Dexory wins this year’s award for Women in Leadership, led by CPO and co-founder Oana Jinga. The Oxfordshire-based robotics company utilises AI to enhance warehouse automation and was built on a long-standing friendship between its founders. “We’ve actually known each other for over a decade” explains Oana. All three founders are from Romania and have known each other since school. This foundation of trust has shaped the way the team has navigated tough decisions. “The best thing about working with friends and family is that you truly and utterly trust each other like no other,” Oana adds.

The company aims to provide customers with real-time visibility into their inventory and operations, improving efficiency. Dexory’s robots autonomously map warehouses, capture shelf and pallet data, and feed insights into its digital twin platform. This allows operators to optimise space, reduce errors, and ensure accurate inventory tracking. Since its inception, the company has increased its headcount from seven in 2020 to 92 as of March 2023. It has raised £92.3m in investment through six fundraising rounds and secured almost £2m in grant funding, helping to expand the company’s research and development and international presence. With offices in the UK and the U.S., and customers spanning Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Dexory has a strong international market presence, working with numerous third-party logistics providers, including DHL and GXO, with over 50% of its business coming from North America.

The journey to logistics was not straightforward, as Oana highlights, “initially, we started at home. We then kind of evolved into shopping centres, airports, and then into retail stores.” In 2020, the pandemic brought its early retail-focused business to a standstill. “Our market disappeared overnight because all the stores closed both in the UK and across Europe,” explains Oana. That crisis prompted a pivot. When some of their existing clients requested additional support, the founders realised the opportunity in logistics. However, scaling into warehouses required a new approach. “Something built for a store is not going to apply in a two-million-square-foot warehouse. So, then we said, if we want to embrace this properly, let’s invest in creating the right robot for this use case.”

Oana herself brings a distinctive perspective, both as a former Google leader and as a woman in the fields of robotics and logistics. She highlights how the industry may not be “the most encouraging for a female leader”, but also expresses that she has not experienced significant setbacks. “On the contrary, I think a lot of these successes that we’ve had then help tell that story rather than people focusing very much on our backgrounds,” she explains. In recent years, she has leaned into telling her own story to inspire others: “I really want to tell a little of my story and give my example because I do feel like it does help others associate a little bit with what their pathway could be.”