“Life is short and it ends, the clock is ticking. Don’t get all wrapped up in your personal self, that’s a very unhealthy thing to do.” - Fred Smith, Founder of FedEx (1944 - 2025)

On June 21, 2025, the business world - more specifically the supply chain world - lost a giant. FedEx Founder Fred Smith passed away at the age of 80.

Frederick Wallace Smith was born in Marks, Mississippi in 1944. According to common anecdotes, he first imagined a company that could provide overnight delivery for an economics paper he wrote while studying at Yale in 1965 - and he got a C because the professor thought the idea was implausible.

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner looks at Fred Smith’s many contributions from five decades in business:

• The risk he had to be willing to take on in pursuit of his vision
• The many innovations that were introduced by FedEx during his tenure
• Why Smith’s perspective on what kind of business FedEx was in was so critical to its success

Links:

• FedEx Ground’s Contractor Woes
• Case Dismissed: Spencer Patton Prevails Over FedEx
• Reading FedEx Ground the RICO Act
• Will FedEx Freight hit the open road?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
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“This is a long standing discussion within the networking and security industry: is there a perimeter? I think the reality is the perimeter still exists because it's a data and logical perimeter, but it doesn't exist anymore as a physical perimeter.” - Ken Rutsky, Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka

As the world becomes increasingly digital, ensuring network connectivity and security become parallel objectives that all companies must prioritize. Add in trying to do it as efficiently as possible, and the challenge only grows.

Ken Rutsky is the Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka. They recently released their first Network Security Trends in Transportation and Logistics report, part of a series of research efforts looking at network security trends for different industries.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Ken joins Kelly Barner to discuss:

• The unique combination of physical and digital security needs that transportation and logistics companies have to satisfy
• How the cost, complexity, and relative risk associated with network security are being addressed
• Balancing systems integration and also network perimeters to ensure connectivity on the move without taking on undue risk

Links:

• Ken Rutsky on LinkedIn
• 2025 State of Network Security in Transportation & Logistics
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

There have been a number of efforts to regulate a transition to lower logistics-related emissions, and all of them involved the state of California and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

California always plays a unique role in these debates because they have the most air pollution in the country and also the toughest emissions regulations. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) predates the EPA. In the past, they have been able to make their own rules, only requiring waivers when newly proposed standards are tougher than Federal standards.

On May 22, 2025, the Senate voted to strip California of its ability to impose tougher standards on heavy duty trucks and ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

California may be down, but they are certainly not out. They are using other creative ways to regulate the emissions associated with logistics.

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner looks at this alternate approach to regulation:

• The Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions Program (known as WAIRE) and the Warehouse Indirect Source Rule (ISR)
• How these rules are are intended to work and how they are being enforced
• Whether this alternative approach will be effective in achieving its objectives

Links:

• Examining the Practicality of the EV Truck Mandate
• Nebraska v. California: The EV Trucking Transition
• Who will decide the future of EV trucking?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
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While true crime has gained traction as a genre in the literary world, it's not often we see it applied to procurement. Yet, a fascinating and unsettling procurement fraud case has recently come to light within Intel Israel's operations. Every criminal investigation seeks to uncover means, motive, and opportunity, and this case checks all three boxes, with implications that go far beyond one company.

Just a few weeks ago, a story broke that uncovered an alleged scheme in which a now-former employee, Natalia Avtsin, and a component supplier, Yefim Tsibolevsky from Energy Electronics 2000, teamed up to steal roughly 3 million Israeli shekels (NIS), or about $842,000 USD.

Although the case is still ongoing and has yet to see its day in court, it poses a lot of questions for procurement teams across the globe.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:

• How Avtsin and Tsibolevsky pulled off this alleged fraud
• The process loopholes and absent oversight that allowed them to get away with it for so long
• The many lessons procurement can take from this case regarding checks and balances, pattern detection, and technology use

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

After spending years reviewing business books, Kelly Barner knows how to recognize authors who truly move the needle–and Kate Vitasek is one of them. Her latest work, Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships, co-authored with James Groton, Ellen Waldman, and Allen Waxman, takes on a surprisingly neglected topic: dispute prevention.

