Laura Wandurraga On Stepping Up in Supply Chain

International Women’s Day falls in March each year, but not everyone realizes that it doesn’t start or end there. March is Women’s History Month—a time to elevate their historical moves, ground-breaking achievements, and those still underway. This month, we recognize women across our lives (even families) and professional networks, and talk about the progress that’s still needed for them. If you think you’ve seen a drumbeat of LinkedIn posts lately about your connections’ mothers, it’s probably no coincidence.

The dedicated month has a rich and global history. It all started on February 28th, 1909, with National Women’s Day, marking the protest by women workers in New York who had marched through the streets the year prior. These women had extremely reasonable demands: the right to better working conditions and the right to vote.

The following year, Clara Zetkin, a German activist, proposed that National Women’s Day be recognized as an international day each year—and that it would be honored at an annual conference of working women in Copenhagen. With seventeen countries involved, the attendees, including members of unions, socialist parties, and working women’s clubs, unanimously approved Zetkin’s idea.

That brings us to the first International Women’s Day, celebrated more than a century ago in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark in 1911. Finally, the holiday became widely celebrated in the U.S. when the UN began observing it in 1975.

We’re in the 2020s now, and it’s common knowledge that women make history all year round. But March marks the annual observance of how their contributions shape culture and society and our rich history across decades and nations. Each year is emblazoned with a theme by the National Women’s History Alliance (NWHA). This year’s is “Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future,” and it brings about great questions, like how can we support other women in our lives and save environmental resources.

At Let’s Talk Supply Chain, our Women In Supply Chain™ series has been dedicated to continuously recognizing and applauding women across the industry, with diverse personal and professional backgrounds and at different stages in their lives. We believe their stories and achievements contribute to the larger shift to women leading in the logistics, manufacturing, and supply chain spaces drastically more than in decades prior. And while we’re proud to highlight women every month in our dedicated blog series, and through our podcasts and other content, there are so many other groundbreakers in the community. We are proud of the progress we’ve continued to see for women in the industry.

Our Let’s Talk Supply Chain Women In Supply Chain™ program, blog, and podcast series showcase the importance of greater gender representation. This month’s featured leader, Laura Wandurraga, is the perfect leader to feature during International Women’s History Month, with her background in logistics in Colombia and her championship of other women in the industry. Laura is a service-oriented logistics professional with a background in freight forwarding. She is the Logistics Manager at Stussy, Inc., and is a graduate of both Universidad Externado de Colombia and Australian Pacific College.