One of the most respected leaders in the field of logistics and supply chain training, Juliette Fourie, is leaving the industry academy she founded almost 20 years ago.
The managing director of Metro Minds in Ekurhuleni will join Evalex, where she will head up the talent incubator’s cloud-based, AI-driven leadership programme, Elea.
“I will be responsible for growing the company’s brand by scaling its leadership diagnostics and development,” she said.
Although it’s with a heavy heart that she’s leaving the academy that has become a leading brand for training and skills development in the freight industry, she’s looking forward to her new role.
“My pathway is going to grow in another direction and I leave Metro Minds knowing it’s in good hands,” she said, with reference to neutral consolidator SACO Shipping acquiring 70% of the academy’s shares in January 2022.
“SACO is a dynamic, forward-thinking company, with good products in the market that the logistics industry can benefit from.”
Fourie founded Metro Minds in 2006 after a long stint with logistics and supply chain services provider, UTi Worldwide, now part of DSV.
Talking about the “leap of faith” she took to form the academy, she said: “Logistics was a natural fit because it’s where I came from. I understood the needs and the gaps and Metro Minds came as a very natural transition into the industry.”
With UTi as her first client, more freight concerns quickly followed, helping the academy to grow its brand as a leading learning and leadership grooming institution.
With 30% shares in the academy that was once her baby, Fourie is not entirely leaving logistics, although she said she was looking forward to a new challenge, specifically immersing herself in artificial intelligence, psychometric analysis, and its and its impact on leadership identification, analysis and development – "another passion of mine", she said.
“It’s all about technology meeting human intervention. I’ll be working with industrial psychologists and software engineers, and am excited about joining a company that’s on the cusp of the future of learning.”
- On February 20, Metro Minds will hold its Education Excellence Awards.
