Mary Breede - Solution consultant at Thomson Reuters
Mary started out as a master scheduler and project manager. She was brought in on a project to close an on-site customs audit that had been dragging on excessively (3 years). She learned about Ch 98 or Ch 99, drawback, country of origin, marking, classification, valuation audits, and compliance improvement plans. Then her career just expanded from there, gaining experience in multiple industries: high-tech, consumer electronics, chemicals, and apparel and footwear. Today, as part of the customs insight team at Thomson Reuters she evaluates clients processes and how software could help them improve efficiencies and lower risk.
To further our discussion we define “international trade”, “global trade compliance”, and “regulatory compliance”.
International trade – everything that is required to conduct business in multiple countries. This involves the financial, tax, currency, supply chain, sourcing, procurement, transportation and organizational structure of a company. It is not necessarily just the movement of goods across borders.
Trade compliance/Global trade management – cross border transactions and compliance with the applicable regulations. Moving goods across borders while adhering to each countries local laws and taking advantage of duty reduction policies where applicable.
Regulatory compliance – Complying with the different governmental organizations that are involved in the import, export, and storage process for specific products such as agriculture (FDA and USDA) or chemicals (EPA).
Why trade compliance is interesting: The industry and regulations are constantly in flux and to be successful you must always be learning. It is like a puzzle to put together the inbound and outbound customs rules each time the product moves across a border.
On technology in trade compliance: global trade management software, block chain, artificial intelligence, process automation, and computer learning.
Technology is helpful:
- for record keeping facilitating a faster response in customs inquiries
-managing/auditing all the data points required in a transaction
-predictions to help with business decisions
On mentoring:
-Find a mentor that can remove roadblocks for you, expand your connection in the company, and introduce you to people that might expand your knowledge base as well as your network circle.
-A mentor doesn’t necessarily have to be someone within trade compliance.
-don’t just ask to learn something, ask to participate in a project and gain practical experience.
Contact us:
Email: womenintradepodcast@gmail.com
Twitter: @TradePodcast
Full episode transcript:
Kellie Kemock 00:00
Thank you for your time today. Thank you for joining me. Today, on today's episode, we have Mary Breede, who works at Thomson. Reuters. Mary, what's your title at Thomson Reuters?
Mary Breede 00:11
My title at Thomson Reuters is I'm part of the corporate proposition team. And my role specifically is titled Customer Insight.
Kellie Kemock 00:23
Seems very broad. Maybe we can start at the beginning. If we start with how you built your career, how you got to where you are today, and then what exactly that broad title encompasses and how falls within Trade Compliance.
Mary Breede 00:41
Sure. Okay, so how did I start? I started in Global Trade Compliance accidentally. You know, and it's funny, I've talked to a lot of people who say, I didn't choose this as a path. It chose me. And that would definitely be how I got into Trade Compliance. My background originally started as a master scheduler, and project manager. And I was brought into a very large corporation out in Silicon Valley, to help close customs audit. That was in the 90s. So I just dated myself for anybody listening. And it was interesting, because customs at the time, when audits were done, it wasn't, you know, where we had these tight timeframes that Customs has imposed upon themselves to complete what today we call assessments. At the time, they were called CATs, which is a compliance or customs team that would come in from reg audit, and they would literally never leave, and you would get these large sample sizes, and then they would increase sample sizes. And the company I was brought in to assist, had frustrated complaints about the fact that customs was changing the auditor, so they were starting over than the sample sizes were increasing. So you know, I mean, net-net, what was happening is they were trying to tighten the timeframe. And they were trying to compress the inquiries. The other piece is when customs historically did these audits, they were on site. And in the case of this audit, they had been on site already three years at this point. It was like a never-ending audit. So I was brought in specifically to keep customs on track, keep customs aware of what we had already delivered, and not deliver it again. So you know, there were some processes that were put in place. But the interesting thing was I learned a lot; I learned what a 99 chapter was going to represent as it relates to could I go after chapter 98, or 99, and still do drawback and still avoid paying duties? I mean, there were a lot of compliance issues that could be encountered in you know, conducting business. It was country of origin markings and classifications, and, you know, valuation audits, what would be the compliance improvement plans if there were any. So you know, having that exposure for this long-term audit, I learned a lot. And I was like, oh, I'm pretty good at this. I'm learning more than I would on normal, you know, scheduling or project management-type projects. The interesting thing was the result of the timeframe of this audit. And then customers coming back in to do the focused assessment also hindered around what was going on with 9 - 11. Because that's when they introduced focus assessments instead of CAT Audits. And that's when we started getting introduced into supply chain security. So it's a long, roundabout way of saying, here's how I got into this, literally falling into it, falling in love with it. And then expanding my career with being blessed with going to corporations and heading up trade groups for global activities. And literally closing customs audits around the world and, you know, setting up new businesses, you know, setting up new strategies in different countries. So, I hope that answers your question. I know it took a long time, but I have had a long career.
