Speakers

Below are the speakers for this year's conference. A listing in alphabetical order can be found within the right-hand menu. Click on an individual's name to jump to their bio. speakers

Speaker Bios

Gabriel Aparicio
UPS Latin America
Region Solutions Manager

Gabriel Aparicio

Gabriel is the current Director of Solutions for the Latin American region of UPS. He is responsible for designing supply chains, from the operations planning through economic modeling, working directly with strategies which allow UPS to continue its profitable growth while expanding its services to new markets and increasing productivity. Gabriel received his BSc in Industrial Engineering and Systems Organization from Universidad La Salle and has over 21 years of experience in packaging and cargo transport.

He began his career as a Supervisor of Industrial Engineering in 1993 with the Loop Detail implementation plan at UPS, a platform that determines the live delivery routes in Mexico now run through DIAD. In 1996, he was named Industrial Engineering Manager and led the implementation of the Re-engineering Project for delivery and collection operations, designing 21 different routes for distribution centers across Mexico. He then took over the position of Operations Manager at the Naucalpan DC, the second most important operation center for the company in Mexico, achieving results which led him to be named head of the Supply Chain Solutions program in 2005. Among his achievements, he is responsible for the implementation of the Small Package with Supply Chain Solutions system as well as the development of the LTL (consolidated cargo) and FTL (full cargo) and for launching these programs for UPS ground delivery service in Mexico. He has also worked on projects in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile.

Martijn Blansjaar
Oxfam Great Britain
Head of Logistics and Supply, International Division

Martijn Blansjaar

Martijn Blansjaar started in humanitarian assistance with Medecins Sans Frontieres-Holland as all-round technician/logistician in their Uganda program in 1987. From there on he spent a good five years in the field, predominantly in East Africa in logistics, various technical and project co-ordination positions. In 1994 he joined MSF-Holland HQ at Logistics Department for special assignments on pharmaceutical distribution programs, major emergencies and a review of food aid programs. In 1997 Martijn became Coordinator for Technical Support and from March 2001 Director of Logistics in MSF-Holland. In November 2006, he joined the International Division of Oxfam GB as Head of Logistics and Supply in their headquarters in Oxford. He is a Board member of the HELIOS Foundation for supply chain, on the Executive Committee of the Humanitarian Logistics Association and sits on the Advisory Committee that works with Fritz Institute and the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport to develop and maintain a professional Certification for Humanitarian Logistics. Martijn has collaborated in research, curriculum development and as guest lecturer with various Universities including MIT (Zaragoza), Cranfield, USI Lugano, INSEAD and Hanken.

Carlos Brambila
Tecnológico de Monterrey
Director of the Center for Research and Public Policy (EGAP)

Carlos Brambila

Dr. Brambila currently serves as the director of research in the Public Policy program at EGAP at the Mexico City campus of Tecnológico de Monterrey and a faculty member of the School of Public Policy. He is also director of the Base of the Pyramid Legacy Research Program, which is an initiative to support applied research aiming to improve access of marginal populations in Mexico to development opportunities and is also representative of the Thematic Network for Poverty and Development of the National Council of Science and Technology of México (CONACYT), which includes more than 140 researchers nationwide, aiming to identify alternative public policies to reduce poverty in the country. He has also conducted research at the Center for Demographic and Urban Planning studies in the Colegio de Mexico as well as the School of Architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, as well as research associate of El Colegio Mexiquense and the Population Council. From 1984 to 1994, he served as a member of the National Association of Researchers, which he rejoined in 2004. He has authored three books, published over 70 articles in international publications and has implemented more than 40 social development research projects in Latin America.

Özlem Ergun
Georgia Institute of Technology
Coca Cola Associate Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Özlem Ergun

Dr. Özlem Ergun is an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is also a co-founder and co-director of the Health and Humanitarian Logistics Research Center at the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. She received a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Professor Ergun’s research focuses on the design and management of large-scale networks. Specifically, she studies logistics and communications networks that are dynamic and partially decentralized. She has recently focused on understanding how collaboration among different entities can help the entities to be more efficient as well as create value for the overall system. She has applied her work on network design, management and collaboration to problems arising in the airline, ocean cargo and trucking industries.