While this topic can be applied to procurement, it’s also very human, looking at business relationships from their most troubled moments and aspiring to lay out a plan as well as offering up resources to help teams and individuals stay away from the trouble.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner takes on her first audio book review and covers:

• The difference between handling conflict and proactively preventing issues in the first place
• How certain language, particularly within contracts, can lay the foundation for disputes even before they happen
• Who peacekeepers are and the role they have in strategically averting crises

Links:

• Kate Vitasek on LinkedIn
• Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“In this climate of being a trade professional in Washington, expect to be in an Uber for about half of the day and then the other half of it sitting in rooms making cases of why people either should be not paying tariffs or how other people should be paying tariffs.” - Samir Kapadia, Managing Principal at Vogel Group and Founder and CEO at India Index

Supply chain professionals have always had to keep a close eye on trade–both the policies and the geopolitical happenings that affect it. But with tariffs launching trade-related topics to the top of the news cycle repeatedly since January, all of us - supply chain professionals and otherwise - have learned something new.

One person who spends a majority of his time right in the thick of it all is Samir Kapadia, Managing Principal at Vogel Group and Founder and CEO at India Index.

Samir and Kelly Barner have discussed global sourcing and tariffs in the past, but in this interview they take a broader approach, exploring how trade policies and lobbying intersect and what they really mean in today's volatile geopolitical environment.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Samir shares his expertise about the:

• Nuances of trade relationships between companies and governments
• Factors that influence trade agreements and tariffs
• Types of lobbying methods that influence and shape trade practices
  

Links:

• Samir Kapadia on LinkedIn
• India Index
• The Dawn of a New Era in U.S. Trade Policy
• Evaluating India as a Viable Alternative to China
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“We need to be able to tolerate this uncertainty and the fluctuations that we're undergoing right now and keep our eye on the long term goal of strengthening American manufacturing.”

-Hollie Noveletsky, Owner and CEO of Novel Iron Works

While many consumers and business owners feel uneasy about the Trump Administration’s use of tariffs, there is at least one group that views them as essential: steel fabricators.

Hollie Noveletsky, Owner and CEO of Novel Iron Works, and Stephen Capone, President of Capone Iron, have personally felt the negative impact that foreign competition and a lack of fair trade have had not only on their own businesses but on their overall communities. As Section 232 tariffs help incentivize domestic steel fabrication, they feel a sense of hope in protecting the security of American jobs and infrastructure.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Hollie and Stephen share their perspectives on:

• The importance of maintaining, growing, and preserving domestic steel fabrication capabilities
• Competition–and the factors that impact it–between between fabricators in New England and internationally
• Advice Hollie and Stephen have for decisionmakers who feel wary about impending tariffs and what this really means for the country

Links:

• Hollie Noveletsky on LinkedIn
• Stephen Capone on LinkedIn
• Noveletsky: I’m in the steel biz, Trump’s right about steel tariffs
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• Stephen Capone on LinkedIn

“Even though the world’s advanced economies are largely considered post-industrial, chipmaking is an area where domestic manufacturing is now being treated as a high priority for economic and national security reasons.”

• Jon Martin, Writing for the ‘More than Moore’ substack

The CHIPS and Science Act, which took effect in August of 2022, is an ambitious Federal program that will inject $52.7 Billion into U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and workforce training.

As we look back nearly 3 years later, there has been more talk than action, but no one party or entity bears all of the blame. Forming productive partnerships between the public and private sectors is always complicated - even when everyone’s interests seem to be aligned, and a change of Administration has also brought changes in how the program will be run.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner reviews the law as an example of joint public-private reshoring:

• Reviewing the commitments that have been made to date
• Unpacking the roadblocks to progress that we’ve seen so far
• Considering what the Trump administration is doing to facilitate the process of rebuilding semiconductor manufacturing capabilities in the United States

Links:

• Does the CHIPS Act provide the Helpful Incentives the U.S. needs?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
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• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement