AMES, Iowa -- For the past 20 years, Iowa State University's College of Business has been providing area business leaders the opportunity to learn about the critical area of supply chain management from experts in the field. This year's annual Voorhees Supply Chain Conference is Friday, April 13, and will feature supply chain executives from ConAgra Foods, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Collective Brands Inc.
Held at ISU's Reiman Gardens, the event will begin at 9 a.m. with Bob Masching (right), vice president of supply chain at ConAgra Foods, with a presentation titled, "Fueling Growth Through a Demand-driven, Agile Supply Chain." The session will detail how ConAgra Foods has focused on building several core capabilities that have resulted in a more demand-driven, agile and responsive supply chain.
As vice president of supply chain and program management for ConAgra Foods, Masching leads a team of 500 supply chain professionals. He has responsibilities for enterprise procurement, logistics, supply chain planning, customer supply chain and program management for ConAgra Foods' $8.5 billion consumer foods business.
Prior to joining ConAgra Foods in 2003, Masching spent 14 years at Quaker Oats and PepsiCo in a variety of supply chain roles.
Jim Gumpert (left), director of global supply chain transformation for Pioneer Hi-Bred International (a DuPont company), will be the speaker at 10:30 a.m. His talk, "Supply Chain Agility -- A Seed Industry Perspective," will cover the challenges of the seed industry supply chain and the need to balance ever-changing customer demand and product supply signals while meeting business objectives.
A 1981 Iowa State agronomy graduate, Gumpert has been in this newly created role at Pioneer since 2010. Prior to that, he was the North American supply chain director for Pioneer. Gumpert has been with Pioneer for his entire 31-year professional career, serving in a variety of increasingly responsible roles in supply chain management and operations, sales and marketing management and business management.
Following lunch, Mike McBreen (right), senior vice president of product development and global sourcing, Collective Brands Inc. will be the final speaker at 12:30 p.m. His talk, "Supply Chain Agility in the Post-Globalization World," will discuss how organizations can quickly adapt to have a significant competitive advantage in today's global marketplace.
Also a 1988 Iowa State graduate, McBreen oversees product development and global sourcing for Collective Brands, which is comprised of Payless ShoeSource and Stride-Rite, Sperry and Saucony stores and brands. From 2008 to 2011, he was head of the Global Operations Group at Wolverine World Wide Inc., a $1.4 billion operating company with 12 major brands. During that time, McBreen helped Wolverine World Wide improve gross margin by 1.6 percent and decrease operating expenses over three years from $112 million to $85 million.
He was vice president of supply chain and logistics at Furniture Brands International from 2007 to 2008. McBreen was also Nike's director of global apparel operations (2004-07); global apparel operations and corporate responsibility (2002-04); and global supply chain operations (2000-02). Earlier in his career, he was at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, where he was a principal consultant and later director of PWC's Supply Chain Center of Excellence.
Advance registration for the Voorhees Supply Chain Conference is $140 and includes all materials, speaker sessions and lunch. ISU students, faculty and staff may attend free, but must register. Students and faculty from other institutions may attend at the reduced cost of $25. The registration fee is $175 the day of the conference.
Additional information, including online registration, is available here . The conference was established to honor the career of Iowa State Professor Emeritus R. Dale Voorhees, who taught at the College of Business for more than 20 years.
