Fatima Alvarez

Artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced analytics are reshaping global supply chains. But amid all the excitement surrounding emerging technologies, one critical ingredient continues to separate successful transformation from expensive experimentation: people. That was a central theme of a recent Supply Chain Now conversation between host Scott W. Luton and Mike Sadr, Chief Revenue & Strategy Officer at SupplyChain Strategy. Drawing on insights from SupplyChain Strategy’s Intelligent Supply Chain Champions Index and accompanying Playbook, Sadr shared perspectives on leadership, scaling innovation, building resilience, and learning from the people driving meaningful change across the industry. Celebrating the Leaders Behind Supply Chain Innovation The Intelligent Supply Chain Champions initiative was created to recognize professionals making a tangible difference across global supply chains while sharing lessons others can apply. The peer-nominated Champions Index celebrates 193 outstanding leaders from across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific. While the Playbook invites ten of those senior supply chain professionals to discuss real-world challenges and opportunities. According to Sadr, one leadership capability stands above the rest: connecting people, technology, and business priorities. “There’s understandably a huge amount of attention on AI and automation, but the leaders we featured made it clear that successful transformation…

Supply Chain Now is the voice of the supply chain industry, and our hosts are experts in the field. Podcast listeners and webinar viewers tune in to hear the sage advice of host Jake Barr, heralded as an architect of global supply chain strategy and creator of “profit powerhouses.” Earning His Spot on Stage Barr today is the CEO of BlueWorld Supply Chain Consulting, which provides support to such Fortune 500 companies as Cargill, Caterpillar, 3M, PepsiCo, and Pfizer and helps them bring products to market. “We place a premium on accelerating speed to market by leveraging supply chain transformation,” he says. “The result is better operating margin performance and the opportunity to drive faster growth in revenue.” During his more than 33 years with Procter & Gamble, Barr served as the global director of supply network operations and led the end-to-end planning transformation project, which created control towers that now manage the daily business globally and earned him recognition as the architect for the company’s demand-driven supply chain strategy. He served on the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics advisory council for its Supply Chain 2020 Project, was named to the League of Leaders for retail and consumer goods…