Lego’s Carsten Rasmussen the new No. 1 Supply Chain Executive in Europe

The winner of the 2019 edition of the Top 28 Supply Chain Executives in Europe is Carsten Rasmussen, the Chief Operating Officer of Lego Group, based in Billund, Denmark. Carsten is a brand-new entrant in the European ranking. However, in September this year, he was also declared the No. 1 supply chain executive in the ‘Danish Dynamite: Top 50 Supply Chain Executives 2019’ list.

By Martijn Lofvers, Edwin Tuyn and Christian Plesca

In the 2019 edition of the Top 28 Supply Chain Executives in Europe, we have given Marc Engel, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Unilever, a place in our Hall of Fame in recognition of him being named the No. 1 executive for two years in a row (2017 and 2018). Additionally, we have extended our search and compiled a longlist of over 100 supply chain executives. We then reduced this to 88 shortlisted candidates based in Europe, all of whom have global or at least European/EMEA responsibility.

The ranking of the Top 28 Supply Chain Executives in Europe is based on four quadrants (Company Succes, Personal Responsibility, Personal Visibility and Peer Voting) each weighing 25%. Adding up the results for each of the four quadrants derives the final ranking of the top 28 supply chain executives.

Carsten Rasmussen

Carsten has recently been ranked as the #1 award-winning executive in the ‘Danish Dynamite: Top 50 Supply Chain Executives 2019’ list. He has now managed to set a new record by becoming the winner of both the Danish and European ranking in the same year. This is particularly remarkable, considering he is a new entrant since the 2018 Top 28 ranking. Both awards recognize his outstanding professional achievements as a supply chain leader at Lego. Carsten’s journey at Lego began 18 years ago, in 2001, when he started working as a buyer. His career progression includes leadership positions in the American, Asian and European regions, and he advanced from Senior Director to Senior Vice-President Organization Capability Building in the United Kingdom.

Rasmussen started working in his current role as COO of Lego in 2017, and has global responsibility, reporting directly to the Lego Group CEO. As a result, he has a very high level of responsibility as the member of the Executive Leadership team. Carsten has secured the top spot because he achieved maximum points in terms of work responsibility, personal visibility and peer voting. Added to this is a strong financial performance: Lego Group generated approximately €5 billion in revenue in 2018, achieving +4% revenue, +4% EBIT and +9% ROCE growth compared to the 2017 financial year.

The complete Top 28 of Supply Chain Executives in Europe 2019

1 (-) Carsten Rasmussen, Chief Operating Officer, Lego Group
2 (2) Susanne Hundsbæk-Pedersen, Senior Vice President Devices & Supply Chain Management, Novo Nordisk
3 (-) Volker Schmitz, Vice President – Head of EMEA Supply Chain, Hewlett-Packard (HP)
4 (9) Dirk Holbach, Corporate Senior Vice President & CSCO Laundry & Home Care, Henkel
5 (7) Jean Marc Lechêne, Chief Operating Officer, Vestas
6 (-) Regis Simard, President Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, GSK
7 (3) Marc Gross, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Heineken
8 (10) Sami Naffakh, Executive Vice President – Chief Operations Officer, Arla Foods
9 (11) Thomas Panzer, Senior Vice President – Head Supply Chain Management, Bayer AG
10 (-) Francesca Gamboni, Senior Vice President – Supply Chain, Groupe PSA
11 (6) Jürgen Braunstetter, Senior VP Supply Chain Management Automotive, Continental
12 (-) Frank Baur, Vice President Supply Chain EMEA, Parker Hannifin
13 (-) Johan Geuens, Vice President Operations EMEA, Nike
14 (17) Vineet Khanna, Senior VP Supply Chain, Nestlé
15 (15) Philip Hodges, EVP Group Supply Chain, Carlsberg
16 (21) Sikko Zoer, VP Customer Care & Supply Chain EMEA, Medtronic
17 (-) Harald Emberger, CSCO, Head of Supply Chain, Beiersdorf
18 (-) Peter Kossler, Board Member Audi AG Production & Logistics, Audi
19 (-) Inder Khosla, Regional Vice President Supply Chain EMEA, Johnson & Johnson
20 (16) Ralf Busche, Head of SCM, BASF
21 (4) Roberto Canevari, EVP Supply Chain Europe, Unilever
22 (-) Gustavo Burger, SVP Operations – EMEA APAC & LATAM, Kraft Heinz
23 (18) Fares Sayegh, Vice President – Supply Chain Europe, Procter & Gamble
24 (-) Ulf Harring, Chief Operating Officer & member EMEA Board, Bridgestone
25 (-) Frank Berg Rasmussen, VP Global Supply Chain, Coloplast
26 (19) Tariq Farooq, SVP Global Supply Chain, Sanofi
27 (-) David Prinselaar, Chief Supply Chain Officer, AkzoNobel
28 (-) Alexandra Morton, Vice President Supply Chain Management Western Europe, Adidas