The best supply chain engineers in the world tell the best supply chain stories in the world.
Assignment 2 · Completed On Time
SHIPPED ON TIME.
16 · Build · Product · Submission
✓ ON TIME
Andy Kung
VP Operations
Beyond Better Foods
✓ ON TIME
Bachar Sbeiti
Sr. Manager, Supply Chain Data Scientist
ELF Beauty
✓ ON TIME
Brian Morrow
Sr. Manager, Product Supply Sourcing
Coca-Cola Consolidated
✓ ON TIME
Danny Ko
SC Planning Analyst II
Niagara Bottling
✓ ON TIME
Jacob Hartley
Innovation Lifecycle Planner II
Coca-Cola Consolidated
✓ ON TIME
Jake Speiser
Solutions Analyst
Red Classic Trucking
✓ ON TIME
Kevin Shull
BI Technical Analyst
Bob Evans Foods
✓ ON TIME
Leslie Gallagher
Director of Planning
Beyond Better Foods
✓ ON TIME
Patricia Burgess
Product Manager
Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling
✓ ON TIME
Paul McCrory
Director, SC Design & Optimization
The Coca-Cola Company
✓ ON TIME
Robert Mendoza
Sr. Manager, SC Network Optimization
Suntory Global Spirits
✓ ON TIME
Ross Caldwell
Sourcing Planner
Coca-Cola Consolidated
✓ ON TIME
Teresa Viola
Sr. Manager, Network Design & SC Analytics
Exol
✓ ON TIME
Timothy Knox
Data Scientist
Krispy Kreme
✓ ON TIME
Yan Gao
SC Planning Manager, S&OP
Niagara Bottling
✓ ON TIME
Yeswanth Kumar
Manager, Supply Chain Analytics
ACCO Brands
Today
THE PLAN.
01Hero's Journey & Seven StoriesYour toolkit
02Expansion / ContractionThe technique
03Breakout — 30s / 15s / 5sContract your story
04Guests — Ganesh & MikeTwo founders. Decades of stories.
05What Makes You InterestingAround the horn
06Assignment 3Build the narrative
Urgent Bulletin · EBS
A NEW TOOL EMPOWERS MANAGERS
SAVES MILLIONS. CHANGES THE NIGHT SHIFT.
Stay With Us
Prologue · The Ordinary World
THE NETWORK HUMS.
Truck
Rail
Air
Ocean
Parcel
12,400
Orders shipped today
2,100+
Active lanes
5
Modes
Thousands of orders. Thousands of nodes and modes. Most nights, the network just works. Most nights.
Act I · The Call
A brand-new manager. An ordinary night.
M
01 · Meet
MARY.
Six months in. Customer Supply Chain Manager. On-call tonight. Not ready for this one.
:
02 · 11:42 PM
SILENCED.
Unknown number. Late. She thumbs the side button. Whoever it is can wait until morning.
…
03 · The dream
I let them down.
The room is full. Her team is looking at her. The customer is gone. Nobody says a word.
Incoming · 11:58 PM · pulls her out of the dream
APEX TECH.
$1.2B
Operation
200
Units due
36h
SLA
The phone rings again — and pulls her out of the dream. She picks up. Apex needs the order in thirty-six hours — or the contract walks.
Act III · The Trap
HISTORY SAYS 108 HOURS.
▸ Standard playbook
FTL · 108h · $520
She places the order the way she always has. 72 hours late before the truck rolls.
▸ She digs harder
EXPEDITED · 48h · $1,420
Fastest historical lane she can find. Twelve hours short. The clock is running.
Act V · The Discovery
THE GLR APP.
Generate Logistics Routes · Lyric Studio
An app she's never opened. It pulls every shipment record and every contract carrier in the network — not just the lanes she's run before. Ranks them against one ask.
Act VI · The Turn
COST
0.8 · weight
→
SPEED
0.8 · weight
One slider. Cost → Speed. The network surfaces a lane nobody's ever run for Apex — door to door in 34 hours.
Act VII · The Return
★HERO.
$1.2B
Account kept
$930
Above standard FTL
All Hands
VP wants her to demo
Two days later, the VP calls. Apex is so happy they want to expand the contract. Then she asks Mary to walk the room through her decision — at the next All Hands.
The Meta-Pattern — Hero's Journey
THE SHAPE OF EVERY STORY.
Joseph Campbell called it the monomyth: the same journey, told again and again, across every culture. Your work isn't like a story. It is one.
Joseph Campbell · The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) — the monomyth. Seventeen stages, one circular journey. Every story worth telling walks some arc of this circle.
Your toolkit · Mike Adams, adapted
SEVEN STORIES EVERY MANAGER MUST TELL.
Mike Adams wrote this for salespeople who walk into rooms and need people to buy. Every word of it translates. Mary's emergency order is just one of seven — the four in green are the ones your work most likely earns.
01
CONNECTION.
Who you are
The two-minute story that makes the room trust you before you show a number.
02
TEAM.
Who's with you
The analyst next to you. The planner on the ground. Credibility is a crew.