Recently, Dr. Ergun has taken a leadership role in promoting the use of systems thinking and mathematical modeling in applications with societal. As the co-director of Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics at Georgia Tech, she has worked with organizations that respond to humanitarian crisis around the world, including: World Food Programme, CARE USA, FEMA, USACE, CDC, AFCEMA, and MedShare International.

Professor Ergun teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in optimization and logistics. She was awarded the NSF Career Award in 2003. She won the EURO/INFORMS 2007 Management Science Strategic Innovation Prize given on the subject of Logistics in 2007.

Emilia García-Arteaga
TECHO - Mexico
CFO

Emilia García-Arteaga

Emilia Garcia-Arteaga has a degree in Business Administration and Finance from Universidad Panamericana, with studies in International Entrepreneurship at Hogeschool Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She is co-founder of the student group “B-Up!” which works within the university network of disaster prevention and care, UNIRED.

Emilia has participated in corporate spaces, such as the financial area of logistics at Procter & Gamble, and various volunteer projects at TECHO - Mexico since 2009.

Jarrod Goentzel
MIT Humanitarian Response Lab
Founder and Director

Jarrod Goentzel

Jarrod Goentzel is founder and director of the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab, which strives to make supply chains more responsive to human needs. His research focuses on supply chain design and management, transportation procurement and planning, humanitarian needs assessments, information management and the use of technology to facilitate decision-making. Based in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Dr. Goentzel has developed graduate-level courses in supply chain finance, international operations and humanitarian logistics. Previously, Dr. Goentzel was Executive Director of the MIT Supply Chain Management program, a nine-month professional master’s degree program. He joined MIT in 2003 to establish the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program with the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain.

Pedro Luis Grasa Soler
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Santa Fe Campus
Director

Pedro Luis Grasa Soler

Pedro Luis Grasa was recently named Santa Fe Campus Director for Tecnologico de Montereey after having served as the campus director for the Mexico State campus for Tec. De Monterrey. Dr. Grasa received his BSc in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México and he completed additional studies in product automation at the University of Bordeaux (France), later receiving his doctorate in product automation from the University of Nance. Dr. Grasa has taught courses at the Mexico State campus of Tec. De Monterrey in areas such as robotics, CIM technology, flexible manufacturing systems, product engineering and value chain administration, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also served as a professor (and later head of studies) for the Mechanical engineering division at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico.

From Jan. 2004 to June 2005, Dr. Grasa served as Vice-rector of Institutional Relations for the ITESM-CEM Mexican university system, from March to December 0f 2003 as Academic Vice-rector of the TecMilenio University, and from 2002-03 as Director of the southern region of the same university. In addition to multiple other academic offices he has held, Dr. Grasa was appointed by ITSEM as Operating Director and Academic Coordinator under the President-elect Vicente Fox from Aug-Nov 2000.

He has led a number of seminars, courses and workshops in manufacturing processes, industrial security, numeric monitoring, manufacturing administration, TPM (Trusted Platform Module), quality control, leadership, etc. He was named an expert in the “Modernization of Capital Investment in Industry in Latin America” project, financed by the United Nations for Industrial Development from 1994-1997 (in manufacturing). Dr. Grasa has participated in over 50 courses, both in Mexico, France and across the European Union, he has published over 25 papers in his field and made more than 100 appearances to speak at national and international conferences as well as overseeing many graduate and doctoral theses in Mexico and abroad. He is the president and founder of the Mexican Association of TPM.

José Holguín-Veras
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
William H. Hart Professor and Director of the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems and the Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment

José Holguín-Veras

Dr. José Holguín-Veras is the William H. Hart Professor and Director of the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems, and the Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2013 White House’s Transportation Champion of Change Award, the 1996 Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award, and the 2001 National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.

