35 Leading Supply Chain Thought Leaders in Australia

Introduction

Australia's supply chains have never been under more pressure. The country's geographic remoteness, its heavy dependence on imports for manufactured goods, and its exposure to geopolitical disruptions across Asia have conspired to make supply chain management one of the most strategically consequential disciplines in Australian business. Yet the voices shaping this conversation remain surprisingly unknown outside specialist circles.

The 2025 Trade and Supply Chain Survey by the Australian Industry Group found that 44 per cent of manufacturers planned to increase investment in supply chain resilience, with digital technologies and warehousing capacity leading spending priorities. Research from Manhattan Associates found that 81 per cent of Australian supply chain leaders expected new technologies to reduce freight costs and improve efficiency. These figures reflect the direct result of lessons learned during the pandemic disruptions, the freight cost shock of 2021 to 2022, and ongoing volatility created by geopolitical tensions.

The thought leaders on this list are the Australians and New Zealanders helping the industry navigate all of it. They include globally recognised theorists whose frameworks have influenced the supply chain profession for decades, consultants who have redesigned hundreds of supply networks, procurement innovators who have built the communities where the profession develops, and senior practitioners applying next-generation thinking every day. Every person on this list is actively contributing through published research, conference speaking, podcasting, LinkedIn content, or practitioner education.

Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with 10,000 copies sold globally and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with supply chain and logistics leadership teams across Australia and New Zealand to build the team culture and communication practices that turn great strategies into consistent execution. To explore how Jonno could support your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why Supply Chain Thought Leadership Matters Right Now

The supply chain profession in Australia is experiencing a period of genuine transformation, and the decisions made by leadership teams over the next three to five years will determine which organisations emerge as competitive leaders and which fall behind. The challenge is that most supply chain improvement initiatives fail not because the strategy is wrong but because the culture, communication, and leadership capability needed to execute change are underdeveloped. Teams that cannot have difficult conversations about performance, accountability, or process change cannot implement the technology and network redesigns the current environment demands.

Following the right thought leaders is one of the most practical ways supply chain professionals can stay ahead of this curve. The best voices in the field do not just describe what is happening. They provide frameworks for making better decisions, share hard-won lessons from real transformation programmes, and build the common vocabulary supply chain teams need to influence their boards and CFOs. The cost of ignoring this body of thinking is not a single catastrophic failure. It is the slow accumulation of decisions made without the context that was freely available to anyone paying attention to the right people.

If your supply chain or operations leadership team would benefit from a keynote, workshop, or executive offsite that combines strategic supply chain thinking with the leadership and team development frameworks your people need to execute it, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White works with senior teams across Australia, New Zealand, and globally, and international travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

How This List Was Compiled

This list reflects an editorial curation focused on credentials, current relevance, and genuine contribution to the supply chain and logistics profession in Australia and New Zealand. Every person featured has either built a body of original thinking that has shaped how the region manages supply chains, led significant transformation programmes with measurable results, founded or led organisations that advance the profession, or is actively producing content that helps practitioners at every level make better decisions.

Geographic diversity was a priority, with representation across Australian states and New Zealand. Disciplinary diversity was also deliberate, ensuring the list spans strategy and network design, procurement and sourcing, sustainability and ethical sourcing, logistics operations, technology and digital transformation, and leadership and talent development. Gender diversity was a priority, with women representing more than 40 per cent of the final list. The result is a list that reflects the full breadth of the profession rather than recycling the same dozen names that appear on every other Australian supply chain publication.

Category 1: Supply Chain Strategists and Systems Thinkers

The thinkers in this category have built the conceptual frameworks that shape how Australian organisations design, lead, and transform their supply chains. Their work spans decades and has influenced practitioners at the most senior levels of global business.

1. Dr John Gattorna

Gattorna Alignment, Sydney

Considered one of the most original thinkers in global supply chain management, Dr John Gattorna spent forty years at the forefront of supply chain design and has been based in Australia throughout his career. He established and led Accenture's supply chain practice in Australia and South Asia between 1995 and 2002 before founding Gattorna Alignment, a Sydney-based consulting firm that has worked with organisations including Dell, Ralph Lauren, Unilever, Schneider Electric, and DHL. He has held visiting professorships at Cranfield School of Management, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and the University of Technology Sydney.

