm sure all of them have had so much to take away. And I'm sure they will come back to us with a lot more questions. So on that note, I think we can end this session now. I'd like to thank you and your team and all the participants here to have joined us we've had almost, I think more than 100 guests who stayed over the last one hour and it's been great interacting with everybody. And as you can see in the comments, also a lot of positive responses coming they want to ask him for more and more of these kinds of sessions. We're happy to do this. And we'd like to keep meeting on different occasions like this. Thank you so much. Once again. Have a great day. Thank you so much.

Watch the entire interview here youtube.com/watch?v=TYa1TrI8vRQ