03
ORIGIN.
Why this work exists
The problem the function was born to solve. Everything else hangs off this.
04
INSIGHT.
What you saw they missed
The reframe — the "here's what the data is actually saying" moment that tilts the room. If your app carries the story, this is your shape.
↑ Mary's story
05
PROOF.
When it paid off
One move. One new lane. One $12M contract saved for $930. Keep a file of these.
06
STAND.
What you won't compromise
Speed over cost when the customer is on the line. The line you won't cross — and why it's load-bearing.
07
TEACH.
Make them smarter
The generous story. The room leaves with a better mental model — not just a slide deck.
Adapted from Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell · Mike Adams
The Technique
EXPAND.CONTRACT.
Every great storyteller does this. Journalists, screenwriters, keynote speakers. First you generate everything you could say — facts, anecdotes, numbers, tangents, quotes. Then you cut ruthlessly until only the load-bearing sentences survive. The cutting isn't losing material. It's what makes the rest hit.
In the age of AI — there is already too much content in every room. More charts, more slides, more bullets, more tabs. AI should help you find clarity, not manufacture more noise. Use it to expand. Use it to contract. Never just to fill.
EXPAND
24 ideas
The 11:42 PM phone call from Apex
Apex Tech · $1.2B account at risk
200 units · 36-hour SLA
FTL ground · 108 hours · ✕ fails
The dream — "I let them down"
First time opening the GLR app
Cost → Speed · the slider flip
$12M contract saved for $930
…and 16 more
Write everything. Judge nothing.
→
CONTRACT
3 ideas
The 11:42 PM phone call from Apex
Apex Tech · $1.2B account at risk
200 units · 36-hour SLA
FTL ground · 108 hours · ✕ fails
The dream — "I let them down"
First time opening the GLR app
Cost → Speed · the slider flip
$12M contract saved for $930
Cut everything that isn't load-bearing.
More in the drafts. Less on the stage.
⏱
Breakout — 12 minutes · Contraction exercise
Tell your story in 30 seconds. Then 15. Then 5.
Same story. Three rounds. Each round you have to cut half of it. The five-second version is the title of your deck.
ROUND 1
30s
The whole arc — setup, trouble, turn, proof, ask.
ROUND 2
15s
Half the words. Keep the load-bearing ones.
ROUND 3
5s
One sentence. That's your title.
3–4 per room
Everyone goes all three rounds
Group picks the best 5-second pitch
Guests · Two founders. Decades of stories.
MEET THE ROOM.
The two founders of OpEx Analytics. They have told hundreds of stories — mostly as entrepreneurs — about supply chain decisions that mattered. They will tell you what landed and what didn't.
GR
GANESH RAMKRISHNA
Founder & CEO · Lyric · Co-founder · OpEx Analytics
Founded Lyric. Co-founded OpEx Analytics. Two decades of telling supply chain stories — to customers, to investors, to teams.
Co-founder · OpEx Analytics · Professor · Northwestern
Co-founded OpEx Analytics. Teaches at Northwestern. Co-author of Supply Chain Network Modeling. Has been telling these stories for decades — first as an entrepreneur, then in the classroom.
In supply chain, the story is as much about you as it is about the analytics, the insight, or the ROI. People remember the character — not the chart. What makes YOU a character?
The exercise · 10 seconds each
SAY ONE INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOURSELF.
Around the horn. One sentence. Something not on your LinkedIn. In Chicago, the room remembers the person first — then the product.
Assignment 3 · Tell the story of your work
CRAFT A STORY.
Two weeks of work. One story the room remembers. Pick one of the seven shapes · expand · contract · ship.
01 · PICK
YOUR STORY TYPE
One of seven. Whichever your work earns.
→
02 · MAKE
DECK · HTML · OR APP
Whatever serves the story. AI optional, never required.
→
03 · SHIP
60-SECOND TRAILER + MATERIAL
Camera-on video · plus your deck or app · Circle by Wed 11:59 PM ET.
Chicago · May 7
5–10 MINUTES, LIVE.
You tell the extended cut in front of the cohort, Lyric leadership, and guests. Everyone scores each other.
The prize
★
BEST STORYTELLER, CRESCENDO PILOT COHORT.
One person gets the crown. Based on the scores from the room.
WHAT'S NEXT.
WED 11:59 AM
April 29 · 11:59 AM ET
Submit questions in Circle
What's the call you're most unsure about? Post before lunch Wednesday.
WED 11:59 PM
April 29 · 11:59 PM ET
Trailer video + deck or app
60-second camera-on video plus the material you'll walk the room through. Ship it rough.
THU 11:59 PM
April 30 · 11:59 PM ET
Peer feedback — one cohort member
You get assigned. Read their draft. Tell them what landed and what didn't.
Save the date · August · Chicago
EMPOWER · YOUR ENCORE.
A special panel at Empower built around the Crescendo cohort experience. Frank will invite a few of you to join the stage. Discount codes for everyone else — come hang. The story doesn't end in May.
