#15: Dr. John Gattorna Executive Chairman for Gattorna Alignment

This is episode 15 and I am happy to have with us today dr. John Gattorna. John is the Executive Chairman of Sydney-based specialist advisory business, Gattorna Alignment and he is one of the most respected supply chain thought leaders globally. He has spent a lifetime working in and around enterprise supply chains, in many different capacities – line executive, researcher, consultant/adviser, teacher, mentor and author. He is passionate about the subject – some might say obsessive. In the late 1980s, John became disenchanted with the lack of conceptual depth in the 'logistics' field; and as it turned out this did not improve much as logistics thinking morphed into 'supply chains' in the 1990s. So he started to search for a new model/framework that would better inform the design and operation of enterprise supply chains, seeking to satisfy customers and consumers, at the appropriate cost-to-serve. And he found it in dynamic alignment. For the last two decades John has been working with major blue chip corporations around the world to take his new model from the conceptual stage to a finer level of granularity; companies such as Dell, Unilever, Teys Australia and Schneider Electric. It has been a complex task , involving learning about, and combining, several disparate disciplines – consumer/customer behavior; internal cultural capability of the enterprise; leadership styles; and of course the operational aspects of corporate logistics networks and supply chains. The unique quality about John's perspective is that he presents a multi-disciplinary whole-of-business approach to the design and management of enterprise supply chains, and this requires an eclectic mindset. He has written several books along the way as his thinking has evolved, but his three (3) most recent titles have been seminal: Living Supply Chains (FT Prentice Hall, Harlow, 2006); Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment, (Gower Publishing, Farnham, 2009); and Dynamic Supply Chains: How to design, Build and Manage People-Centric Value Networks, (3rd edn., FT Publishing, Pearson, Harrow, 2015.) Another book is in the works, due mid-2020. John also has a strong academic pedigree having taught undergraduate, post-graduate, and executive programmes at the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University in Sydney; Oxford and Cranfield Universities in the UK; and Normandy Business School in Le Havre, France. He currently holds Adjunct Professorships at Cranfield School of Management and Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and is Chairman of the Advisory Board at the Institute of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Victoria University, Melbourne. He also teaches on the M.Comm programme at Normandy Business School, Le Havre, France.