Kellie Kemock 04:30
No, that's exactly the point is to see all of these women in leadership got to where they are today differently. And I think it's so interesting because you don't have to follow one path in this industry. And for someone like me who… I just want to learn everything you can. You can go for a while and do imports. You can go for a while and do exports. Like you can do that. It doesn't look like you're jumping around, essentially. I don't know, do you feel the same way where you can always change up your career and stay within the same kind of path?
Mary Breede 05:07
Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a good point that you just made. Because if you look at my career path, I jumped industries. And, you know, we talked about what my title is today, it's very obscure. But basically, you know, I've gone from high tech, I've gone to consumer electronics, I've gone to apparel and footwear, global expansion through those different industries, you know, you learn new terminology, you still have the same acronyms. And then I went over to chemicals. And what I'm doing today is imparting that knowledge that I've had through those different industries, through process improvements through audits through, you know, understanding how these different industries have to navigate the different regulatory requirements. I mean, I made a comment to you earlier is, we loosely use terms like regulatory and compliance and even trade, which could have so many common connotations. And really, you know, if you take a look at what we've done in our industry is I've been able to stay in global trade compliance, not a loose term, but, strictly around the activities involved in importing and exporting and auditing and you know, self-auditing and health checking in process improvements and in, you know, implementing software, or solutions or efficiencies and applying different methodologies, all in helping corporations move product around the world.
Kellie Kemock 06:48
Right. So when you talk about terms, you used the term global trade compliance, so trade compliance in global trade compliance is a narrower term than international trade?
Mary Breede
That is correct.
Kellie Kemock
Okay, so what would you say encompasses international trade as a whole versus a compliance piece?
Mary Breede 07:13
Well, if you're looking at international trade, you know, corporations even look at that differently. That could be the tax implications, that could be currency exchanging, that could be how you set up your, your structure for, you know, how you pay your taxes, or you know, where you incorporate. International trade, of itself could just be the financial aspect, and not necessarily the movement or storage of goods or trading services, right? And then when I narrow in on how I view international trade in an operational environment, that's when you start looking at how a company does business around the world, which you know, in in the movement of goods, trade compliance, folks in global trade management, have to understand how the tax aspects work, how transfer pricing works, how interest at works, we have to understand how, you know, VAT works value added tax, GST, right? Goods and service taxes. So there are different taxations or financial implications, that moving product around the world, I want to say bleeds into the trade compliance arena. And if you're a trained compliance person, as you said earlier, you know, I can stay in this career, but I can, I can narrowly focus or broadly focus in different areas and still be in trade. I think we do ourselves a disservice if we're not embracing understanding the cross-functional and cross organisational teams, or understanding how our service providers have to manage our business or support our business or how our tax group is, you know, filing taxes or, or needing to understand how we're moving freight so they can file Intrastat reports, or our transfer pricing team is, you know, doing quarterly adjustments either upward or downward adjustments for you know, the profit and loss statements for related party movement, international movement of goods. So there's a lot of like, I embrace it, because one, like you I like to learn, but it helps us be successful and it also helps us make informed decisions or provide guidance to the business whereas I see trade compliance, folks are headed as we're being tapped into a lot more right now to help with strategy discussions. Determine and actually interpret or decipher what trade wars means, you know, evaluate scenario planning opportunities, we're actually finally getting a voice at the table. So if you don't embrace understanding all these different things, you know, what are the free trade agreements? And, you know, what are protectionism measures looking like in my supply chain? And if I move my sourcing here, what does that look like? Can I help the company look at tariff engineering? I mean, there's, there's a lot of opportunities for us to provide value. And so embracing change and embracing learning, like you said, Kellie, I think is critical for our success, but our company success.
Kellie Kemock 10:43
We're going to define things in our conversations. Today, we define international trade as everything that is encompassing doing business in a foreign country. Whether that's actually selling goods, physical goods or services, it includes the finance group accounting group, the transportation group, even the IT group, sometimes, I guess, correct.
Mary Breede 11:11
But sourcing procurement. Yeah. Yeah, every group.
Kellie Kemock 11:16
So then if we narrow down, like, our role in the business is trade compliance. And so what we have what our roles would be, is to make sure that the company complies with all of these rules. When I first started in the industry, I recognised that…so I was at a corporation and their trade compliance department. And we were looked at as the brake, we always put a cog in the wheel, yes, we always stopped it like no, we can't ship there, like have you checked out this customer for restricted party screenings, like we were always slowing things down, and I liked the way that you were explaining that we need to kind of flip the script and be more involved in the business, the more that we know about the other aspects, we can actually assist rather than just be the brain.
Mary Breede 12:08
Yeah, you know, it's funny, I had gone through an interview process with an executive years ago. And you know, her comment to me, and she was a C-suite executive, is the trade department is constantly telling me no, why are you different? And I just looked at her and I said, You know what our job is not to say, No, our job is to try to help you make the right decision so that you can manage your business, our role is to help you move product around the world in a compliant fashion. And I said, but saying no, sometimes is an aspect of the decision process. But the way I do this is I'm going to provide you with the risk of not adhering to the word no. And then you make that informed decision. And I said, the company should always be risk have risk aversion as a top priority. And I said that sometimes risk is interpreted in different ways. And people want to take the risk. I said, from a compliance standpoint, for regulatory compliance for imports and exports. Oftentimes, you're making uninformed decisions. So my goal is to help you make informed decisions. And I think that that's what we're supposed to be doing now. Now, do we have to say no, absolutely. I mean, I've said no to some of the most creative decisions from people that you know, you gotta give them kudos for creativity. But it's still wrong. And you know, so that is our role to also not be the police. But be sometimes the voice of reason.
