2007 Pros to Know

Chris Martin
Senior Director, Purchasing, Universal Orlando
Martin has been a driving force behind increasing the visibility of Universal Orlando's Sourcing group. This increase visibility has led to more involvement in the acquisition process and increased savings opportunities. In fact, Universal Orlando's Management has concluded that vendor relationships, risk mitigation, supplier performance and optimal total cost of ownership are integral to the strategic process of the organization — all things that Martin has been deeply involved with and continues to push for more improvements.

Dana Mathes
Global Supply Chain Director of Logistics Operations, The Dow Chemical Company
A good supply chain won't stay that way without leaders revisiting best practices to make them even better. Mathes is currently leading Dow's commitment to supply chain safety and security through a 10-year strategy for supply chain sustainability — a three-pronged initiative to improve Dow's management of distribution safety and security risks, reduce the company's overall risk profile and provide industry leadership to enhance public confidence in chemical supply chain safety and security. Continuous improvement has resulted in over $300 million cumulative cost savings since 2001.

Eugene McCabe
Executive Vice President for Worldwide Operations, Sun Microsystems
McCabe spearheaded the effort at Sun Microsystems to develop a process that is now known as the "one-touch supply chain," which reduced logistics costs by 20 percent and finished goods inventory by as much as 40 percent. By creating metrics to measure success and showcasing the good work of his team, McCabe won recognition for Supply Chain as a strategic function at Sun. And the company's customers are taking note, too: many are requesting the same process within their own supply chains.

Mary McDaniel
Vice President, Materiel & Corporate Sourcing, FedEx Corporation
A 25-year veteran of FedEx who has held several senior management positions within the company, McDaniel currently oversees the management of aircraft parts inventory and technical support for FedEx's global fleet — the second largest in the world, operating in more than 200 countries. McDaniel has been recognized within the company for her instrumental role in helping the company to build its reputation as a leader in its space.

Robert Moon
Senior Vice President, CIO, LeapFrog Enterprises
Moon understands that an enabled supply chain is critical to successful operations. As the CIO for several large corporations, Moon needed to transform his companies' supply chains to support the dramatic fluctuations in product demand common in the consumer products industry. His successful solution was to implement global ERP systems, streamline IT operations and significantly cut IT expenses. As an active part of the senior executive team at LeapFrog today, Moon and his IT team are considered key tactical players and critical members of the company's strategic operational team.

John Paterson
Chief Procurement Officer, IBM
While the strategic nature of the supply chain may seem obvious to us today, it hasn't always been so. In Paterson's 35-year career at IBM, he has helped push for the Supply Chain organization to be seen less as just a cost of doing business and more as a function that provides value to IBM and its shareholders. In support of this cause, most recently, Paterson led the use of e-procurement tools to save IBM $2 billion over the past five years. He has also chosen to move himself and his office to Shenzhen, China, to be closer to IBM's supply base.

Mitch Plaat
Chief Procurement Officer, Con-way Inc.
Visibility is a key component of the successful supply chain, and Platt made that a priority part of transportation services firm Con-way's 2005 initiative to increase bottom-line value by integrating supply management more closely with corporate strategy. To secure leadership's recognition of the strategic nature of the supply chain and procurement transformation, Platt made sure all key senior executives had their own solution dashboards capable of creating reports that gave them visibility into metrics critical to their specific operations and responsibilities.

Peter Russano
Vice President of Operations, Inviro Medical
In short order, Russano has helped relatively new company Inviro Medical recognize that Supply Chain is a strategic component of providing value-added services to customers and that having a superior supply chain is critical to success. In the span of 12 months, he has set up a global supply chain with manufacturing partners in Eastern Europe and Asia for the company. Utilizing Lean-oriented processes, he has also worked with a leading 3PL to develop an integrated purchase-to-invoice process.