< Back to
Share:

Billy Ray Taylor

Billy Taylor is a Proven Business Excellence Practitioner and Leadership Guru with over 25 years leading operations for a Fortune 500 company, Goodyear. He is also the CEO of LinkedXL (Excellence) , a Business Operating Systems Architecting Firm dedicated to implementing sustainable operating systems that drive sustainable results. Taylor’s achievements in the industry have made him a Next Generational Lean pacesetter with significant contributions.

An American business executive, Taylor has made a name for himself as an innovative and energetic industry professional with an indispensable passion for his craft of operational excellence. His journey started many years ago and has worked with renowned corporations such as The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) leading multi-site operations. With over 3 decades of service leading North America operations, he is experienced in a deeply rooted process driven approach in customer service, process integrity for sustainability.

A disciple of continuous improvement, Taylor’s love for people inspires commitment to helping others achieve their full potential. He is a dynamic speaker and hosts “The Winning Link,” a popular podcast centered on business and leadership excellence with the #1 rated Supply Chain Now Network . As a leadership guru, Taylor has earned several invitations to universities, international conferences, global publications, and the U.S. Army to demonstrate how to achieve and sustain effective results through cultural acceptance and employee ownership. Leveraging the wisdom of his business acumen, strong influence as a speaker and podcaster Taylor is set to release “The Winning Link” book under McGraw Hill publishing in 2022. The book is a how-to manual to help readers understand the management of business interactions while teaching them how to Deine, Align, and Execute Winning in Business.

A servant leader, Taylor, was named by The National Diversity Council as one of the Top 100 Diversity Officers in the country in 2021. He features among Oklahoma’s Most Admired CEOs and maintains key leadership roles with the Executive Advisory Board for The Shingo Institute “The Nobel Prize of Operations” and The Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME) ; two world-leading organizations for operational excellence, business development, and cultural learning.  He is also an Independent Director for the M-D Building Products Board , a proud American manufacturer of quality products since 1920.

More

April 9, 2021

This Week In Supply Chain Now: April 5th – 9th

It’s been a great week here at Supply Chain Now! Stay in the loop with all our latest conversations right here. We kicked off the week on Monday with 3 new episodes! In this episode, Greg White and Scott Luton welcomed Logan Ensign with Alloy and Katlyn Davis with Valvoline to Supply Chain Now to discuss how sales and supply chain can work together for retail success. On This Week in Business History, host Scott W. Luton interviewed an entertainment industry trailblazer: Ellen Snortland. In this wide-ranging, fascinating discussion, Ellen shares her incredible journey from helping her family survive a horrible, life-changing flood in South Dakota t0 forming the first all-female theater company in Santa Barbara, California – – and beyond! On Supply Chain Now en Espanol, hosts Enrique Alvarez and Demo Pérez welcomed Juan Carlos Croston, president of the Caribbean Shipping Association, to the podcast. On Tuesday, we released 2 new episodes. TEK TOK Digital Supply Chain Podcast released a replay of its latest livestream in which hosts Karin Bursa and Scott Luton welcomed Mallery Dosdall with Red Wing Shoe Co. to learn how S&OP can make an enormous impact on business. On TECHquila Sunrise, host Greg White discusses…
supply chain planning
January 7, 2026

ToolsGroup CEO Sean Elliott on Embracing Uncertainty, Probabilistic Planning, and Preparing for an Agentic Future

At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Sean Elliott, CEO of ToolsGroup, to discuss why uncertainty is no longer something supply chain leaders should fear—and how the right technology can turn volatility into advantage. Elliott brings decades of experience across supply chain execution and planning, a background that shapes his pragmatic leadership philosophy. As he noted, bad plans can cripple even the best execution environments, just as poor execution can undermine well-crafted plans. ToolsGroup’s mission sits squarely at that intersection.   What Makes ToolsGroup Different Elliott described ToolsGroup as one of the few truly probabilistic planning providers in the market. While many vendors claim probabilistic capabilities, most stop at probabilistic forecasting. ToolsGroup goes further by embedding probabilistic thinking across the full breadth of its planning technology. The company’s belief is simple but powerful: uncertainty is not the enemy—it’s an asset. Rather than chasing forecast accuracy for its own sake, ToolsGroup focuses on business outcomes. What planning organizations really care about, Elliott argued, is having the right inventory in the right place at the right time to satisfy customers. Customer satisfaction—driven by availability, pricing, and service—is the ultimate goal. Probabilistic planning enables organizations to…