From intern to VP: A supply chain success story

After college, Miller’s internship grew into a job with the same supply chain company. During this time, her work focused on customer service, and she came to love working with clients and strengthening those relationships.

Eventually, Miller’s career led her to DHL Supply Chain, where she’s spent nearly 24 years of her career. Miller credits the culture at the company for why she’s stayed at DHL for so long.

“I tell people all the time [that] I wouldn't have stayed [at DHL Supply Chain] for 24 years if it wasn't a great place to work,” she said. “We have this culture of growth. We have this culture of doing the right thing and doing it the first time, executing for our customers.”

At DHL, Miller held multiple titles: director of solutions, director of operations, senior director of operations, and now VP of integrated transportation. The most rewarding part for her has been helping others, whether they be customers of DHL or fellow team members.

“I love working with people,” Miller said. “I love helping people, building relationships, building long-term relationships with customers, and helping to make a difference. We deliver a lot of different goods and services here—whether it's automotive parts that get someone's car back on the road, or medicine that people need, or even your selected convenience store—helping people achieve their goals and building those relationships and then building teams. Building teams is so important, and watching our associates and all of our groups evolve and grow and progress their careers.

See also: Women In Motion unveils survey on attracting and retaining women in trucking careers

Throughout her career, Miller acknowledges that there have been multiple times in which she was the only woman in the room or at the conference table. However, she has never seen being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry as a challenge.

“If you have the passion and you have the expertise, and you're driving toward excellence, and you're driving toward delivering value for whomever you're working with, that tends to fall by the wayside pretty quickly,” Miller claimed.

Miller believes that the transportation industry could offer so many opportunities if more people would just consider the industry as a possibility, especially women.

“I've seen so many young women say, ‘Oh my gosh, transportation. I would never want to do that,’” Miller said. “But you don't really know … I'd say, challenge yourself, challenge your paradigms, challenge what others have said to you.”

Miller points out that the transportation industry is especially suited for problem solvers who want a challenge and who don’t want to sit at a desk all day.

“As an example, my daughter is a wrestler,” Miller told FleetOwner. “And before she was recruited for wrestling by a male wrestling coach, I would have never thought my daughter could be a wrestler. She loves it, and she's great at it. And I had my own paradigms that I had to step out of when she wanted to do that. I would challenge others to do the same and just step out of that old way of thinking. We as women can do anything, and we should give it a shot.”

At DHL, Miller is now working to make sure other women are given a chance and their voices are heard.

“I really try and be active in the industry, active with our partners and who we work with, and really making sure on our teams, we are looking at diverse applicants, really trying to recruit who's best,” Miller said. “But also let’s find some women who we think would be really good at this, or let's recruit someone from another area or department and bring them over. Let's sell them on what a great place this is to work. It's both being visible out there overtly but also that grassroots recruitment of young women in particular to bring them into what we do and build our teams  because the more diverse we can make our teams, the better that they're going to be.”