His research interests are in the areas of freight transportation modeling and economics, and humanitarian logistics. His work has opened the door to new paradigms of freight systems that not only increase economic efficiency environmental justice. His research has led to major changes in transportation policy and substantial improvements in the ability to improve urban freight systems. His work on humanitarian logistics has played an influential role in disaster response procedures and has led to deeper insight into how best to respond to large disasters and catastrophic events. He is President of the Scientific Committee of the Pan-American Conferences of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, and member of the Scientific Committee of the World Conference of Transport Research. He is a member of numerous technical committees and editorial boards of leading journals. He received his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1996; a M.Sc. from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1984; and a B.Sc. from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo en 1982.

Marianne Jahre
Department of Strategy and Logistics, BI Norwegian Business School and Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, Lund University
Professor

Marianne Jahre

Marianne Jahre is Professor of Logistics at Lund University and BI Norwegian Business School. She received her PhD in logistics in 1995 at Chalmers University of Technology and is now docent there. She has been visiting professor at at Université de la Méditerranée in France for a number of years. She has co-edited and co-authored several books and published articles in International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications and International Journal of Logistics Management, among others. She won the Outstanding Paper Award at the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009 from Emerald.

Jahre is an international delegate to the Norwegian Red Cross and was during the fall of 2009, undertaking a project on health supply chains in Uganda for UNICEF. She has been working with disaster relief logistics research and teaching since 2007 and headed projects co-funded by the Norwegian Research Council undertaken in cooperation with Avenir Analytics, International Federation Red Cross Red Crescent and Wilh. Wilhelmsen.

Carmit Keddem
John Snow, Inc. (JSI)
Deputy Director, Health Logistics

Carmit Keddem

Carmit has more than 10 years of professional experience in international development and public health, working with a wide range of UN, Global Fund, US Government, nationally and privately funded programs. She specializes in the design and implementation of logistics systems for a wide range of health products. Carmit is responsible for planning, managing, and providing direct in-country supply chain technical assistance to improve the management and availability of health products for national programs. She has led and managed high-level technical assistance activities throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including the evaluation, design, and implementation of logistics systems, quantification, strategic planning, and training activities. Carmit holds a M.A. in International Development and Health Policy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Pinar Keskinocak
Georgia Institute of Technology
William W. George Chair, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Associate Director of Research for the Health Systems Institute; and co-director of the Health & Humanitarian Logistics Center

Pinar Keskinocak

Pinar Keskinocak is the Joseph C. Mello Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Humanitarian Logistics at Georgia Institute of Technology. She also serves as the Associate Director for Research at the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech.

Her research focuses on applications of operations research and management science with societal impact (particularly health and humanitarian applications), supply chain management, pricing and revenue management, and logistics/transportation. She has worked on projects in several industries including automotive, semiconductor, paper manufacturing, printing, healthcare, hotels, and airlines. Her research has been published in journals such as Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, IIE Transactions, Naval Research Logistics, and Interfaces.

Maeve Magner
Supply Chain Management
Strategic Advisor

Maeve Magner

Maeve Magner, MBA, is a leading international Supply Chain advisor with a focus on developing economies. With over 29 years’ experience in this field, Maeve has accumulated a wealth of international experience in both the public and private sectors, allowing her to bring a unique perspective to this space. Her experience includes 25+ years working for multinational organizations including Dell, TippingPoint and Capgemini. While more recently, Maeve was the CEO for RTT Transafrica, a leading African 3PL and prior to that worked as Supply Chain Director for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) where she was viewed as one of the most respected voices in the global health supply chain in developing countries.

Maeve currently works as a strategic advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and CHAI, while participating on a regular basis on supply chain management advisory panels, for USAID, GAVI Alliance and Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) with a primary focus on improving public health supply chains in developing countries. She also serves as a trustee on the board of Transaid, a UK development charity that focuses on transportation solutions and as an advisor to the board of the People that Deliver Initiative(PtD), which focuses on professionalizing the supply chain workforce in global health.