Kellie Kemock 13:44
When you use the term regulatory, you are contrasting regulatory with compliance. So what do you mean by that?
Mary Breede 13:52
Good, yeah. And remember, I said we use these terms loosely. So for me regulatory compliance in the trade environment is adhering to the the regulations per country, right. So, in the United States, you know, we have different regulatory arms that we have to adhere to. Our job is to one understand which regulatory arms like in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission, there's different regulatory arms that are involved in the import and export in storage process. And so it's understanding who those regulatory arms are and then adhering to their regulatory requirements. And oftentimes, the regulatory requirements, they're not just nice to have it'd be great if you did this. I mean, there's there's absolutely implications if you do not follow the regulatory requirements in each country, based upon what you're moving. I mean, it's, we go back to that interpretation who am I impacted by how do I impact them? How do I adhere to what needs to be done according to the law? I mean, there's a lot of different regulatory arms we have to adhere to. And then there's the, you know, implied regulations that we have when we're importing and exporting product, you know, the classifications, whether it's licencing or harmonised schedule. There's the implications of how we assign that is going to determine what those regulatory arm terms are. Does that makes sense?
Kellie Kemock 15:37
Yeah, I like how we're defining this because it there is such a broad usage of different terms. And I like how we're kind of narrowing it down to explain each piece of what we do. So when you talk about regulatory, we're talking like FDA regulations, we're talking about any sort of USDA implications for specific product type regulations, as opposed to the regulations that apply to all products, like you have to file an entry, you have to have a classification, all of that.
Mary Breede 16:13
Right. And if you look at, you know, you were talking about how you have, you know, looked at your career imports. So if we start with like US imports, we have different, you know, requirements for US imports than we do to exports, but you might have the same commodity, and you're trying to bring, let's just say a t-shirt, you're trying to bring a t-shirt into China, right? Well, China has an entirely different process as it relates to quality, anything that touches your skin. You know, it's going to go through China inspection and quarantine. But then electronics coming into the United States, we don't necessarily have import licencing requirements, like we have on the export side, mostly because of our technology. But that same commodity, like a universal routing switch, right? You'll go well, what's that? Okay, so let's just say, a universal routing switch is used in my sound systems. Okay, sound systems inside a store? Okay, I have no import requirement, I have very little related to any export licencing requirement. But gosh, darn it, if I bring it into China, I now have an import licence requirement. And I'm now also dealing with MAF comm. So, you know, being able to interpret the beginning, the end, if it has to be re-exported? What does that look like? Then, what does it look like on the other end? What are my requirements? Because guess what, those all require effort, and they require timeframes. And so the timeframes, you know, one of the things we're doing in trade too, we have to back up those timeframes and say, yeah, you're not going to have it next week. But you can have it in three weeks, or, yeah, next week is fine, because I only have to do this. And, you know, I worked with a company when we were in consumer electronics. And, you know, we had licences that sometimes took a couple of months, because we were sending them to embargo countries, but because they had humanitarian efforts tied to them, we, we were allowed to export, but we had very strong constraints on the licencing that we had to obtain just to move those commodities for humanitarian efforts. So, you know, it's like, it's so broad, but it's so much fun, right? Because what other industry is constantly in flux, and constantly, you know, changing and, and then if you're in this business, like you said, I started here went to there, think about it, you get to learn all new stuff, you know, and you don't lose what you've already learned. You just keep adding to your knowledge base.
Kellie Kemock 19:04
I love it. I love it. It gets me excited about my job, because what you were just talking about, those kinds of examples are what makes it so interesting, because it's like a puzzle, you have to figure it out like this starting point. And then it's you gotta bring in transportation because the product is going to move somewhere, then you have to figure out how to get it into the country. And then you know what’s required, it's completely different on the inbound of that country. It's, it's just so interesting, and you're right it’s never two processes the same.
