Transforming Companies: Culture, Legacy Systems, and the Ability to Adapt

Hey, I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you'd like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today on the show I have Artu Ajar, and he is the COO over at Mercury. Artu, welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam. Happy to be here. All right. So we got a lot to talk about today. So we'll talk about transforming companies, culture, legacy systems and the ability to adapt. But before we get into that, let's get into what we like to call our mission matters a minute. So R2 at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives and experts. That's our mission. R2, what mission matters to you? Yeah, so here at Mercury, a Boston based tech enabled healthcare logistics company with over 40 years of shipping expertise, we specialize in serving biotech, medical device, and life science research companies globally and offering every type of shipping that they need. Our proprietary software platform simplifies shipping, tracking, payments, basically making logistics seamless for healthcare life science companies. Clients trust us. to handle challenging international dry ice shipments, eliminating the frustration dealing with carrier call centers like 1 800 numbers, basically saving time on logistics. We have dedicated teams. with proven track records and many clients have partnered with us for over 15 years. We are trusted by our clients and for healthcare life science shipping. In a nutshell, it's one team, one platform and every solution that they need. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that love bringing mission based organizations on the line to share what they do, how they do it, why they do it. Well, we can all learn from it. So great to have you on. And I guess just to get a little bit further into your background, like how did you get started in business? Like, where'd all that start for you? Yeah. So I have engineering background. I started my career as a software developer here in the U S after grad school. And then I moved into the business side to more automation, logistics, warehousing. I worked at Amazon Robotics for a while as a technical program manager. That's how I got into logistics business, more on the automation side. Then I'm in Boston, startup, mostly around automation. I worked at startup companies. And finally, in 2022, there was this opportunity here at Mercury and I joined Mercury as the VP of product. So the goal was to start a digital transformation at Mercury. Mercury has been, it was founded in 1984. So it's an old company. The new owner bought the company in 2020, Josh Meadow. And then since then we are in an evolution. I joined in 2022. Since then, we have been transforming the company. It has changed, but there's a lot more to do. Of course. Yeah. Hold on, man. Talking about the, the companies being founded in the eighties, making it old. I was founded in the eighties R2. Come on, man. I know, right. It's such a long time. Better relax with those statements. Almost 40 years. Yeah. So R2, during the pandemic, this is when logistics really got on my radar. Like I didn't know much about logistics and all of a sudden I'm doing all these interviews and like, obviously, because logistics just touches every part of our lives, everything that we look at that we have as a consumer product or anything else, like logistics on some level is involved. So to me over the whole pandemic and everything else I did, I don't know, all these interviews on logistics. And then I, I kind of. Was a secret little logistics wannabe like nerd. Like I didn't, I don't know much, but I know enough. And I was having so much fun with it. What, what kept you or what keeps you in logistics? Like, what do you find? So you, you built a career in the, in the industry, in the field. Like what keeps you going in logistics? Like what's interesting to you from your vantage point? Yeah. From a top 30, 000 feet overview, it seems pretty simple, right? You take one. Item from point A, you carry it to point B. What's the challenge? Yeah. Right. That's so good. The details and during pandemic, we all felt the pain. Yeah. And the burden on the logistics and when it doesn't work, how, how it impacts everyone's daily life. Mm-hmm . Years ago there was a blockage in the stress canal. Yeah. See how it impact all the international shipments and from construction to automotive manufacturing. So it is challenging and you can only improve it using tech and technology drives the logistics makes it simpler, easier, seamless. So the technology enabled services side I think is the key and that challenge is really attractive. I come from a technology background, so I like to provide solutions to problems as an engineer. And this is a big, large scale and challenging enough problem to solve. And it's not going to go away by centuries, people move things from A to B. And no

Mission Matters Business Podcast with Adam Torres