Dan Maxwell
Tufts University
Professor and Research Director at Feinstein International Center; and Director of MA of Arts in Humanitarian Assistance Program in Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Dan Maxwell

Dan Maxwell joined the Feinstein Center in 2006 to lead the research program in food security and livelihoods in complex emergencies and teach courses in food security and humanitarian studies. Since 2012, he has also directed the Masters of Arts in Humanitarian Assistance (MAHA) program. Prior to coming to Tufts, he was the Deputy Regional Director for CARE International in East Africa.

His research focuses on food security and livelihoods in protracted crises and insecure areas, impact assessment of livelihoods and disaster risk reduction programming, and the measurement of food security. His recent work has been in East Africa. He is the co-author, with Chris Barrett of Cornell University, of Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role (2005), which has already had far-ranging impacts on food aid practice and policy; and co-authored with Peter Walker, Shaping the Humanitarian World (2009). In 2012, he was the guest editor for a special edition of the journal, Global Food Security on the 2011-2012 famine in Somalia. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin.

Claudie Meyers
OXFAM (Latin America and Caribbean)
Livelihood and Food Security, Coordinator

Claudie Meyers has more than 10 years’ experience working in a variety of humanitarian contexts. She has worked for the past 8 years for Oxfam and is currently food security and vulnerable livelihoods adviser in the Latin America and Caribbean region. She has experience in a range of food security programmes, including in-kind distributions and cash-based responses, in first phase emergency, recovery and protracted crisis contexts.

Kameko Nichols
Riders for Health (Africa)
Partnership Director

Kameko Nichols

Kameko Nichols is the Partnership Director for Riders for Health, a UK social enterprise focusing on improving capacity and efficiency of health care delivery platforms in Africa. As the partnership director, Kameko supports relationships with current partner ministries of health and NGOs, as well as forming relationships in new countries to help Riders replicate our transport management programmes, share technical expertise and advocate for appropriate and accurate planning and budgeting for transport. Riders for Health is a social enterprise dedicated to achieving equitable health care access throughout Africa. With the single focus of managing and maintaining vehicle fleets used for health care delivery, Riders has developed its own innovative technical system so that motorcycles and four-wheeled vehicles are well-maintained and reliable in any environment.

Eric Porras
Trade & Logistics Innovation Center of Mexico - Tecnológico de Monterrey
Research Director

Eric Porras

Eric Porras received his PhD in Operations from Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a Master Degree in Economics from the same university. He earned his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Mexico (UNAM). Currently he is the Research Director for the Trade and Logistics Innovation Center, a joint initiative between Tecnologico de Monterrey and Georgia Institute of Technology. This responsibility involves leading projects with the industry and the government in the areas of supply chain management and logistics. He also teaches undergrad courses in Industrial Engineering since 2005, and graduate courses in EGADE Business School since 2007. He has published in various international leading operations journals like the European Journal of Operations Research and the International Journal of Production Economics.

Ryan Purcell
LLamasoft
Managing Director - Africa, Middle East, and India

Ryan Purcell

Ryan Purcell joined LLamasoft in 2007 and has helped it grow in size (from <10 employees to 180+) and stature to become the leading provider of supply chain design technology in the world. Mr. Purcell has personally consulted with top executives and leaders of private and public organizations around the world, such as the US Department of Defense, the World Bank, USAID, Saudi Aramco, Hershey Co, GlaxoSmithKline, and Nike. Purcell has worked on the ground on supply chain projects for the governments of Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia, as well as working directly with executives in the Health ministries of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Kenya, and Panama. His personal project experience covers the range of roles from analyst to senior management, the geography of six continents, and industries from Oil&Gas, Automotive, Food and Beverage, CPG, to Pharma and Public Health.