Gattorna is the originator of the dynamic alignment concept, which argues that enterprises should design multiple supply chains simultaneously, each matched to a distinct pattern of customer buying behaviour. His book Transforming Supply Chains, co-authored with Deborah Ellis and published in 2020, is his most recent articulation of this framework. He received the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals Distinguished Service Award in 2018 in recognition of his career contribution to the global supply chain profession.

2. Vivek Sood

Global Supply Chain Group, Sydney

Few supply chain professionals in Australia have built a global profile as distinctive as Vivek Sood. The CEO of Global Supply Chain Group, which he co-founded in 2000, Sood has led more than 400 supply chain transformation projects across approximately 84 countries, working with Fortune 500 companies in sectors including FMCG, retail, heavy machinery, mining, chemicals, and oil and gas. Based in Sydney, he trained at Booz Allen and Hamilton and holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management as well as a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Sood writes daily on LinkedIn and maintains an active following of over 45,000 supply chain professionals through his blog, books, and content groups. He is the author of Unchain Your Corporation, which challenges conventional assumptions about how global supply chains should be structured. His framework for what he calls SCM 3.0, a next-generation approach to supply chain design that goes beyond logistics optimisation to reshape entire business networks, has been applied in major transformations across five continents.

3. Tania Seary

Procurious and The Faculty, Melbourne

Tania Seary is arguably the most globally influential figure the Australian procurement and supply chain profession has produced. She founded The Faculty, one of Australia's leading procurement advisory and development organisations, before founding Procurious in 2014, the world's first online professional community dedicated solely to procurement and supply chain. Procurious now has more than 60,000 members in 140 countries, making it a genuinely global platform built from an Australian base. She also leads BRAVO, a global leadership programme committed to helping women in procurement and supply chain advance their careers.

Seary was named Influencer of the Year by Supply Chain Dive and has been recognised by IBM as a NewWaytoEngage Futurist. Her LinkedIn presence remains consistently active, with regular content on the strategic evolution of procurement, AI in sourcing, and the development of the profession globally. Her Big Ideas Summit events have brought together leading procurement voices in London, Sydney, and other cities and have become one of the most influential forums for the procurement profession worldwide.

Category 2: Consultants, Educators, and Analysts

The voices in this category have built their reputations through hands-on consulting work, industry education, and the consistent production of research and analysis that supply chain practitioners in Australia and New Zealand return to repeatedly.

4. Rob O'Byrne

Logistics Bureau, Sydney

Rob O'Byrne has spent more than forty years working in supply chain and logistics, and his contribution to supply chain education in Australia is unmatched by any other individual practitioner. He co-founded Logistics Bureau in 1997 and has since led more than 2,000 client projects across 26 countries. The firm is represented in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland, Bangkok, and the Philippines, and O'Byrne holds a Master of Science in Logistics from Cranfield University, one of the world's leading institutions for the subject.

Beyond his consulting work, O'Byrne has authored six books on supply chain management and hosts the most widely followed supply chain YouTube channel among Australian practitioners. He founded the Supply Chain Leaders Academy and has delivered the annual Supply Chain Leaders Insights conference. His educational platform, Supply Chain Secrets, provides practical training content for practitioners at every level of the profession, from graduates entering the field to senior executives leading transformation programmes.

5. Peter Jones

Prological, Sydney

Peter Jones is one of Australia's most quoted supply chain commentators and the founder of Prological, a supply chain and network design consultancy with operations in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. He has spent more than 25 years in supply chain consulting and is a regular contributor to MHD Supply Chain News, The CEO Magazine ANZ, and Inside Retail Australia. He is also known for Prological's annual Supply Chain Pulse Check Survey, which tracks trends and sentiment across the Australian and New Zealand supply chain community each year.

Jones has been particularly influential in warehouse design and distribution network strategy, areas where he is widely regarded as a leading practitioner in the Asia-Pacific region. His January 2026 analysis in MHD, arguing that 2026 will separate supply chain leaders from those still hoping for a return to normal, became one of the most widely shared pieces of supply chain analysis in the Australian market that month. He regularly speaks at Megatrans, Industrial Transformation, and other major industry events.