Mary Breede 19:32
And let's not forget all the protectionism we're dealing with right now. Right? I mean, there were years ago, you couldn't bring in China textiles into Taiwan. And then there were certain HTS’ we had to worry about. That’s protectionism. Is it forbidden or is it allowed on a quota base? Is it allowed through an anti-dumping environment? I mean, look at what we're doing with section 242 302 in the United States. I mean, that's the biggest concern that companies are navigating right now is what does this mean to me? Does my FTZ that I set up years ago, is that going to help me with these new, you know, China implications, you know, for the trade wars that we're dealing with. I mean, it's kind of interesting. I met with a couple of companies last week that they're like, I'm just moving everything to Mexico. And I said, well, but I don't think that's what the intent is, the intent is to look at some potential, you know, domestic sourcing, and they're like, well, we could possibly do that. But quality takes time. And it might be easier to move it to Mexico, but now I don't get to qualify for this. And so it's, you know, it's that interpreting what the protectionism might look at, like, you know, I mean, years ago, when I was, you know, we were looking at potentially going into Brazil at the textile footwear company, I was at, you know, we it's a very large brand that was opening stores, and it it made its own sandals and flip flops, but going into Brazil at the time, of course they have ???on Yes???, right. So there was an anti-dumping aspect to bring in the sandal that would have been $13.50 US dollars per unit. And it was like, whoa, that just like kicks out the ability to bring in one of our brands into Brazil. And so you know, these are the types of things that companies are dealing with trade groups are trying to interpret and decipher and, and share information be part of this strategy. It's kind of it's kind of a very volatile, fun environment. Right now.
Kellie Kemock 21:49
If you had 30 seconds or less to describe what you do…
Mary Breede 21:54
Yeah. Today, what do I do? I've taken all of that knowledge that I've used in all of my career companies so far. And now I'm on the consulting side, for Thomson Reuters. So customer insight is if they were going to go in and sell software platforms for global trade management, they would be selling it to me. So I often, you know, just meet with a client, and just help them ascertain what their risks are, and how software could help them. That's more than 30 seconds, but it's as close as I can get.
Kellie Kemock 22:30
It's fine. I was joking with someone who I was talking with, who wasn't in the trade compliance field. And they asked me what I did. And I was like, I don't I don't even know, how do I even describe what I do. And so at some points, I answer, like, Oh, I do, you know, import and export law. And that sounds really boring and very vague. Right? And then other times, it's like, okay, so the movement of goods across borders? Like that's how I explain it. But I didn't know maybe if you had a better elevator pitch of how to answer that.
Mary Breede 23:04
Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I mean, some of the elevator pitches, you know, I've worked with, because we're all always working on our elevator pitches. But, you know, I mean, my latest elevator pitch is, and I'm gonna read it to you is due to the constantly changing international trade regulations, and the resulting tax and compliance requirements. My goal is to help you interpret what that looks like, increase your efficiencies, help you with reducing your risk in your global trade operations. So that's how I define what I do to companies or for companies. And then often, I'm also able to take their feedback and influence the change to our software platform to help them do their job better. So, you know, something you were involved in, that we're really working on, is what we call this scenario planning the “what-ifs”. What if I change my sourcing? What if I change my harmonised tariff? You know, what does that do to my free trade agreement? And what happens, you know, with my FTZ, with all of the trade wars situations going on right now, you know, that's not an elevator pitch. My elevator pitch was at the beginning. But the discussion that I have with them really falls in line with the additional, you know, commentary I just gave to you.
Kellie Kemock 24:31
Yeah, let's talk about technology, then that is solution provider for companies that move goods across borders. And that encompasses software. Yeah, I
Mary Breede 24:43
Yeah. I would just say it's GTM software. So yeah, global trade management software.
Kellie Kemock 24:47
Yeah. So import and export and free trade agreements and all these different types of aspects of international trade that your software would automate for importers and exporters. And that's primarily what you're looking to set up with these types of companies.
Mary Breede 25:06
Yeah, I would say my role is a little bit different. So from a customer insight role, generally, I'm just, you know, customer-facing. And oftentimes the credibility comes because I've sat in their shoes. And so I'm listening to what are your pain points? What are you trying to solve? Oftentimes, you know, they're reaching out to us, because they've either suffered an event, or they think they're going to have an event, or they're just looking for efficiencies, right? Not enough headcount, we just can't keep up with it or acquiring more companies. I mean, we have some risk areas, we don't have visibility. So a lot of times I'm going in and just like allowing them to go through the therapy of discussing their pain points. And then I have an uncanny knack, and probably because of my six sigma training and having sat in their shoes and done a lot of like forward-thinking strategic activities at the companies I've headed up trade, I'm often able to, you know, assess their risk. And I do that in what we call the failure mode effect analysis is what's the severity, what's the potential of the impact of your risk, I can make recommendations now, I don't always make recommendations for software. Do I think software is the way to go? Absolutely. And it's not just efficiency sake, that I make that recommendation. But you know, it's trade people, we don't want to do