LEEDS WOMAN SHORTLISTED FOR NATIONAL TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS AWARD

Sam Al Yakub from Leeds is one of this year’s finalists in the Warehousing Award (Leader) category - an award that recognises the difference women are making across the transport and logistics sector. The prize goes to a woman who excels in a warehouse environment. 

This year’s shortlist reflects how far opportunities for women have grown in what has long been a male-dominated field, and the breadth of routes now open to them. Amazon returns as a category sponsor for the Tech and AI Innovator Award, and Sam is among a group of Amazon employees who have reached the finals across several categories. 

In her day job, Sam is an operations manager at the Amazon site in Leeds. Ahead of the final, she has spoken about her route into the industry and what keeps her there - hoping her story encourages more women to consider a career in logistics. 

Sam has spent five years at Amazon, rising from area manager to operations manager at the company's sortation centre in Leeds - all while raising three young children.

Today, Sam is an operations manager overseeing inbound, sortation, outbound and customer returns at the site, having been promoted into the role at the end of last year.

She shares her experience working in logistics ahead of the everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards final, with the goal of inspiring other women to pursue a career in the sector. 

Born and bred in Leeds, Sam came to Amazon after around 15 years in retail management.

It was during the pandemic, while pregnant with her first child and weighing up a change of direction, that she decided to look for something new.

Amazon stood out as a role where her management experience would transfer, even if logistics was an entirely different world.

After what she describes as an eye-opening interview process - she was made redundant from her retail job on a Friday and received her Amazon job offer the following Monday. 

Sam joined Amazon in 2021 as an area manager and has progressed quickly ever since.

Along the way she took on a particularly demanding challenge: running a large-items sortation operation single-handedly as a step-up operations manager, liaising with stakeholders across the wider network.

Alongside her day job, she has also completed a project management apprenticeship.

It is this combination of rapid progression, ownership well beyond her level and commitment to developing others that forms the basis of her nomination for the Warehousing Award at the everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards. 

Speaking on working at Amazon, Sam said: “There’s so much variety in what I do. I love the project side of the business, where you can really have an influence and help change how things work, and I find the metrics and the deep-dives fascinating.

"But above everything, I get the most enjoyment from developing my team and watching them progress.” 

For Sam, balancing a fast-moving career with a young family is central to her story. A mother of three children all aged five and under, she has continued to progress throughout - and wants to show her colleagues that it can be done.  

Speaking on combining family life with her career, Sam said: “I’m a mum of three, all five and under, and I’ve done a lot of my progression while pregnant or on maternity leave - I even did my most recent promotion panel while I was off.

"With the right support and a bit of planning, you can build a family and a career at the same time. In a lot of workplaces people assume that if you’re building a family you won't progress, and I’ve tried to show that that doesn't have to be the case.” 

She is quick to credit the people around her. Sam continued: “It comes down to having a team behind me who believed in me. Coming back after a year on maternity can feel like starting a brand-new job, but the people around me always gave me the confidence that I could do it.” 

That belief is something Sam now pays forward. She takes ownership of supporting colleagues through their own career progression - running interview preparation, building development plans and recently mentoring two interns - and is an active champion of Amazon’s employee-led Women at Amazon and Families at Amazon groups, where she is a familiar source of advice for working parents across the site. 

Asked what advice she would give to anyone considering a similar career, Sam said: “My biggest advice is to learn and be curious. Invest time in yourself, ask lots of questions and never be afraid to ask if you don’t understand something.

"Network with people across every level, because everyone is so supportive of one another, and always keep an active plan for where you want your career to go.” 

Speaking on making it to the final of the everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards, Sam said: “I’m thrilled, and a little nervous, to be a finalist - I still can't quite believe it.

"I want to thank the team around me who have believed in me every step of the way, and in particular my former site lead and current senior operations manager, who pushed me and gave me the confidence to go for it. I couldn’t have done any of it without them.”