Special Top 28 Supply Chain Executives Europe 2023

With the world in turmoil, companies and their supply chains are constantly facing diverse and unexpected disruptions. Storytelling and change management are the most important skills for supply chain leaders – more important even than the ability to think about strategy and transformation, and to develop scenarios and resilience. This is according to an annual survey and round-up of key individuals by Supply Chain Media, IG&H Consulting and Inspired-Search when compiling the ninth edition of the Top 28 Supply Chain Executives in Europe.

Supply Chain Media, IG&H Consulting and Inspiring-Search shortlisted 60 individuals for this Top 28 from more than 100 vetted supply chain executives in Europe and methodically analysed them on four dimensions. These executives are based in Europe and responsible for global supply chains at European companies, or for Europe at non-European companies, with an annual turnover of at least € 5 billion.

The Top 28 is based on realized financial performance (30%), personal functional responsibility in the supply chain (30%), personal visibility (20%) and peer votes (20%). For the financial performance of the supply chain executive’s company, several financial metrics were considered: revenue growth, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) and Return On Capital Employed (ROCE) per year (all from 2019 to 2022).

Personal functional responsibility was assessed based on which functions (planning, procurement, production and/or logistics) and how many employees report directly and indirectly to the executives, plus their geographical responsibility (global, EMEA or Europe) and complexity of their supply chains.

To determine personal visibility, a database of press releases, interviews, keynote presentations and university lectures over the past year was built by IG&H. Also relevant supply chain-related posts uploaded on LinkedIn, including the number of likes and followers, were added. The combined dataset was analyzed by IG&H using generative AI technology to assess individual visibility performance.

For peer voting, the compilers of the list as well as executive recruiters and professors considered each individual’s supply chain knowledge, leadership skills, analytical ability, communication skills and strategic thinking level, based on their personal knowledge of the supply chain executives.