Danyil Fedorov

Before founding Sotro, I spent five years in the trenches of supply chain operations, managing vendor relationships for one of Europe's specialist manufacturers. Our customers were household names in automotive—the OEMs whose vehicles you see on every highway.

I managed high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing operations: 7,000+ unique units annually across 40+ suppliers spread across multiple countries. At peak, I was juggling six concurrent projects across twenty suppliers—coordinating deliveries, chasing confirmations, and trying to keep production lines running.

My tools? Email, spreadsheets, and sticky notes. My reality? Endless hours copying data between systems, chasing suppliers who ignored portal requests, and hoping nothing slipped through the cracks.

I expanded our manufacturing footprint to three additional countries, managed projects worth over €7 million, and optimized logistics routes across Europe to minimize costs and streamline VAT recovery. I learned what works in procurement—and more importantly, what doesn't.

The biggest lesson? Supplier portals don't work. They shift the burden onto vendors who are already stretched thin. The solution isn't another system for suppliers to ignore—it's meeting them where they already work: their inbox.