the day-to-day Excel spreadsheets and word documents, I always tell people that our biggest competitor is Excel spreadsheets, because people want to provide tactical thinking, and strategic direction for the operation. So when you have automation, those efficiencies immediately come into play, you reduce your times, now, I'm not saying Excel is going to be gone completely. But, you know, I do make recommendations for oftentimes, you know, when I look at their processes, and say, okay, you have overlap, you have redundancy, you have processes that are not being followed, you have people doing things differently. And from a future state perspective, here's how technology could streamline your process, give you the recordkeeping that you need, give you the visibility to the changes in the ERP environment. And you know, so oftentimes I bring that but let's talk about the new technology that's starting to be integrated in these things. To make jobs easier, let's look at artificial intelligence, right? You know, if you're classifying products, and you're consistently classifying the same thing over and over and over, wouldn't it be nice if your tool was learning your behaviours, you know, that's computer learning, and then making the recommendations to you through not like the computer learning is going to recognise what you've been doing. But the artificial intelligence is going to start learning new behaviours, and it's going to start making those recommendations to you. So the new technology that's out there, you know. I recently spoke in DC, and somebody said, but am I going to lose my job? If I implement technology? Am I going to lose my job? And you know, I looked at them and I said, look, technology's been in the supply chain for over 20 years, you're already advancing. I mean, I, when I started out now, I'm really gonna date myself. We didn't have computers. We weren't really using Excel spreadsheets. Right? We were using boards on our desks. And so what I tell them is you need to stay up on the technology. And what are we doing with technology now look at your supply chain, what it's been doing 20 years, it's been learning how to interpret and analyse data, we're not losing our jobs, our jobs are changing. And we have to embrace those changes it makes us it makes us not only desirable, but it makes us you know, employees that are marketable. If you have these tools. And you've been using the software platforms that are advanced in best practices, you are now making yourself more marketable because you can interpret data, you know, how to deal with big data, you are, you know, creating platforms and processes that are utilising software. And you know, you're leveraging off of let’s just to say, what Customs and Border Protection is looking at with blockchain right now. They're testing it as it relates to free trade agreements. And they're starting to look at it in other areas. And now we know that Marik is looking at the blockchain as it relates to looking how documents are moving around the world. If you think about, you know, the hundreds of documents that you utilise just for one import transaction and how many handoffs, that looks at having a blockchain ability to open the block, close the block, define who has access to the block, date coded, you know, signature enforce it. I mean, these are different technologies that are starting to be integrated in our supply chains. And so we need to learn and understand what these are, because they are going to be part of our daily work.
Kellie Kemock 30:42
Right. And I find that people who are questioning the benefits of technology, I feel like their goals are different. If your goal is to stay in the same position, filling out the same Excel spreadsheet, and doing the same thing that you've always been doing. Yes, technology is going to take your job, because, yeah, but if your goal is to expand your career, keep learning do more, actually make business impacts and not just fill out an Excel sheet, then technology should excite you. And that should be like, yes, this technology can take away the horrible part of my job where I just fill in details on an Excel spreadsheet. And I get to do the more exciting things. And so it all depends on how you look at it and what your goals are, because technology has absolutely taken over jobs. But guess what your job didn't exist before. That's correct. You know, it also creates a lot of jobs as well.
Mary Breede 31:46
And I think there's still room for people who want to continue to do things the way they always have. Some people are more comfortable with that. But what I'm starting to see, Is there still room for that. But the advancement opportunities, the let's be realistic, the money involved with it isn't going to advance as quickly. It's okay, if you want to stay in that. But what I'm starting to also see is technology is going to take over. And if you don't jump on board, yeah, not everybody wants to impart artificial intelligence. But I'm telling you, the majority companies I talk to you, they want predictive analysis. So you need to be able to interpret the data.
Kellie Kemock 32:30
When we talk about technology, the same way that, you know, we were defining trade compliance, we have to define technology as well, I think because we, you and I were talking about two different technologies you are excited about and talking about, like machine learning and AI predictions, and all of that, where I was kind of focusing on was more of the automation, where the computer doesn't have an algorithm to figure things out on its own, you have to tell the computer, what you want it to do basic fill in the field automation saves countless hours for a company. So when we talk about technology, it doesn't have to be that technology where people fear that robots take over, and all of that. It can just be like this process automation, and efficiencies and data. Let's talk a little bit about data. So AI prediction needs data to make those predictions. But there can also be predictions done by humans, you don't need that AI piece. But only if you have this data and everyone uses the term Big Data. And basically, it's just that we can collect a lot of data right now. So let me know your opinion on you know, data management, as you know, under the umbrella of technology, or just data management itself, how important is that?
