Forum Speakers

Bob Bennett, Group VP & GM and Officer / Founder and President
Toyota Motor Sales USA (Retired) / Lean Consulting Associates

Bob served as a Group Vice President and Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, and General Manager of Toyota’s North American Parts Logistics Division. Bob deployed The Toyota Production System (TPS) throughout his supply chain of 535 North American and global suppliers, 13 distribution centers, 7 North American distributors and 1,400 Toyota and Lexus dealers, creating the icon of the automotive industry.

Bob's work has been documented in Jim Womack and Dan Jones’ book, Lean Thinking. He has the experience of having been on the shop floor ‘doing it’ throughout Toyota’s service parts supply chain. A growing number of consulted clients are benefiting from his, and his team's, considerable career experience in the Toyota family of companies that invented Lean manufacturing and supply chain management.

Earlier in his career, Bob served as a Captain in the United States Air Force, as a Logistics and Supply Chain officer, where he was twice selected as Air Force Supply Officer of the year. Bob earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Karen Butner, Supply Chain Management & Sustainability Global Leader (Unable to Attend)
IBM - Institute for Business Value

Karen joined IBM in 2000 and is currently responsible for research, market insights and thought leadership development and global deployment.  She is frequently invited to keynote at international conferences and is widely quoted in leading business and industry publications. Previous responsibilities at IBM include directing the development and deployment of the Supply Chain Global Solutions Portfolio – a collection of leading, integrated end-to-end business, technology and organizational solutions to support IBM’s broad and diversified, multi-industry client base; and practice leader for supply chain performance management, eMetrix

Karen has over 25 years of experience in strategy development and transformation.  Her industry concentration is high technology, retail and consumer products, electronics, life sciences, logistics and telecommunications.  Her passion is to assist clients in the development of strategies and improvement agendas to bring significant value in transforming their global performance.  Prior to joining IBM, Karen was a Partner at Ernst & Young and Director of Logistics at CSX.

Karen earned her BS Business Administration and MBA from James Madison University

Michael Forbes, Corporate Director Supply Chain
Northrop Grumman Corporation

Mike is the Corporate Supply Chain Director at Northrop Grumman. In this role, he is responsible for driving Northrop Grumman’s Supply Chain vision with best practices from within Northrop Grumman as well as benchmarks from Industry and Academia.

Mike graduated from Michigan State University as a member of the first class receiving a B.A. in Material and Operations Management. He also earned an MBA from California State University, Long Beach, completed the APICS Certification Program with California State University, Dominquez Hills and has attended Strategic and Leadership Development Programs at UCLA and University of Chicago.

Mike is a member of the Michigan State University Supply Chain Council, serves on the University of San Diego Supply Chain Management Institute Advisory Board, and is a member of the NCMA South Bay Chapter. Mike is a Certified Professional in Supply Management.

Kevin Nohelty, Vice President Supply Chain
WD-40 Company

Kevin has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Lowell and an MS in Computer Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is currently enrolled at the University of San Diego in the MS Executive Leadership Program. He also holds his APICS CPIM certification.

Kevin started his career at the General Electric Company in Philadelphia and spent 16 years at various GE locations. It was the initial source of his professional development. In addition, he has worked for five other companies, including WD40 Company, where he is currently the VP US Supply Chain.

Rachel Schaler, VP, Store Delivery and Customer Service
Starbucks Coffee Company

Rachel has responsibility for Starbucks last mile distribution and customer service. Her work includes management of third-party providers and operation of a Starbucks Consolidated Distribution Center that together execute more than 45,000 deliveries weekly.  In addition, Rachel’s team provides customer service and order management for more than 10,000 stores in the United States including licensed locations.

Rachel’s background includes strategy consulting, merchandising, account management, and supply chain operations. She started her career with McKinsey & Company as a business analyst.  After graduate school, Rachel joined Amazon.com where she launched the Apparel Store and led marketing, merchandising, and account management.  Rachel then worked for Point B Solutions Group where she worked with several clients including Starbucks.  In 2007, Rachel joined Starbucks in the supply chain organization.

Rachel received her BA from University of Virginia and her MBA from Harvard Business School.

Phil Schultz, SVP Chief Technology Officer, Component Module Move Solutions Group
Foxconn Technology Group

Phil is currently the CTO for one of Foxconn’s largest groups. He took on that role after two years as a SVP General Manager, setting up the Imaging and Printing Products Division for Foxconn. Prior to Foxconn, Phil spent 25 years at Hewlett Packard where he held a variety of roles in the Imaging and Printing Group. Most notably, he was the General Manager of the Consumer Printing division responsible for the market transformation from Single-function to All-in-One printers. He has extensive experience in both R&D as well as Manufacturing.

Phil was born in Mount Prospect, Illinois. He holds a Bachelor’s of Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois. He resides in Escondido, California with his wife and two daughters.

Joel Sutherland, Managing Director
University of San Diego, Supply Chain Management Institute

Joel is Managing Director of the Supply Chain Management Institute at the University of San Diego. Joel has over thirty years of experience serving in executive supply chain positions for a number of globally recognized companies including Denso (a Toyota Group company), CSX/Sealand, International Paper, JB Hunt and ConAgra. Joel is a past Board Chair of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. He has a number of published papers, and has authored dozens of articles for various industry publications. Joel is also a frequent speaker at professional groups and universities around the world with a focus on supply chain collaboration and Lean supply chain practices. Most recently, Joel was the Managing Director at Lehigh University’s Center for Value Chain Research and is still an adjunct professor at Lehigh teaching an online graduate level course in supply chain management.

Joel received his BS degree from the University of Southern California with a focus in logistics and transportation management, and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He has received the Distinguished Service Award from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, the Professional Achievement Award from Logistics Management magazine, and was recognized as one of the Top 20 Logistics Executives by Chief Logistics Officer Magazine.