Roberto Perez-Franco

Supply Chain Strategy|Scenario Planning

Portrait of Roberto Perez-Franco

Summary

Supply chain strategist with extensive experience helping global companies define their strategic direction and turn it into action. Pioneer in methods to articulate, evaluate and reformulate supply chain strategies, applied with organisations including 7-Eleven, Intel, BASF and Cardinal Health. Experienced in scenario planning, including for beverage and FMCG businesses, and in translating complex analysis into clear recommendations for senior leaders. Engineer by training, with two MIT degrees, including a doctorate on supply chain strategy, and several publications on the topic.

Experience

GS1 Australia

Principal Advisor, Industry & Innovation, later Principal Consultant

01/2022 – 09/2026

GS1 develops standards to identify, capture and share retail and supply chain data.

  • Resolved data issues blocking National Product Catalogue (NPC) updates for several FMCG companies on major retailers’ websites.
  • Developed a template for the creation of business cases for traceability projects.
  • Analysed quantitative/qualitative data and prepared detailed reports for on-pack product information audits for Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).
  • Advised on a farm sustainability & traceability pilot for Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) to demonstrate how global standards can scale agricultural traceability.
  • Specified, designed, helped develop and tested a prototype of a platform for digital credentials for the National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) and the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JASANZ).
  • Crafted and executed a research project on workforce challenges facing the supply chain and logistics industry for the Australian Logistics Council (ALC).
  • Developed a guide for NT Health on how to manage their product catalogue. Consulted on master data, documented their processes and identified issues. Proposed nomenclature to accelerate the adoption of standard descriptions.

Centre for Supply Chain and Logistics (CSCL), Deakin University

Senior Research Fellow – Supply Chain Strategy

03/2017 – 12/2021

  • Conducted a strategic foresight project, sponsored by Coca-Cola Amatil, Woolworths and Qube, to envision the post-COVID future of urban logistics.
  • Led scenario planning for the Department of Infrastructure to inform the Inquiry into National Priorities and the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy.
  • Researched current workforce challenges facing the supply chain and logistics sector for the Wayfinder Initiative, based on interviews with 21 C-level leaders.
  • Supervised doctoral research on a scenario planning framework for urban logistics applications.
  • Designed Deakin’s Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Supply Chains.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Cambridge, MA, USA  ·  08/2006 – 03/2017

Research appointments

Held continuous research appointments throughout this period.

Research Assistant (Doctoral Student)

08/2006 – 06/2010

  • Joined the Supply Chain 2020 Project research group, which I went on to direct from 2012 (see Directorships, below).
  • Completed a 2-year action research project with Saflex, the world leader in PVB interlayer laminates. Workshops in Belgium, Denmark and the US.
  • Conducted a year-long project with Cardinal Health, a US-based Fortune 50 pharmaceutical distributor with $100B in annual revenue.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

06/2010 – 06/2011

  • Joined the core research team for the Future Freight Flows Project, a 2-year, $1M project for the US Government, and contributed to the creation of future scenarios and their collaterals.

Research Associate

06/2011 – 03/2017

  • Continued with the Future Freight Flows Project, facilitating five scenario workshops with state and federal transport authorities, to derive insights for long-term logistics planning.
  • For a separate scenario planning project, for AB InBev (the world’s largest brewer), helped create the scenarios and facilitate the sessions to derive robust and contingent strategic insights.

Directorships (concurrent)

Held several directorships concurrently between 2011 and 2017.

Director – Graduate Certificate in Logistics and SCM

07/2011 – 03/2016

  • Expanded the GCLOG program from 16 students chosen from 10 universities in 4 countries to a class of 43 students chosen from 20 universities in 9 countries.
  • Improved student satisfaction and time spent on MIT Campus, while doubling tuition and tripling the number of lecturers involved in delivering classes.

Director, Supply Chain 2020 Project | Supply Chain Strategy Lab

01/2012 – 03/2017

  • Trained BASF’s newly created Supply Chain Strategy Unit to apply the methods from my doctoral research across their business units worldwide.
  • Led the rethinking of 7-Eleven’s supply chain strategy and marketing strategy.
  • Evaluated the fitness of Intel’s supply chain strategy for new products and IoT.
  • Evaluated Lockheed Martin’s supply chain strategy for satellite projects.
  • Guided a supply chain strategising session for the United Nations’ Department of Field Support (UN DFS).
  • Supervised research for BASF (Germany), Schlumberger (France), FedEx (US), Lockheed Martin (US), Procter & Gamble (US) and Ralph Lauren (Korea/US).
  • Founded the MIT Supply Chain Strategy Lab to carry the project’s research forward, publishing a book, two peer-reviewed papers and a book chapter.

Director of Digital Learning – CTL

03/2016 – 03/2017

  • Led the activities of seven MIT staff and collaborators in the creation of exams.
  • Enhanced the user experience for students enrolled in MIT’s SCx MicroMasters.
  • Organised software permissions with AMPL, AnyLogic, Arena, SAS and Wolfram.

Garner Panama Services Corporation – Panama City, Panama

Operations and Logistics Manager

11/2005 – 05/2006

Branch of Garner Global, an emergency response company based in Texas, offering training courses for first responders to oil spills and natural disasters.

  • Managed our training projects, including a $110K project for the Panama Canal.

Panama Canal Authority – Panama City, Panama

Multidisciplinary Engineer

12/2004 – 11/2005

Participated in projects of the Dredging Division of the Panama Canal, including:

  • Upgrade of GPS units and fire suppression systems.
  • Evaluation of technical specifications to inform procurement decision-making.

Carnes de Cocle, S.A. – Panama City, Panama

Operations and Logistics Deputy Manager

08/2004 – 11/2004

Panama’s largest meat-processing company.

  • Worked on reverse logistics of plastic bins used to move products along the cold chain. Refined the accuracy of bin accounting procedures by a factor of five.

Bahia Las Minas Corp. – Panama City, Panama

Contracts Manager

08/2000 – 05/2003

Largest fuel-powered generation company in Central America.

  • Managed power contracts with annual revenue of $120M.
    Reduced the end-of-month revenue and profit estimate error by a factor of 10 (from 1% to 0.1%).
  • Developed a new database for our department from scratch, using MySQL.