Marie-Eve Rancourt
Business School of the University of Quebec in Montreal (ESG UQÀM)
Professor, Department of Management and Technology

Marie-Eve Rancourt

Marie-Ève Rancourt is a professor of operations management at the Business School of the University of Quebec in Montreal since August 2012. She is also affiliated with the Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is an associated expert member of the Canadian Research Institute on Humanitarian Crisis and Aid (OCCAH). Her work has led to award-winning publications and she has been awarded several prestigious scholarships during her Ph.D. studies.

Her research interests are in the areas of transportation system modeling and humanitarian logistics using techniques based on operations research and econometrics. The main fields of applications to her research include network design for food aid distribution, routing and scheduling of long-haul transportation problems, transportation procurement and market analysis in Africa. Her recent work focuses on logistics issues related to food security in the Horn of Africa. She is working in collaboration with different organisations such as the World Food Programme, the Kenya Red Cross and UNICEF to develop analytical methods to plan food aid distribution and provide insights to facilitate access to populations located in insecure areas. She has received her Ph.D. in management science from HEC Montreal in 2013; an M.Sc. in modeling and decision support from HEC Montreal in 2007; and a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Montreal in 2004.

Daniel Rodriguez
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/WHO Revolving Fund
Advisor, PAHO Revolving Fund

Daniel Rodriguez

Daniel Rodríguez is the Regional Advisor of the Revolving Fund, a pooled procurement mechanism of vaccines of the Member States of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Daniel joined PAHO in 2010 and he is based in Washington DC. His responsibilities primarily involve the management and the development of strategies to improve efficiencies of the Revolving Fund. Also, Daniel represents PAHO in global initiatives to improve access of vaccines to developing countries. Prior to joining PAHO, he worked for more than 10 years in positions leading supply chain and logistics operations in Central America. Daniel is an Industrial Engineer, MBA and is Master in International Logistics & Supply Chain Strategy (EMIL-SCS) from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

Enrique Ruelas
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Senior Fellow

Enrique Ruelas

Dr. Enrique Ruelas is a physician trained in public and health administration in Mexico and in Canada. He has accumulated an extensive experience in academic, philanthropic, professional, consulting and government organizations. He was the Dean of the National School of Public Health of Mexico, Program Director of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for Latin America, President and CEO of Qualimed (at the time, the leading consulting firm on quality improvement in Latin America), Vice Minister of Health of Mexico, and Secretary of the General Health Council of Mexico (a position similar to Surgeon General in the U.S.). In his position as Vice Minister of Health he was responsible for the design and implementation of the first national strategy for quality improvement in health care in this Country, as a component of a major health reform; and as Secretary of the General Health Council he chaired the Mexican Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Facilities. He was founding President of the Mexican Society for Quality in Health Care, President of the Mexican Hospital Association, and President of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) between 1993 and 1995. He is now Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), President of the Latin American Society for Quality in Health Care, and President of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico, the most prestigious medical association in this Country.

Cuauhtémoc Ruiz-Matus
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
Comprehensive Family Immunization, Unit Chief

Cuauhtémoc Ruiz-Matus

Dr. Ruiz Matus has worked for the Secretary of Health of Mexico for 25 years, holding various positions, among which include the Director of the Residency Program in Applied Epidemiology and the Director of Epidemiological Surveillance. Throughout the last 10 years, he served as Advisors Coordinator for the Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion for the Secretary of Health of Mexico. His career has focused primarily on applied epidemiology, particularly the study of health risks, outbreaks and epidemics, natural disaster relief, implementation of surveillance systems, and the establishment of priority programs in prevention and control of diseases. Additionally, he has extensive teaching experiences at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and has served as a speaker at a variety of national and international forums.

Dr. Ruiz Matus has also served as Secretary General, Vice President, and President of the Mexican Society of Public Health, and he was President of the World Federation of Public Health from 2004-2006. Since 2007, Dr. Ruiz Matus has been the Chief of the Comprehensive Family Immunization Unit, Department of Family, Gender and Life Course, at the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), in Washington D.C. He is a Mexican citizen and holds a graduate degree in medicine with post-graduate studies in epidemiology.