Mary Breede 33:54
Yeah. I mean, we talk about data, but my famous term is bad data is bad data out, right? So when we talk about data, it has to be usable data, right? It has to be good data. And so, you know, if we go back to you know, I've been talking about the different exciting, you know, ways that data is going to be manipulated, or data is going to be thinking or data is going to be resulting or data is going to be predicting, I think the most important thing is to go back to the automation itself, the tools themselves, like if you think about the day-to-day activity of a trade compliance person, you know, let's just say you have one headcount, right. They're doing it all. They're, they're classifying goods they’re licencing goods they are creating documents for importing and exporting, which could be the commercial invoice or the Pro Forma invoice. It could be the helping the traffic logistics team create the packing list. And, you know, I mean, there, there's so many things that you know people are doing in their day-to-day just to make sure that product is moving. And then, you know, it's worrying about the compliance aspects of it. Did I get the quantities correct? Is the country of origin reflected accurately? Did I classify accurately? Is the value correct? I mean, there's so many different data elements just to make sure that that is done. It starts to become daunting. When you think about all those different elements of the activity, well, those elements are data. Right? Those are, those are data points that are being pushed from one place to another. So when I said, am I doing it correctly? That's the is it bad data? Or is it good data that I'm pushing from one place to the other? Because if it's an export, and you have bad data on this, this side, on the export side, chances are your data is bad on the import side? So it's, you know, it's the tools that are out there, one, are making that process more efficient. It's, you know, am I taking information out of the ERP, and it's plugging in because of the purchase order or the sales order? And is it thencreating a commercial invoice? And is it taking out of the product information in the ERP, the product master? The description, the classification? Is that identifying the country of origin? I mean, those are different things that are, you know, going on. So when I look at, you know, data, data could be an automotive industry bill of material for our free trade agreement. Well, we know how many hundreds of line items that could be, that could also include, you know, the classifications of those goods, the sourcing, we know they multi-source. Right. So there's so much data that they're managing, today in their bill of materials to take advantage of that one free trade agreement for that one import entry, which includes all of the validations in the certification. So, you know, when you start thinking of the process itself, the potential to automate it, but then the validation of the accuracy of the information, because I tell everybody, you're not doing yourself or your company justice, if you're not constantly health checking, if you're not validating that what I said it should be, it is, and it was, even if it's wrong, it was accurately moving from one end to the other. And then I'm looking at well, did I do it right to begin with? I mean, there has to be that health check process. So what I'm starting to see is, you know, automation is recognising anomalies of accuracy. And pointing out the anomalies. I call that exception- based management, it's like, you know, it's, it's looking at what, what you said, it should be what it was, and then it goes, oh, but this data element was off. So, you know, when I look at the normal process of, you know, moving product or storing product, there's so many different parts of that. And when I talk about data, it's the movement of those data elements, those elements of trade-related activity. And let's not forget the supporting evidence, right? Why did I make the decision? What were the documents to support it? What, how does that tie to the transaction? Does it tie back to the payment process? I mean, there's, there's a lot of little, little pieces and niches involved in this.
Kellie Kemock 38:50
So that the last piece was recordkeeping, right like you need to make sure that the process was done correctly. But then you also need to make sure that you have the ability to prove it was done correctly. When customs knocks on the door.
Mary Breede 39:07
Well, not just when customs knocks on the door, but internal audit knocks on the door governance knocks on the door, but you know, it's like dirty laundry, right? If you stay up on it, it doesn't become a mountain. Right? I had teenagers at one point and it always was a mountain and then they would it would be daunting. So I'm always telling everybody stay consistent on doing your health checks, take a look at you know, weekly, monthly determine what that process looks like, you know if you know risk or anomalies, increase your sample sizing but you should always be validating that you're doing to the best of your ability through the due diligence process of making sure it's done correctly.
Kellie Kemock 39:56
I feel like one of the biggest benefits of techology is that recordkeeping piece because that in my experience is what recordkeeping is what creates all of the paperwork, all of the boring part of our jobs like, yeah, keeping, making sure that you have a copy of everything, making sure you have, you know, details about the product itself, making sure you are checking all these boxes, like that's the boring part of our job. Finding the puzzle pieces for each transaction is the interesting part, like we talked about. But the recordkeeping is so boring to me. And so technology is really exciting because it creates so many more data points and records and we could ever keep, right, I'm doing a paper filing system or something like that, right?
Mary Breede 40:46
But it also ties it to the transaction, right? Whereas I mean, if you've gone through customs audits, the worst part is trying to find the records. So if you can't find the records, right, then it takes forever. And the worst thing you want to do in a customs audit is keep asking for extensions, because you need to find your records. I was at a company where we had to recreate records, we had been acquired by the government. And it was a five-year previous timeframe. It was a couple of 100 records. Well guess what freight forwarders had changed, and were no longer in business five years later. And so going back to a company that no longer exists, if I asked them to be my recordkeeper, guess what, we didn't have the records. And then oftentimes, if you change, you know, providers, they'll charge you for the records. Records can be in boxes, if you sold off the company where the records go, I mean, I've gone through every scenario of, you know, clue-related game of where are the records. And then even if you maintain good records, you know, one, one thing I have found by auditing companies, when I go on and audit them is, you know, you might have, let's just say an import entry number or an export transaction number. But your accounting department is not going to code according to the numbers that are relevant to you. They're going to code what's relevant to them. And it might be based upon either an invoice number, it could be a payment, General Ledger number. So you know, being able to pull your records for customs audit is a daunting task. I talked to companies where I help them build their ROIs to pursue getting funding for automation. And the biggest thing they wanted to do was be able to pull the records to provide their customer with Free Trade Agreement documentation so that their customer could pursue the advantages of claiming a free trade agreement. Well, they couldn't even give them the documents because they didn't know where the records were to support validating that the country of origin was accurate for what they need it, you know, so the records being maintained in the solutions is reducing the time spent on finding the documents, but it's also maintaining the documents. So that way you can be you know, better providers to your customers, you know, and let's, let's face it, you know, bottom line dollars and not having to produce documents or go find documents or hire people to help you, you know, find documents, there's a better way to save money and utilise that money in different ways.