6. Hayley Jarick

Supply Chain Sustainability School, Sydney

Hayley Jarick leads one of the most distinctive supply chain organisations in Australia and New Zealand. As CEO and Company Secretary of the Supply Chain Sustainability School, a not-for-profit industry collaboration, she oversees an organisation that provides free sustainability education to supply chain professionals across both countries. The School has developed more than 600 free resources covering topics including modern slavery, circular economy, carbon emissions, ethical sourcing, and ESG compliance, all created through collaboration between industry fellows and the School's team.

Jarick is also an independent director of ResponsibleSteel and serves as Chair of the Australian Circular Economy Hub's Circular Procurement Working Group through Planet Ark. She is an Amazon number-one bestselling author in her field and has been recognised as a finalist in the ACE Awards for Circular Leadership. Her advocacy for embedding sustainability into supply chain culture rather than treating it as a compliance checkbox has made her one of the most consistent and credible voices on ethical supply chain practice in the region.

7. Cassandra Lee

u&u Recruitment Partners

Cassandra Lee is Partner, Executive Practice at u&u Recruitment Partners, where she brings more than 25 years of global experience in executive search, corporate advisory, and organisational development to her work with organisations across supply chain and logistics, aviation, retail, industrial, manufacturing, and technology. She was previously Global Managing Partner at Logistics Executive Group, one of Australia's best-known specialist supply chain and logistics recruitment firms, and her deep network across the sector spans practitioners at every level from emerging professionals to chief supply chain officers.

Lee is a regular presence at ASCLA events, including the NSW ASCLA International Women's Day Luncheon 2026, where her active engagement with the supply chain and logistics community reflects her commitment to advancing the profession. Her thought leadership focuses on the intersection of talent, leadership, and supply chain performance, an area she has understood across multiple decades of placing leaders into complex supply chain environments. Her perspective on what makes supply chain leaders effective, earned through thousands of executive search engagements, is among the most practically grounded in the Australian market.

Category 3: Procurement Leaders and Advocates

Australia has produced some genuinely world-class voices in the procurement profession. The thinkers in this category are reshaping how Australian and New Zealand organisations think about sourcing, supplier relationships, and the strategic role of procurement.

8. Laura Spikula

TasNetworks, Tasmania

Laura Spikula was shortlisted for the CIPS ANZ Leader of the Year Award in 2025, one of the most prestigious individual recognitions in the Australasian procurement profession. As Head of Procurement and Supply Chain at TasNetworks, she designed and implemented a transformational end-to-end restructure of the supply chain group, redesigning the operating model and delivering substantial benefits through transformation. She brings extensive experience in procurement and supply chain leadership across the energy, transport, and infrastructure sectors in both Australia and Canada.

Spikula's approach to procurement leadership emphasises that the function exists to shape resilient, sustainable, and forward-looking organisations rather than simply deliver cost savings. Her LinkedIn content and speaking engagements, including at the Supply Chain Summit NSW and the Tasmanian Energy Development Conference 2025, consistently challenge the transactional mindset that still characterises procurement in many Australian organisations. Her CIPS ANZ recognition confirms her standing as one of the most credible procurement voices in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

9. Sue Tomic

Australasian Supply Chain and Logistics Association (ASCLA)

Sue Tomic served as Chair of the Supply Chain and Logistics Association of Australia during one of the most significant periods of growth in the association's history, overseeing its transformation and expansion as it rebranded as the Australasian Supply Chain and Logistics Association in 2026. Under her leadership, ASCLA expanded into New Zealand in 2025, launching a dedicated New Zealand chapter and committee structure that extended the association's reach across the Tasman for the first time in its fifty-year history. Her stewardship of this expansion has made ASCLA a genuinely Australasian industry voice.

Tomic is a regular presence at ASCLA events across Australia and brings a practitioner's perspective to her association leadership. Her work in building professional networks for supply chain and logistics professionals across Australia and New Zealand reflects a commitment to the development of the profession that goes well beyond formal executive responsibilities. Her influence in shaping the direction of the peak industry body gives her a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing the Australasian supply chain community.

