The story behind the creation of the “DDN” Linkedin group

?Let me tell you a story, the story of how I started the DDN group almost 18 years ago. I began my relationship with the industry back in the summer of 1984 when I found myself working for a baby diaper factory in Monterrey Mexico. I loved it so much that I continued to work in the same company for the following 20 years. Why did I stay that long? Well, I was part of a great team of people and we had the best leader. I felt that I made an important contribution to keeping the gears of the company moving faster every year, and we were quite successful. From one single diaper line that we had since 1982, we were able to make them grow to ten diaper lines, with an expansion to two more factories, one in Guadalajara and another in Colombia.?

By 1999, things were changing. The owner of our factory restarted a used pulp mill with the idea of making tissue paper. That was when he left me in charge of the diaper factory, while he went to manage the mill. The required investment for a mill is one order of magnitude larger than it is needed to start a diaper factory, so this was a huge commitment on his part. A couple of years after the start-up things were not going as planned. The mill was losing money like crazy, more money every year for the next 6 years. Last year every single dollar of profit that was made by our diaper factory was fully diverted to this mill. And this was not the worst to come. Things got to a point where I was forced to lie about the future investment projects that were promised to our clients, they all demanded innovative diaper features to keep up with market trends and to stay ahead of our competition. After all, our clients were in business to make money.?

For the first time during my work there, I had no choice but to lie. Why? There was simply no money left for any of our many diaper projects, all was being sent to the paper mill. It made me feel just terrible. It was during a face-to-face meeting in San Antonio Texas, the HQ for our largest export account in the US, that I decided it was time for me to leave my work. It was a year after I took that decision and had talked with my boss, that I was finally able to leave. I was aware that quitting my job in Mexico, the way I did, meant leaving with minimal payment in my pocket. I did it anyway.?

As I started my new life as an independent diaper industry consultant in the spring of 2005, I quickly found out that your country of birth has a large weight on your consulting future and your income. Mexico, being a third-world country, was not the best reference for me, to say the least. Money coming in for the first time was shorter than money going outspent on our many family needs, especially with my kids starting college. All my life I had been educated to never accept unbalanced finances, this is not something that we do. Something had to be done and it had to be done quickly! It was right then that I started my plan to build the DDN group, I had the clear vision to make it the largest network of diaper industry executives on the planet. I also developed a plan to gain technical credibility by networking as much as I could and helping those who wanted to invest in our diaper industry wherever they were, no matter how far. I traveled consistently more than 125K miles every year, at least until covid.?

I am thankful to the many people that helped me during this difficult transition, people as Andy Urban who was my first mentor in the consulting business. Later to INDA and EDANA for allowing me to grow as a consultant by kindly accepting the many papers that I presented to them. I am also grateful to the many raw material suppliers that decided to hire my services, probably based on my growing Linkedin network and reputation. And special thanks to all my colleagues that helped me learn the ropes while I was improving and fine-tuning my expertise and skills. Today, the DDN is a success story that keeps not only our members well informed but also it is a hub for all of those looking for new job opportunities. Today, work for me is a hobby that I truly enjoy doing.?