José San Martín Romero
Mexico City Ministry of Health
General Director of the Sanitary Risk Protection Agency

Fernando Suinaga Cárdenas
Cruz Roja Mexicana
President

Fernando Suinaga Cárdenas

Fernando Suinaga earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Andrew’s College in Toronto, studied law at the Universidad Anahuac, and earned an MBA at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. At the beginning of his career, Mr. Suinaga practiced law, representing both individuals and private entities, nationally and internationally. He is currently a partner at the firm, Suinaga y Suinaga, which he has represented abroad for over 20 years. Mr. Suinaga has served as a leader in various positions for organizations such as in the Office of the Attorney general where he aimed to strengthen the representation and participation of Mexican citizens in state affairs. In 2000, he joined the Red Cross Mexico as a member of the Board of Directors. Since 2006, he has served as Vice-president. Throughout his tenure at the Red Cross, he has collaborated on disaster and emergency-related humanitarian operations to deliver aid to those in greatest need. He has participated in international conferences, seminars, and meetings on behalf of Red Cross Mexico, and as of June 2012 he was named President of the Red Cross Mexico until 2015.

Julie Swann
Georgia Institute of Technology
Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Associate Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Julie Swann

Julie Swann is an associate professor in the School of ISyE at Georgia Tech. She received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern in 1998 and 2001, respectively. In addition to her university experience, Dr. Swann participated in several research projects at General Motors and IBM, focusing on pricing in different industries. At General Motors, Dr. Swann developed a tool integrating pricing, production and distribution of vehicles while meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. At IBM, she explored pricing models for efficient bandwidth allocation.

Dr. Swann is currently focused on the modeling and analysis of problems and algorithms in logistics, transportation and supply chain management. She has particular interests in developing and analyzing tools to manage demand, such as pricing, revenue management, or lead-time quotation, to increase the flexibility in the system and is currently doing work in humanitarian supply chains. Other research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy.

Keith R. Thode
Advancenet Labs/Aidmatrix
CEO and Chief Scientist

Keith R. Thode

Mr. Thode leads the daily operations of Aidmatrix, after serving in consulting and leadership roles in major technology firms like Accenture and i2 Technologies. He began his career with four years at Andersen Consulting (Accenture), implementing enterprise systems for clients such as Georgia Pacific, Delta Air Lines and Mando Machinery (Republic of Korea). Later, he worked for Enterprise Resource Planning technology leader Baan Company (Infor), eventually becoming the firm’s Consulting Director for the Western U.S. While at Baan, Keith led the implementation team, bringing to market Baan’s B2B/e-commerce products. As Consulting Delivery Director for i2 Technology’s 2Source program, he led the implementation of Supplier Relationship Management products through a partnership with EDS and AT Kearney.

Mr. Thode holds a Summa Cum Laude masters degree in Industrial Distribution from Texas A&M University and a bachelor of science in Economics and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University. He is a co-author of "Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders" published by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). He is lead-author on the article "Manufacture-for-Donation: Driving Bottom-Line Performance Through Contributions to Run Strategy Optimization," published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing.

Jose Jesus Trujillo
Mexico City Ministry of Health
Director General of the Public Health Center

Luk Van Wassenhove
INSEAD Humanitarian Research Group
Academic Director

Luk Van Wassenhove

Professor Van Wassenhove’s recent research focus is on closed-loop supply chains (product take-back and end-of-life issues) and on disaster management (humanitarian logistics). He is senior editor for Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and departmental editor for Production and Operations Management. He publishes regularly in Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and many other academic as well as management journals (like Harvard Business Review, and California Management Review). He is the author of many award-winning teaching cases and regularly consults for major international corporations.

In 2005, Professor Van Wassenhove was elected Fellow of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). In 2006, he was the recipient of the EURO Gold Medal for outstanding academic achievement. In 2009 he was elected Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Services Operations Management Society (MSOM). In 2013 he became Honorary Fellow of the European Operations Management Association (EUROMA). He is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences. At INSEAD he holds the Henry Ford Chair of Manufacturing. He created the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and acted as academic director until September 2010. He currently leads INSEAD’s Humanitarian Research Group.