10. Luke Tindale

Finsbury Green, Melbourne

Luke Tindale is CEO of Finsbury Green, Australia's leading provider of print, procurement, and logistics services, and a long-standing advocate for sustainable and social procurement in the Australian market. Over more than a decade at the helm of Finsbury Green, he has built the company's reputation as an organisation that takes ESG seriously at an operational level rather than as a marketing exercise. He served on the Victorian committee of CIPS Australasia for more than ten years and is a recognised voice in procurement innovation and technology enablement.

Tindale's contribution to the thought leadership conversation centres on what it means for procurement to be truly strategic rather than transactional, a distinction he argues requires sustained investment in category management, supplier relationship management, and technology integration. His willingness to engage publicly on the evolution of procurement from a cost-control function to a driver of innovation and social value has made him a distinctive and credible voice in the Melbourne business community and across the broader Australian procurement sector.

11. Jason Goodman

Bingo Industries, Sydney

Jason Goodman is Head of Construction and Engineering at Bingo Industries, one of Australia's leading waste management and recycling companies, and was recognised as CIPS ANZ Sustainable Procurement Champion for 2024. In his work at Bingo Industries, he has integrated sustainability considerations into procurement processes and established KPIs that allow the team to measure their effectiveness against environmental and social outcomes, not just financial targets. His approach to sustainable procurement moves beyond compliance to embed ESG thinking into every sourcing decision.

Goodman publishes content on modern slavery risk management, circular economy principles, and the practical steps procurement teams can take to move from intention to impact on sustainability. His recognition by CIPS ANZ reflects the supply chain profession's growing acknowledgement that sustainability is not a separate function but a core competency of great procurement practice. He is a practical and grounded voice on a subject that many Australian organisations find difficult to operationalise effectively.

Category 4: Logistics Operations and Technology Leaders

The practitioners in this category are shaping how goods actually move across Australia and New Zealand. They combine operational depth with the ability to communicate ideas that help the industry improve.

12. Saskia Groen-in't-Woud

Pacific National

Saskia Groen-in't-Woud is Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer at Pacific National, one of Australia's largest rail freight operators, and was recognised as a 2017 Telstra Business Woman in Asia Award winner. Her work at Pacific National places her at the intersection of two of the most consequential supply chain challenges in Australia: the decarbonisation of freight and the development of more resilient national freight infrastructure. Her role requires simultaneous engagement with the operational realities of running a major freight network and the long-term strategic decisions that will determine how Australia moves goods in a lower-carbon economy.

Groen-in't-Woud has been a speaker at SCLAA events and speaks regularly on the future of national freight and logistics. Her voice adds a major infrastructure perspective to the Australian supply chain conversation that is often missing from lists dominated by consultants and academics. The decisions being made at organisations like Pacific National about network investment, technology adoption, and sustainability strategy will shape how Australian supply chains function for decades to come.

13. Kyle Rogers

Elite Logistics Australia

Kyle Rogers is Executive Director at Elite Logistics Australia, a national 3PL specialising in retail logistics, and a former director of SCLAA. He is also co-founder of uTenant, a platform that connects businesses seeking warehousing and logistics space with 3PL providers. His dual background in logistics operations and logistics technology gives him a genuinely cross-functional perspective on the challenges facing Australian supply chains, particularly in the retail sector where the demands of omnichannel fulfilment have fundamentally changed what a distribution centre needs to do.

Rogers is a regular speaker at ASCLA events and actively publishes on LinkedIn about the practical realities of logistics outsourcing, 3PL partner selection, and the insource-versus-outsource decision that organisations face when reviewing their logistics networks. His Supply Chain Day Australia 2025 session on 'Insource or Outsource? Making the Right Call for Your Supply Chain' captured the commercially grounded perspective that makes him a valuable voice for Australian logistics professionals.

14. Mark Healing

Australasian Supply Chain and Logistics Association (ASCLA), Brisbane

Mark Healing has been one of the most consistent community builders in the Australian supply chain profession, serving in volunteer leadership roles with SCLAA and ASCLA across multiple years and helping grow the Queensland chapter into one of its most active regional communities. Based in Brisbane, his contribution to the profession extends well beyond his formal roles and reflects a genuine commitment to connecting supply chain professionals with the people, ideas, and opportunities they need to grow. His focus on mentoring the next generation of practitioners reflects the kind of community-first thinking that associations need to remain relevant.

