Dan Dreyfus Of EY On What We Must Do To Create Nationally Secure And Resilient Supply Chains

An Interview With David Leichner

Constantly monitor and evaluate — supply chain issues happen all the time, and things can go sideways quickly, and we need to be looking over the horizon at potential disruptors. We need to adopt a future back perspective.

The cascading logistical problems caused by the pandemic and the war in Eastern Europe, have made securing a reliable supply chain a national imperative. In addition, severe cyberattacks like the highly publicized Colonial pipeline attack, have brought supply chain cybersecurity into the limelight. So what must manufacturers and policymakers do to ensure that we have secure and resilient supply chains? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders who can share insights from their experiences about how we can address these challenges. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Dreyfus.

Dan Dreyfus is EY’s Global Customs Leader for the Government and Public Sector, driving innovative solutions for customs administrations. He has worked in over 30 countries in the public and commercial sectors, focusing on services spanning from supply chain security and resilience, strategy, systems development and modernization, restructuring and organizational transformation, to policy reform.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I was born and raised in Latin America. I was very fortunate to grow up in a rural area with access to a bi-lingual school and a multi-cultural community, and parents who were deeply involved in the community. We moved to the United States for high school.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

My career has taken me to more than 30 countries, and some very memorable experiences abroad as well as here in the United States. It is difficult to pick one particular story. On a business trip to Colombia, I happened to be staying at a hotel where a military junta was being hosted. Unrelated to my business trip in any way, I didn’t think much of the heavily armed military presence around the hotel. The heavy knock on my door at 3 in the morning, followed by the opening of my door and the entry of two large Rottweilers and two Colombian soldiers served as an unforgettable wake-up alarm. Because of the junta, they were conducting room searches for explosives. They bid me a good night, and promptly left. I don’t think I slept for the next 2 days.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

• Be genuine — Throughout my career I have worked with some role model leaders, and many of whom continue to be mentors. This trait is the most common among them, and I realized very early in my career that people in leadership positions who don’t epitomize honesty and understanding, are not viewed as leaders. Many people confuse title or position with being a leader, but leaders exist at every level and in every walk of life. Being genuine attracts, and is attractive to those who matter.
• Act with integrity & purpose — All too often throughout my career, I have seen people in leadership positions say one thing and do another. Molding the narrative to what one thinks you want others to hear, but doing something different, whether out of convenience, expediency or as a means to an end has lasting, negative implications, and can cause harm and an erosion of trust.
• Never stop learning — Many mentors, starting with my father, throughout my life have impressed upon me the importance of being inquisitive and always seeking to learn. As I progressed in my career, I realized that this also means that we can learn something from anyone we meet, no matter who they are. It is a business mantra that I carry with me, always.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I am working on a number of interesting things, and one of the many benefits of working with EY. One very exciting area is our Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence (NoE). EY, through our NCoE, taps into the vast pool of people with neurodiverse conditions such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia. A University of Miami/Nova Southeastern University study found that as many as 85 percent of neurodivergent adults are unemployed or underemployed, and an overwhelming majority of those with jobs reported working less than 20 hours per week. The EY centers focus on the talent and potential among members of this often-overlooked population while supporting their journey into the workplace. EY also is at the center of efforts to help other large organizations start and expand their own neurodiversity programs. This important part of diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) stands to impact not just those who join the program, but our clients’ missions with the high impact results produced by our NCoEs. As well as communities around the world where neuro-diverse individuals may not be employed or may not be employed in areas that are aligned with their interests and abilities.

In order to ensure that we are all on the same page let’s begin with some simple definitions. What does the term “supply chain” encompass?

At its most basic, the term supply chain represents all of the elements who participate in the manufacture, purchase, packaging, and transportation of almost anything we can imagine.

Can you help articulate what the weaknesses are in our current supply chain systems?

Supply chains by design are created to be as fast as they can be, as secure as they can be, as efficient as they can be, and as affordable as they can be. Optimizing these areas is not a straightforward endeavor, and each shipment in a supply chain is different for reasons that are not always predictable or controllable (e.g., weather, mechanical difficulties, labor strikes or shortages, etc.). When acute pressures and anomalous events occur, the effects on supply chains can be severe, and as we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, can be truly disruptive for just about everyone.

Can you help define what a nationally secure and resilient supply chain would look like?

There are costs associated with increasing security and resiliency. A truly secure and resilient supply chain would likely require higher costs than “conventional” supply chains, significant redundancy in supply / suppliers / sourcing, dedicated components of the supply chain such as modes of transportation dedicated solely to that supply chain. If the supply chain, is one providing goods for a nation’s critical supplies, maintaining secrecy over much if not all of the supply chain may be a requirement, imposing stringent requirements that conventional supply chains cannot meet, and which come with added cost and complexities.

Can you share some examples of recent and notable cyber attacks against our supply chain? Why do you think these attacks were so significant?

The Colonial Pipeline cyber-attack and the Florida city’s water system cyber-attack are two examples. In its own right, every cyber event is significant. We learn something from every event, to start, but the two examples demonstrate some of the vulnerabilities we have, how “simple” the attacks were to carry out, and the far reaching consequences of not being able to prevent them or mitigate them very quickly.

What would you recommend for the government or for tech leaders to do to improve supply chain cybersecurity?

I worked with an individual who was largely considered one of the early experts in cyber security, and his favorite saying was that there is no system that is safe from cyber-attacks unless it is not connected to anything in any way. The government is doing a lot in terms of legislation, standing up capabilities and entities to provide guidance and combat cyber-attacks. While daunting to say the least, progress is being made. However, it will not likely to be as fast or far reaching as we all want it to be until we solve for how information on cyber preparedness, prevention and “how” a cyber-attack was carried out can be shared more feely between industry and government.

What are the “5 Things We Must Do To Create Nationally Secure And Resilient Supply Chains” and why?

• Constantly monitor and evaluate — supply chain issues happen all the time, and things can go sideways quickly, and we need to be looking over the horizon at potential disruptors. We need to adopt a future back perspective.
• Establish an empowered joint working group between government & industry to help monitor, evaluate, and to anticipate.
• Create first mover advantages — contingency contracts that secure alternative transportation or production given certain parameters, and revisit these periodically.
• Drive greater due diligence into supply chains — opportunities to exploit most supply chains exist at different points, and while the costs associated with greater security may clearly be a factor, really understanding every factor and each node in our supply chains is important.
• Develop trust-but-verify approaches — costs and cost savings are often a major driver in supply chain decisions, and while clearly important, developing trusted partnerships and relationships may ultimately be more important.

Are there other ideas or considerations that should encourage us to reimagine our supply chain?

Supply chains can be highly complex. We need to think about simplifying or streamlining supply chains, especially for our critical goods.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I am a huge believer in our Neuro-Diverse initiatives. I want to be a part of expanding the initiatives, and to working with institutions around the world to help grow the initiatives as a critically important part of diversity, equity & inclusion, and to create opportunities for a hugely underrepresented population of people.

This was very inspiring and informative. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this interview!

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is the Chairman of the Friends of Israel and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.