Kellie Kemock 43:44
There's two more topics that I wanted to touch on. I wanted to ask about your advice regarding mentoring. And from both, you know, the person looking for a mentor perspective, and then also someone who is new to mentoring, which I'm asking for myself, because people have been reaching out to me, you know, what do I do? How do I start my career? And I don't know what advice to give them. So what would you first of all, what, how would you advise setting up a mentoring relationship? And then second of all, how do you advise somebody who wants to build a career?
Mary Breede 44:23
Sure. I would say the first thing I always look for in a mentor. And the most important thing is what is their influence? Either if we're in the same company, I'm looking for somebody who can influence and remove roadblocks for me if I'm asking them to be my mentor, you know, and the best mentor I had was a gentleman at a company and he absolutely made an effort to meet with me now I think in the mentor relationship, the mentee should always schedule these it should be, you know, set up as you know, a confidence type of thing, it's not going to, like, if I share something, you know, I'm gonna get fired. There should, there should always be like an agenda involved in the process like, you know, this week I would really like to talk to you about, can you introduce me to somebody in the International Tax Group, I want to talk to them about transfer pricing. So this person should be able to, you know, influence your career path, they should be able to help your career path expand, they should introduce you to people and they should be able to remove roadblocks for you. So, I think it's important to identify how what type of you know, persona would I choose? I haven't always chosen somebody within global trade management. I've had mentores in legal, I've had them in operations. I've had them in sourcing. I've had them in procurement. I've had attorneys, trade attorneys, which are not part of the corporation. I've had outside mentors that I've worked with in the past. So I think define what, what is important to you. Those to me, were the most important things. First meeting a mentor-mentee. Whether I'm the mentor or the mentee, I always like to ensure that there's ground rules that we both agree to, like, we're not going to discuss or we're going to agree to meet on these dates, you know, these types of things. Ground rules are important. And then you know, the agenda. And I think the most important thing is consistency. If you know, don't just call on them when you need help, right, I also find it in a mentor-mentee relationship is but then how can I help you when I'm a mentee, not just as a mentor? How can I help you as a mentee? Is there anything that I can assist you with?
Kellie Kemock 46:54
Absolutely, I love that you pointed out that mentors can be outside of your chosen career path. And that is so applicable to trade compliance, because we were just talking about how knowing accounting, knowing transfer pricing, knowing transportation rules, they're all going to help you apply the trade compliance regulatory restrictions to their field. And so if you have a mentor that's that is going to teach you things like that outside of trade compliance, and then you can apply it, that just makes your knowledge so much more well-rounded than anyone else.
Mary Breede 47:30
Well, and I did that, you know, out in Silicon Valley. I was very fascinated after September 11. I mean, I always been interested in supply chain security, right, we're protecting commodities at the time, because, you know, we don't want pilferage or we don't want if the time we were worried about drugs and being introduced into our supply chain, forget dirty bombs after 9-11 or terrorist types of situations. So, I was very fascinated with that. And, you know, I had at the head of supply chain security at the company. I asked him to be a mentor, and I wanted to learn, and you know, so I got to go on site visits. And, you know, who would have thought that I cared where camera placement was or where the loading docks were, how high the fence was, but I really started getting curious about that. Well, then, you know, I was in charge of supply chain security, with global trade compliance at a company I was at, because they just felt, oh, well, this fits and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I have to embrace this. And I actually got really good about it.
Mary Breede 48:43
I mean, it was like, you know, I was coming up with processes of don't engage, just observe and, and what do you mean, we just got hijacked? And, you know, sending in investigators into the country to find our laptops and finding out that our laptops were on the desks of the police department, you know, I was like, oh, okay, well…
Mary Breede 49:02
You know, what happened to them. You know, in learning about insurance policies, I would have never embraced it. But I'm so glad I did. Because now we look at, you know, the supply chain compliance programmes that are out there. They're not just about physical security any longer. They're also incorporating, you know, adding in the trade compliance aspect of, you know, the self-assessments and getting, you know, ratings for your import export compliance activity. And they're making that part of the supply chain compliance, which is including security and trade related activities. So had I not asked for that mentor, I wouldn't have learned as much as I did, and been on the cutting edge of what's going on in supply chain compliance.
Kellie Kemock 49:57
I also love the idea of having a mentor outside of trade compliance. Because if you are doing one particular job, and you want to do more, you're not happy where you're at. So you're looking for a different job, or you want to do something specific. You, you're not going to learn something more from your current job, you have to learn that something more from elsewhere.
Mary Breede 50:21
Yeah, but I would take it one step further to like in the mentor-mentee relationship. Don't just go in to learn, go in and ask to do take a project and say, can I be on a project? And you know, work with them through a short-term project. Because it's always great to have what I want to call the theory of learning. Oh, this is great. In other terms, I understand it. But if you don't actually do it, you don't have the practical, right. So I've always in the mentor-mentee relationship. If I'm the mentee, I ask for a project, a short-term project. And I don't necessarily have to be the leader of the project. But could I participate in a project that's going on? Because you're going to learn more that way. And as a mentor, I will find a project to assign just say, look, like if you're serious about learning, I have this project going on. I don't think you're ready to hit it up. Are you ready to head it up? But I really like you to participate. Because I think it's going to help you learn.