Healing publishes regularly on LinkedIn on topics including professional development, supply chain community building, and the practical realities of logistics and supply chain management in Queensland and nationally. His consistent presence at industry events and his willingness to engage substantively with supply chain topics makes him a valuable connector and contributor in the broader Australasian community. His work illustrates the often-overlooked contribution of association volunteers who keep professional communities alive and growing.

15. Mia Barnard

GHD

Mia Barnard is Transport Decarbonisation Lead at GHD, one of Australia's largest professional services and engineering companies, and a recognised voice on the decarbonisation of Australian supply chains and freight networks. Her work sits at the critical junction between infrastructure planning, logistics strategy, and emissions reduction, an intersection that has become increasingly important as Australia's Climate-related Financial Disclosure regime, which came into effect in January 2025, requires organisations to report on Scope 3 emissions including those generated by their supply chains.

Barnard has spoken at SCLAA events on the specific challenges facing transport decarbonisation in Australia, including the infrastructure gaps, technology maturity challenges, and policy uncertainties that make the transition to lower-emissions freight harder than the headline targets suggest. Her perspective as a practitioner inside one of Australia's major infrastructure advisory firms gives her content a level of operational credibility that distinguishes her from commentators who address decarbonisation primarily from a policy or advocacy standpoint.

Category 5: Digital Transformation and Technology Voices

Supply chain technology in Australia is moving faster than ever. The voices in this category are helping practitioners understand what AI, automation, and digitalisation mean for Australian supply chains specifically, not just globally.

16. Andy Smith

B&R Enclosures

Andy Smith is Director of Supply Chain at B&R Enclosures, leading the company's end-to-end supply chain across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. With more than 15 years of supply chain experience, he has been central to building a resilient, data-driven supply chain at B&R and driving operational excellence through advanced planning and sales and operations planning across the company's global supply network. He is a practitioner whose insights are grounded in the day-to-day realities of running a complex multi-country supply chain for a manufacturing organisation.

Smith spoke at Supply Chain Day Australia 2025 on forecasting accuracy and service level differentiation in manufacturing supply chains. His contribution reflects the growing importance of voices who are actually running supply chains, not just consulting on them, and whose insight comes from solving real operational problems rather than theorising about ideal models. His dual Australia-New Zealand-Asia operational remit also gives him a specifically Australasian perspective on cross-border supply chain complexity and the planning challenges it creates.

17. Stephen Sanjur

Gamma Solutions

Stephen Sanjur is a supply chain technology consultant and Board Director at SCLAA who has spent more than fifteen years helping Australian organisations improve logistics efficiency through better use of technology. As a consultant at Gamma Solutions, he works with organisations across manufacturing, retail, and logistics to implement warehouse management systems, supply chain planning tools, and automation solutions that improve operational performance. He holds a firm belief that effective communication and change management are as important as technical implementation in driving successful supply chain technology adoption.

Sanjur has contributed to SCLAA's thought leadership programme and spoken at association events on the practical challenges of supply chain technology implementation in the Australian context. His perspective bridges the technical and human dimensions of supply chain improvement in a way that resonates with practitioners who have experienced technology implementations that delivered less value than promised because the organisational change management was underdone. His work illustrates that great supply chain technology requires great leadership to realise its potential.

18. Wycher de Vries

Slimstock Australia

Wycher de Vries is Managing Director at Slimstock Australia, the local arm of the European supply chain planning software and consultancy group. He spoke at Supply Chain Day Australia 2025 on building a supply chain control tower for resilience and agility, a topic that has become central to how Australian organisations think about supply chain visibility following the disruptions of the pandemic years. His work involves helping Australian businesses implement demand forecasting, inventory optimisation, and supply chain planning capabilities that give them genuine end-to-end visibility into their operations.

