Careers of Supply Chain Executives: Insights, Unknowns, and Future Directions

Abstract

Little is known about the careers of supply chain executives. This study revisits and extends the logistics and supply chain executive career pattern research by Flöthmann and Hoberg to take a fresh look at supply chain talents and to guide future research on this important topic. We collect new data to understand how supply chain executive careers evolve and how the next generation of logistics and supply chain executives differs from its predecessors. In this editorial study, we find support for the notion that logistics and supply chain management is a genuinely cross-functional profession, as more than half of the 293 executives identified in the original study are now working in other functions. This proliferation of talent can help firms increase supply chain awareness and spread expertise. Further, we find that 44.0% of the logistics and supply chain executives have advanced their hierarchical level, with 10.6% making it to the board level. We show with a panel of new supply chain executives that the six career patterns previously identified still hold. However, the average career spent inside the supply chain area has increased significantly from 12.0% to 20.2%. Similarly, the cluster composition has evolved toward “Homegrowns,” making it the most frequent cluster.