Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference

Greg Aimi brings 29 years of business experience within supply chain and technology to his position as Research Director within Gartner Supply Chain. Mr. Aimi researches and analyzes global logistics, transportation, and distribution strategies and best practices, including planning and execution, organizations, performance management, use of logistics outsourcing (3PLs), and global logistics management. Mr. Aimi advises clients on the impact that these areas have on company performance and helps align their logistics capabilities with demand-driven transformations. Mr. Aimi was one of the technology pioneers who developed the supply chain execution category of supply chain software, including the integration of transportation, warehousing and order fulfillment across an integrated supply chain network. His work has focused on the optimization and automation of supply chain functions in response to changing execution dynamics.

Stan Aronow is a research director in Gartner's Supply Chain Research group, with a focus on high-tech industrial value chains. He also publishes cross-industry research in the areas of supply chain cost-to-serve, risk management and complexity management.

Jane Barrett is the Group Vice President for Gartner's Supply Chain Research group. Ms. Barrett leads the supply chain analyst group covering the end-to-end supply chain functions (plan, source, make, deliver, customer service and product life cycle) for the manufacturing and retail sectors. She also helps organizations with supply chain strategy and organization design, sales and operations planning, and related initiatives.

Dhaval is based in Singapore and currently heads the Unilever Supply Chain for Asia, Africa and Russia which has ~44,000 people operating 130 factories and 220 Distribution Centres and serves ~4000 customers. He also heads up Unilever Engineering Services which is responsible for deploying Unilever’s capital expenditure (~€ 2 billion/year) globally. Prior to this, he spent a year in London as the Senior Vice President, Supply Chain Strategy working with Unilever’s Chief Supply Chain Officer. Dhaval began his career with Unilever in India as a Management Trainee in Supply Chain and took on several factory and engineering roles. He has spent 6 years in roles outside the Supply Chain during which he ran the Household Care business for Unilever India and led a couple of New Ventures. His last role in India (before moving to London) was as Vice President Supply Chain for South Asia. He is married to Madhabi and they have a son Abhay. Dhaval enjoys running, reading and playing Indian film music.

Mike Burkett is a research vice president and chief of research for the Gartner supply chain team, drawing on more than 15 years of manufacturing experience introducing and supporting products from concept to end-of-life. Heading Gartner's cross-industry research on product life cycle supply chain strategy, he is regarded as a leading expert, having co-authored the first industry publication to define the product life cycle management market. Mr. Burkett previously managed an analyst team responsible for cross-industry supply chain process and technology research. He continues to conduct research on the extended value chain issues impacting industrial discrete manufacturing companies.

Matthew Davis is a director with Gartner's Supply Chain Research, covering supply chain strategy across industries. He is the lead analyst for supply chain segmentation, customer-focused supply chain, strategy planning and supply chain for solutions business models.

Simon Jacobson is responsible for Gartner's coverage of manufacturing operations. He researches and works closely with clients on current and future manufacturing strategy, alignment with supply chain IT and business process architectures, and goal alignment and metrics, as well as providing insight and best practices. He examines specific functional capabilities and supporting systems across subjects such as manufacturing execution, enterprise integration, operations intelligence and performance management, and quality management. Mr. Jacobson is frequently quoted in the press and presents often at industry events on such topics as Manufacturing 2.0, Global Quality and MES.

James Lisica is a Research Director in Supply Chain Research for Asia/Pacific and global logistics and supply chain.

Kevin Sterneckert is a Gartner Research Vice President. Mr. Sterneckert researches and analyzes demand sensing and shaping optimization activities within the consumer value chain network of manufacturers and retailers. Included in this research are demand modeling techniques utilizing downstream data, syndicated data, social media and other unstructured data sources. Mr. Sterneckert is an expert analyst of merchandise life cycle (assortment, space, price, promotion, markdown and offer) optimization.

Steven Steutermann is the vice president of research, consumer products.

In his current role at Gartner, Debashis Tarafdar is responsible for supply chain research and advisory services in Asia/Pacific. His core areas of research include sales and operation planning (S&OP), demand management, and demand-driven value network orchestration among others.