Kellie Kemock 51:25
What advice do you have for people just starting their career? The problem with trade compliance is that there is no major in trade compliance. There's no, I mean, there was a couple classes at my law school that I was able to take, which got me interested in trade compliance, but it's just not everywhere. And so if someone is like, hey, this is super interesting, how do I get into it? I have an accounting degree, or I have a lot of great all of those backgrounds are in trade compliance, but how do you make that leap from your education into experience?
Mary Breede 52:02
Yeah, I think that's interesting. And I'll tell you an interesting story. So yesterday, out of the blue, I met a gentleman who, for all intents purposes, it had nothing to do with work. But he asked me how I got into trade compliance. And he said, I have been trying so hard to get an entry level position in supply chain security. And I have an undergraduate in criminal law. I have a graduate degree in, you know, data and analysis. And he goes, I can't get anybody to even open the door for me, because I have no experience. And you know, what I said to him, is, what you need are people who will provide you introductions, and not just introductions to have conversations. But introductions to tell you what industry practice group should I be looking at? Is there a networking group I should be looking at? What should I be studying? Because you're correct, when the closest I could get was my graduate degree in global management? Well, I remember the time when I was going through this like, yeah, that's awesome. So now I know HR policy in different countries. Oh, macroeconomics? Well, okay, I guess the the GDP is kind of trade-related. You're correct. There's not a lot of training. But there's a lot of courses. So you know, it's like, are there import courses out there I could take just to learn things. Could I take a classification? You should? Of course. So find people, I think LinkedIn is a great tool, I have to be honest with you, for networking, because you can reach out to people and if they're willing to talk to you, you know, they might provide introductions, or they might provide recommendations to you for different types of courses you can take. Let me tell you, I've taken every possible course I could possibly take, does it make me a subject matter expert in those areas? No, it makes me a generalist. But it is giving me you know, one piece of education that gets me closer to my goals of having, you know, greater understanding of certain areas. So that's probably the best advice that I can give you. I mean, this gentleman that I mentioned to you, I actually linked up with him. And I have provided him introductions to people I know who will be willing and open to being forwardly honest with him, and to provide him introductions, but to give him a direction to focus on and will they provide him, you know, introductions for a job? I don't know. But he's going to be that much closer to what his desire is and his goals are, which is to at least start in focus in an area that he has a desire to build his career on.
Kellie Kemock 54:56
Excellent. That's great. That is perfect because I remember being in those shoes of Okay, great, I got a little piece of paper that says I spent a lot of money on an education. What do I know? And, and yeah, it's really intimidating. And I guess the message that we want to send to everyone is that we and most people I know are open to, you know, talking about their job and trying to get you in touch with people that might help you along the way. And so don't be intimidated, I guess, is the, the overarching theme here that just reach out and see what you can find, because that's what is required to get into this type of field.
Mary Breede 55:42
Yeah, we have to be bold, we have to be willing to ask and talk to people. You know, it's like, a lot of people are very intimidated by trying to get a mentor who's an executive, whereas it's kind of interesting. It's amazing how many executives are open to being mentors, and the ones that are not, those are probably not the ones that would be beneficial to you anyway. But then remember that when you're in a position, right, it's pay it forward, you know, if you're in a position, like, I had so many people help me and give me opportunity, the company that brought me in, you know, where I fell into trade compliance, they had this very entrepreneurial environment, it was the culture there, it's like, they would say to the Chief Marketing Officer, guess what, you've done an amazing job, you're gonna go, you know, be in charge of operations now. You're gonna take your skills, and you're going to learn, but you're gonna take your skills, and you're gonna, you're going to change. Had the company not been that way. And then, at the time, you know, almost 30 years ago, trade people were set up by you are a US import person. Well, I was fortunate to have a boss who said, you know, you're really good on imports, let's teach you imports in other countries. You know, you've done a really good job, I teach you exports in all these countries now. And you know what, I really love it, if you would run my customs audit that we have going on in Mexico right now. Had I not had people like that, who were open to building me up and developing me, you know, I wouldn't be where I'm at. But I've taken that. And I work on that with other people. I make sure that I'm the same type of person, for other people.
Kellie Kemock 57:29
Well that is a wonderful note to end on. I think, Mary, I appreciate your time over an hour. I know. We can. We didn't even get to textiles yet. But maybe next time let's talk about textiles in our next interview. I know you have a lot of experience in that field working for a couple of different companies, if I remember correctly. And it's a complex part of the industry and wanted to touch on it. But we'll have to say part two, of Mary Breede podcast. And we'll just wrap this up for today. I really appreciate your time. It's always great to talk with you. And I love how encouraging you are, to me and then to everyone who is trying to build a career and starting to build a career. I really appreciate that. And I'm trying to kind of emulate that. I'm trying to encourage people and give them what they need to excel.
Mary Breede 58:22
Sounds great.
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