De Vries represents the growing cohort of supply chain technology specialists who have built their expertise by implementing solutions in the specific context of the Australian and New Zealand markets. The challenges of geographic remoteness, seasonal demand variation, and the concentration of retail and distribution in a small number of major cities create planning problems that require local expertise as well as global technology. His contribution to the thought leadership conversation on supply chain control towers is practically grounded in what Australian businesses can actually achieve in 2026.

Category 6: New Zealand Voices

New Zealand's supply chain challenges are distinct from Australia's. Island geography, smaller market scale, and a primary industries economy create a specific set of problems that deserve dedicated thought leadership from within the country.

19. Dr Victoria Hatton

FoodHQ Innovation, New Zealand

Dr Victoria Hatton is Chief Executive at FoodHQ Innovation, New Zealand's leading hub of food and food production scientists. Her ten-year plan for the organisation includes a Future of Food thought leadership publication that has attracted global attention, and she runs E Tipu, the New Zealand Future Food and Fibre Summit. Previously, she was Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at PwC and has worked with both the UK and New Zealand governments and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation on supply chain and sustainability challenges. She is Vice President of the British New Zealand Business Association.

Hatton brings a genuinely cross-disciplinary perspective to New Zealand's supply chain and food system challenges, connecting scientific research, policy thinking, and commercial practice in a way that few other voices in the Australasian region manage. Her work at FoodHQ Innovation is directly relevant to the agricultural supply chain questions that New Zealand faces as it navigates the intersection of climate change, trade policy, and the global demand for sustainable food production. Her voice represents a distinctly New Zealand contribution to the broader Australasian supply chain conversation.

20. Tod Cooper

Department of Corrections, New Zealand

Tod Cooper is Director of Procurement at the Department of Corrections in New Zealand and was named CIPS Australia and New Zealand Procurement Leader of the Year in recognition of his contributions to procurement excellence in the public sector. His career spans executive roles in complex organisations across both the public and private sectors, and he is a recognised leader in procurement strategy, supply chain governance, and supplier relationship management. His work in the New Zealand public sector context is particularly relevant given the scale and complexity of government supply chains in New Zealand.

Cooper represents the increasingly important voice of public sector procurement leadership in New Zealand, a domain that has often been overlooked in supply chain thought leadership conversations that tend to focus on private sector commercial supply chains. The Department of Corrections is one of New Zealand's largest government entities, and the scale of its procurement and supply chain operations requires genuinely sophisticated procurement leadership. His CIPS ANZ recognition confirms his standing as a genuine professional leader in the Australasian procurement community.

21. Keren Ward

Independent Supply Chain Executive, New Zealand

Keren Ward spent five years as a senior supply chain leader at Lion, one of New Zealand and Australia's largest beverage companies, where she built deep expertise in food and beverage supply chain management and led her team through significant operational challenges. Her LinkedIn content during her time at Lion demonstrated a willingness to engage substantively with supply chain topics including resilience, supplier relationships, and the specific challenges of operating across New Zealand's geographically concentrated distribution network.

Following her departure from Lion at the end of 2025, Ward represents an experienced independent New Zealand supply chain executive with genuine board-level supply chain credibility in the FMCG sector. Her background in beverage supply chain leadership, combined with her experience navigating the logistical challenges of New Zealand's specific market conditions, makes her a thoughtful practitioner voice on the realities of supply chain resilience in a market that demands adaptability. Readers are encouraged to verify her current affiliation directly.

Category 7: Sustainability and Ethics in Supply Chain

Sustainability has moved from a peripheral concern to a central strategic imperative for Australian supply chains. The voices in this category are leading the profession's response to one of the most significant shifts in supply chain practice in a generation.

22. Darcy Davis

Neste ANZ

Darcy Davis is Lead Supply Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Neste, one of the world's largest producers of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel. In this role, Darcy is responsible for sourcing sustainable feedstock for biofuel production across Australia and New Zealand, working at the intersection of supply chain strategy, renewable energy, and sustainable sourcing. Before joining Neste, Darcy spent seven years at GrainCorp working with soft commodities and biofuel feedstocks, building deep expertise in agricultural supply chains and renewable feedstock logistics.

