Parabola

Belated welcome to James Fleming, our newest engineer!! In his own words, he’s been focused on improving Parabola’s ability to handle data sets that “feel huge to both humans and computers.” When he’s not making our product faster, you can find him eating soup (proof below). He also loves surfing, vintage suits, and working alongside his brother Henry Fleming, but not necessarily in that order. We are so lucky to have 'Big Data James' on our team. Welcome to Parabola!

May 2024: Partnerships Manager at Fulfil. Aug 2025: Senior Manager, Growth and Partnerships. Jan 2026: Chief of Staff. Twenty months. Two promotions. Matt Parkin is all in on AI, and his career trajectory tracks the tools. When AI showed up, Matt was immediately on the front lines experimenting. He was one of the few that moved his whole job inside it. On May 28th he's leading a webinar where he'll cover: → the 5 AI tools he uses every day and what each is best at → the tactical ways operators can connect AI tools to their existing tech stack → the workflows he'd build first if he were starting from scratch tomorrow This event is only for members of Parabola's SOP Community, a Slack-based group of 750+ ops, supply chain, and logistics leaders. If you're an operations leader and want to see how your peers are using AI, this is for you. Not yet a community member but want to join? https://lnkd.in/eFS94sfZ

Best in the biz 💪

The biggest movers in AI-powered automation (Q1 '26). Data from 6,000+ production workflows across 500+ operations teams at consumer brands 👇 The first few months of 2026 have completely shaken up the automation landscape for ops and finance. Already the mix of the most popular use cases looks totally different from 2025: - PDF and document extraction: 16x YoY. Invoices, BOLs, packing slips. The first use case AI made truly solvable at scale. - Shipment tracking: 10x. Logging into carrier portals and updating a spreadsheet is finally dying. Connectivity is getting commoditized. - Cash reconciliation: 7x. Finance teams are automating multi-system workflows outside of Excel. This one barely existed a year ago. - Inventory reconciliation, order management, PO tracking: all 3-5x. The finance cluster is the one I'd pay attention to. Cash recon, PO tracking, and inventory reconciliation were all niche automation targets a year ago. Now finance is the fastest-growing function in the mix. The other thing worth noting: the top of this list is dominated by use cases with messy, unstructured inputs. PDFs. Carrier feeds in different formats. Bank data that doesn't match the GL. A year ago, if the input was a PDF, most teams didn't even try. Now it's the #1 fastest-growing use case. We're sitting on a lot more data here. Curious what resonates and where we should take this next

We're doing a live webinar on 𝗔𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗹 𝟮𝟯 𝗮𝘁 𝟭𝟬𝗮𝗺 𝗣𝗦𝗧 / 𝟭𝗽𝗺 𝗘𝗦𝗧. It feels like I've lived more than a few operator lives throughout this career — including building ops at Warby Parker from $200M to $400M. But this webinar draws from something more recent: the past year at Operating Crew, working with some incredible brands. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝟴–𝟵 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗗𝗧𝗖 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀. If you're wondering if your current 3PL is going to get you to the next level, feel like you've squeezed everything out of your carrier contract, and managing retail expansion — this is for you. Here's what we've seen consistently: even at the $50M+ scale, there's almost always more on the table. Not one big swing — but stack a few smart decisions across shipping, packaging, and your 3PL, and you're often looking at several hundred thousand dollars in margin you didn't know was there. That's what we're getting into. Here's some of what we'll cover: → 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴. Most brands are still optimizing carrier mix by rate alone. The next tier is carrier selection by region, by season, and by zip-to-zip delivery performance — and using that data to do things like swap second-day air for ground when you have 96% confidence it arrives in the same window. Pure margin, no trade-off. → 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸. One brand we work with shifted 73% of their orders from boxes to mailers after we analyzed their order profiles. That single change drove $237K in combined packaging and shipping savings — and they upgraded from unbranded stock boxes to branded packaging in the process. → 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝟯𝗣𝗟 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝟯𝟬𝟬 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀. You wouldn't Google "best surgeon near me" before an operation. People, software, infrastructure, and years of doing it at real volume — that's what separates them. One brand we worked with went from 83% on-time to 97% and saved $1.72M annually after making the switch. I want this to be a real conversation and know that we'll get some great insights from the room, not just from me. Bring your questions and your experience. We've already got tons of amazing operators signed up! We're hosting this with the SOP Community, Parabola's free Slack group for ops, supply chain, and logistics leaders. Already over 700 members strong — one of the best rooms we've found for this kind of conversation. If you're not in it yet, joining gets you access to this and a lot more. 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 ➡ https://luma.com/654tuuxr

2010: Project Engineer at Cargill 2014: Project Engineer at Unilever 2017: Site Manufacturing Lead at Unilever 2021: Planning Lead, NA Personal Care Liquids & Hair Care at Unilever 2022: Head of Supply Chain Americas at Unilever International 2025: Founder at Elevate Growth Partners Pedrom Rejai has 15+ years of experience leading supply chain initiatives supporting hundreds of millions in sales at Unilever and as a strategic advisor to emerging brands in their earliest days. He's seen brands fail from poor early decisions and helped others build durable systems for sustainable, long-term growth. Now, he's gone all-in on AI as the sharpest edge brands have to differentiate themselves and do more with less. On March 31st he'll lead a webinar breaking down his firsthand learnings from actual AI deployments, and offer his guidance for teams still behind on adoption. Pedrom will cover: → Why most AI pilots fail and the mistakes teams make designing them → Where real AI ROI lives and how ops teams can unlock it → What the best teams to differently to successfully run AI pilots This webinar is exclusively for members of Parabola's SOP Community, a Slack group of 750+ ops, supply chain, and logistics leaders. To can join the group and Pedrom's chat, you can sign up here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eFS94sfZ

Aspiring sales rep? Enjoy working with cool consumer brands? Like to be surrounded by high-energy, high-performing people? Based in NYC? Boy, do we have an opening on the Sales team for YOU: https://lnkd.in/eQ7wmyQ4