Joel Sutherland

Lecturer in Supply Chain, Operations and Information Systems

• MBA, Pepperdine University
  
• BS, University of Southern California

Joel Sutherland is a professor of practice in supply chain management at the University of San Diego's Knauss School of Business. He also serves as a director for the Reshoring Institute, a not-for-profit organization focused on bringing essential manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

Joel has over forty years of experience as a supply chain professional holding executive-level positions for many well-known companies. He was the first American vice president for Denso, a Toyota Group company and the second largest automotive parts supplier in the world. Joel also held executive-level positions at International Paper, ConAgra Foods, Formica, AmerisourceBergen, and CSX Rail and Sealand Services.

In the late 1990s, Joel joined JB Hunt Transport where he was a founding member of Transplace, today one of North America’s largest transportation management and technology providers — acquired by Uber Freight in 2021. Wrapping up his industry career, Joel was President of Air-Road Logistics, providing time-definite transportation services between the U.S. and Mexico. Joel also continues to serve as President of Envoy, Inc., a consulting and management advisory services firm he founded in 1994.

Joel earned an MBA from Pepperdine University and a Bachelor of Science in logistics management from the University of Southern California, where he also served as an adjunct professor. Since 2006, Joel has worked in academia full time, first at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania as managing director for the Center for Value Chain Research, and now at the University of San Diego where he currently teaches supply chain management courses and previously served as managing director for the Supply Chain Management Institute.

Joel is a past Board Chair of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and in 2009 received their highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, an award given to one professional each year based on a career dedicated to the profession. In 2002, Joel led the effort to provide a comprehensive definition of supply chain management, an effort that enabled the Council of Logistics Management (CLM) to change its name to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), in 2004. This definition is still used by CSCMP today.

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