Davis represents a new generation of supply chain professionals navigating the complex intersection of sustainability and commercial viability that the energy transition demands. The supply chain challenges associated with building a domestic sustainable aviation fuel industry in Australia, including feedstock sourcing, quality assurance, and logistics, are among the most technically demanding and commercially consequential in the country's emerging clean energy economy. Darcy's work at the frontier of both supply chain management and energy transition makes them a distinctive voice in this rapidly evolving space.

23. James Dinning

NSW Government

As the first Anti-Slavery Commissioner for New South Wales, James Dinning has played a pivotal role in helping Australian organisations understand what genuine supply chain due diligence looks like in practice rather than on paper. His work supports organisations across multiple sectors to identify and tackle modern slavery risks in their business operations and supply chains, bringing both regulatory clarity and practical guidance to a legal landscape that many Australian businesses have found genuinely difficult to navigate since the Modern Slavery Act 2018 came into effect.

Dinning's appointment as NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner was the first of its kind in Australia, reflecting both the seriousness with which the NSW Government has approached supply chain human rights obligations and the recognition that organisations need a dedicated resource to help them move beyond compliance-focused statements toward genuine risk identification and remediation. His public commentary on what good supply chain due diligence looks like, particularly in industries with complex global sourcing, has been widely cited and applied across Australian business.

24. Renee Farrow

Troubridge and Mars Consulting, South Australia

Renee Farrow is the founder of Troubridge and Mars Consulting, a sustainability and leadership development consultancy with particular expertise in agricultural and food system supply chains. She has worked with Xynteo, Climate Edge, and Ernst and Young on systems-change projects, and her board directorship at WoTL and her role in designing the evokeAG 2025 programme reflect her dual commitment to supply chain sustainability and advancing women's leadership in agricultural industries. She was raised on a family farm in South Australia, giving her a lived understanding of primary production supply chains.

Farrow's work sits at the intersection of leadership development and supply chain sustainability in a way that is practically relevant for Australian agricultural businesses navigating the dual challenge of decarbonisation and supply chain resilience. Her ability to connect systems thinking with practical action in a sector that is critical to Australia's export economy makes her a distinctive voice in the sustainability-focused supply chain conversation. Her South Australian base also contributes geographic diversity to a field that often skews toward Sydney and Melbourne.

Category 8: Women Shaping the Profession

The supply chain and logistics industry in Australia has historically underrepresented women in senior leadership, but this is changing significantly. The practitioners in this category are among the most influential women driving that change across Australia and New Zealand.

25. Marie Varrasso

uTenant

Marie Varrasso is Chief Operating Officer at uTenant, the warehousing and logistics marketplace that connects businesses seeking storage and logistics space with 3PL providers across Australia and New Zealand. Her background spans senior operations and supply chain roles across major Australian logistics and retail organisations, and she brings deep operational experience to her work at a platform that is reshaping how Australian businesses access logistics infrastructure. She has spoken at SCLAA events on the future of warehousing and logistics space management.

Varrasso is one of the more outspoken female voices on operational supply chain challenges in Australia. Her public commentary addresses both the practical logistics questions around network design and industrial property markets and the cultural and leadership challenges facing supply chain teams as they work through transformation programmes. Her dual perspective as both an operations leader and a platform operator gives her insight into how the Australian logistics market actually functions that many consultants and researchers working from theory rather than practice lack.

26. Meaghan Siemensma

Bestrane Group

Meaghan Siemensma is Senior Implementation and Sustainability Manager at Bestrane Group, a supply chain technology and consulting firm specialising in transport management, fleet optimisation, and supply chain visibility. She has built her reputation as a practitioner who can bridge the gap between supply chain technology implementation and the sustainability outcomes that Australian organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver. Her work involves helping organisations use data and technology to reduce emissions, improve fleet efficiency, and meet the growing ESG reporting requirements.

Siemensma is active in the SCLAA community and regularly contributes to conversations about the practical steps supply chain teams can take to improve their environmental performance without sacrificing commercial efficiency. Her perspective is grounded in implementation reality rather than aspirational sustainability rhetoric, making her a valuable voice for supply chain professionals trying to translate sustainability commitments into operational practice. Her work is directly relevant in the context of Australia's evolving Scope 3 emissions reporting obligations.