Ignacio Villaseñor Ruiz
National Center for Infant and Adolescent Health, Mexican Ministry of Health
General Director

Ignacio Villaseñor Ruiz

Dr. Ignacio Villaseñor is the General Director of the National Center for Child and Adolescent Health (CeNSIA) in Mexico. One of his many responsibilities includes the logistics of the national immunization program and vaccination campaigns. Before joining CeNSIA in 2012, he worked for more than 30 years at different state level Health Ministries coordinating various activities. In 2009, when the global Influenza H1N1 outbreak started, Dr. Villaseñor was the Undersecretary of Medical Attention and Supplies in Mexico City and was in charge of developing the technical response strategy. From 2003 to 2007, he was the General Director for the Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference Institute (InDRE). This federal institute coordinates and provides guidelines for surveillance activities and operation of all public health laboratories in Mexico.

Dr. Villaseñor has a Medical Degree from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), a Master in Public Health from the Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, and a Certificate in Top Management from IPADE Business School. During his public health career, he has actively participated with academic institutions and scientific organizations and is co-author of several articles.  

Rebecca Vince
UN World Food Programme, Global Logistics Cluster Support Cell
Cash and Markets Officer (Rome)

Rebecca Vince

Rebecca Vince is currently working as a Cash and Markets Specialist for the Global Logistics Cluster, UN WFP. After graduating with a Masters in Astrophysics from University College London, Rebecca has been in the international development sector for the last decade, living and working across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific. Before working on this assignment, Rebecca was the Deputy Head of Logistics for Oxfam Great Britain, working to deliver an improvement strategy across their portfolio of more than 70 countries. As well as specialising in cash and market based programming, developing SOPs and models for this topic, Rebecca’s thematic areas have included local Partner Capacity Building, leading the innovative interagency PARCEL project for the last year and a half. Rebecca has also worked on Supply Chain performance metrics, designing the SLEAT tool which is now rapidly becoming an INGO sector standard and has recently transformed Oxfam’s approach to evaluating financial benefits and Return on Investment (RoI), applying new methods to several multi-million pound projects. Rebecca is an active member of the Humanitarian Logistics Association and Women in Logistics UK and has recently qualified as a Workplace Coach. Originally from the UK, Rebecca enjoys trying to get things to grow in her garden, professional singing and photography.

Mattias Wiklund
John Snow, Inc. (JSI)
Senior Technical Advisor in MIS for the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT

Mattias Wiklund

Mattias Wiklund joined John Snow, Inc. in 2012 as Senior Technical Advisor in Management Information Systems for the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT. He provides global oversight for the in-house software development and the two country implementations of the Tanzania and Zambia electronic Logistics Management Information System (eLMIS) Project—a project that implements and contributes software enhancements to the open-source, multi-donor and multi-partner OpenLMIS initiative.

Mattias holds a Master’s Degree in Technology Management from Georgetown University and a Project Management Professional certification. He brings over 10 years of professional experience in diverse areas in consulting for the public, small business and healthcare sectors, including overarching project planning, execution and risk management, IT service delivery and design, web-based application development and operations, business process management/improvement, knowledge management, international development, and training design and delivery.

Allen Wilcox
VillageReach
President

Allen Wilcox

Allen Wilcox was appointed president of VillageReach in 2008 and is active across the breadth of VillageReach’s various areas of focus, including overseeing strategic development. Previously, Allen served as Associate General Counsel of Microsoft Corporation, where he supported Microsoft’s international expansion and developed new distribution channels for Microsoft products. Allen has an LLM in International Business Legal Studies from University of Exeter, a JD from Southern Methodist University and a BA from University of Texas. He was a Rotary Foundation Scholar. Allen was recently named a 2014 Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year.