The Spark Initiative

Biography

A seasoned supply chain professional with 26 years’ experience at Dow, Tracy is currently the Global Supply Chain Planning Business Process Director at Dow, responsible for the company's business planning strategy to drive improved performance. With a Chemical Engineering degree from South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Tracy started out in manufacturing and engineering, and has operated in a full range of planning and logistics roles supporting all Dow businesses globally.

Biography

Global Supply Chain Director for Cx/Service and E2E Integration, Dave started out as a Planner in Dow’s UK agricultural division and held various roles in manufacturing and supply chain, both in Europe and the US. He has been part of Dow’s Corporate Supply Chain Group since 2016, leading the Planning Center of Excellence and later the E2E Business Planning Program. In 2022, he assumed his current role, heading up the quest for better customer experience and integration across the supply chain.

Biography

With more than 20 years in the chemicals business in supply chain optimization, process engineering, and consulting, Vipul can also count many years of leadership experience managing across multiple integrated processes, technologies, and world regions. More recently at Dow, he has been working to transform the cross-functional planning process to bring a superior customer experience, powered by investment in highly motivated people, and backed up by harnessing new technologies.

Biography

An accomplished supply chain leader and practitioner, with more than 30 years’ driving end-to-end supply chain transformation across markets and businesses, Bob is an experienced operations and organization leader passionate about stimulating potential and leading value creation in supply chains with varying levels of synchronization and maturity. In his most recent role, he led the digital transformation across Procter & Gamble’s global planning operations.

Biography

Director of Supply Chain Analytics at Nestlé, Margo is a Certified Analytics Professional with more than 20 years of experience in supply chain, analytics, and operations research, with degrees from Cornell University, and the University of Maryland. Prior to joining Nestlé, Margo worked at IBM and Booz Allen Hamilton, managing a range of government and commercial accounts while she is passionate about helping organization make better supply chain decisions using data.

Biography

Director of Strategy and Capabilities Transformation at General Mills, piloting their long-term strategy, transformation agenda, and digital roadmap, Danny joined the company in 2007 as an engineering associate and has held numerous positions across the end-to-end supply chain. With an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Illinois, Danny is passionate about building winning teams and championing a culture of belonging, and currently leads his company’s Asian Leadership Network.

Biography

Kirsten Olson has nearly 15 years of supply chain experience across warehousing, planning, and support digital capabilities. After building a foundation of operational roles in DC engineering, network optimization and supply planning at Lowe’s Home Improvement, she moved into planning solution delivery with Accenture specializing in functional and change management leadership roles.  For the past 3 years, Kirsten has been with General Mills, acting as North America lead on their OMP planning transformation and now owning Planning’s digital roadmap and strategy. 

Biography

The A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Tech, Pascal also directs the NSF AI Institute for Advances in Optimization as well as the Socially Aware Mobility and Risk-Aware Market Clearing laboratories. His systems have been solving logistics, supply chain, and manufacturing issues for more than 20 years. His main focus is on machine learning, optimization, and privacy in energy, mobility, and supply chains.

Biography

Professor of Freight Transport and Logistics at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, Tom has published over 125 papers in leading academic journals and contributed chapters to the international literature. A frequent conference speaker, he carries out joint projects with industry, and directs the European Supply Chain Forum, a collaboration of around 75 major multinationals.

Biography

Currently heading up digital supply chain strategy at Land O’Lakes, an American member-owned Fortune 500 agricultural co-operative with annual revenues around $19 billion, Tomaz has spent 24 years of his career in the supply chain management space, first with his 10 years in consulting, followed by 14 years at Land O’Lakes. Over the years he has had many different roles across the supply chain, although exploring better ways to carry out the E2E planning process across the supply chain is what he finds truly energizing.

Biography

With 22 years’ supply chain digital transformation experience in a whole range of industries, Philip currently leads OMP’s business and market development globally while heading up the company’s US operations. Focusing on vision, strategy, and global community building, Philip has a proven history of boundary stretching and thought leadership in supply chain planning innovation, building new markets, and growing and supporting high-performing teams on both sides of the Atlantic.

Biography

Lennert oversees the road map and product design of OMP for Demand Management. His passion for innovation drives him to bring AI and other cutting-edge technologies to the market, giving manufacturers enhanced visibility and control over their demand planning process. Leaning on countless projects, POCs, and interactions with demand planning leaders and stakeholders, Lennert enjoys sharing best practices and brings a pragmatic approach to problem-solving.

Biography

With a mountain of expertise in S&OP and supply chain optimization in chemicals, consumer goods, and food & beverages, Jo now focuses on enhancing the user experience, empowering customers with the actionable visibility to handle every situation.

Biography

Aditya is a Senior Solution Architect with over 10 years of experience in implementing large supply chain projects with global user bases for the chemical industry. He is also responsible for driving our chemical industry solution forward.

Biography

With over 10 years of experience in supply chain design, optimization, and planning, Tim began his career in the CPG industry before transitioning to advisory and software implementation. He focuses on unlocking value in complex supply chains and has led large, diverse teams. Tim enjoys exploring the intersection of mathematical modeling and real-world business benefits.