27. Carly Cummings

Vitasoy Australia

Carly Cummings is General Manager of Procurement, Planning, and Logistics at Vitasoy Australia, a senior operational role that spans the full breadth of supply chain management from supplier negotiation and ingredient sourcing through to demand planning and finished goods distribution. Her FMCG supply chain background gives her a perspective on the full end-to-end supply chain that relatively few practitioners have, and her engagement with supply chain topics at SCLAA events has made her a credible voice among Australian food and beverage supply chain professionals.

Cummings represents the kind of deeply operational thought leader who is often underrepresented in supply chain discourse in favour of consultants and academics. Her knowledge of the specific challenges facing food and beverage supply chains in Australia, including agricultural variability, packaging sustainability, cold chain requirements, and the demands of major retail customers, is immediately applicable to the thousands of supply chain professionals working in similar environments across the country.

28. Magenta Thorley

Sunny Queen, Queensland

Magenta Thorley is Manufacturing Planning Manager at Sunny Queen, one of Australia's largest egg producers and food manufacturers, and brings a perspective on agricultural and food manufacturing supply chains that is grounded in frontline operational experience. She began her career on the manufacturing floor and progressed through frontline supervision into strategic supply chain leadership, which means her understanding of supply chain is built from practical observation rather than top-down strategy. She serves on the Intersectionality Advisory Committee for the National Association of Women in Operations.

Thorley's expertise in procurement, multi-site operational planning, and building inclusive, high-performance cultures within supply chain teams reflects the growing recognition that supply chain leadership is as much about people and culture as it is about systems and processes. Her presence on the ASCLA International Women's Day 2026 panel in Queensland confirms her standing as one of the more visible supply chain voices in the Queensland food manufacturing sector and as an advocate for inclusive supply chain leadership at all levels of the profession.

29. Lindsey Gallacher

Sandvik, Western Australia

Lindsey Gallacher is Head of Planning and Logistics at Sandvik in Western Australia, operating at the intersection of mining supply chain management and the specific logistical challenges of supporting large-scale mining operations. The mining sector in Australia represents one of the country's most complex supply chain environments, with remote site locations, highly specialised equipment requirements, and the need to maintain operational continuity across supply chains that can span multiple continents. Gallacher's operational experience in this environment gives her a perspective on supply chain resilience and planning under genuinely difficult conditions.

She is part of a growing cohort of female supply chain leaders in the Western Australian mining and resources sector, and her participation in SCLAA International Women's Day events reflects her commitment to contributing to the broader professional community beyond her immediate operational role. Her experience managing the planning and logistics challenges of a global engineering and technology company's Australian operations is directly relevant to the thousands of supply chain professionals working in the resources sector across Western Australia and Queensland.

Category 9: Emerging and Community Voices

The supply chain profession's future depends on the practitioners who are building communities, advancing professional standards, and bringing fresh perspectives to longstanding challenges. The voices in this category are doing exactly that.

30. Chris Riby-Williams

CIPS Australia and New Zealand

Chris Riby-Williams serves as Acting General Manager of CIPS Australia and New Zealand, championing best practice in procurement and supply chain through education, capability uplift, and professional standards across the region. He brings twenty years of experience in leading teams, shaping organisational direction, and driving operational excellence to a role that requires him to represent the interests of procurement and supply chain professionals from both countries. His work at CIPS ANZ involves building the educational and professional frameworks that define what competency looks like in the Australasian profession.

CIPS ANZ's recognition programmes, including the ANZ Leader of the Year Award and the Sustainability Champion Award, have become important signals of professional excellence in the Australasian market. Riby-Williams's leadership of the organisation during a period of significant change, including the rise of AI-driven procurement tools and the growing strategic importance of procurement in the C-suite, gives him a uniquely broad perspective on where the profession is heading. His role makes him one of the most important connectors between practitioners, educators, and standard-setters in the region.

31. Segaran Narayanan

Independent Supply Chain Advisor, Australia

Segaran Narayanan is a highly regarded supply chain advisor and speaker who has built a following among Australian supply chain professionals through his practical frameworks for supply chain performance measurement and his memorable approach to teaching complex supply chain concepts. His High Five KPI framework, shared at ASCI Leadership Series events, became one of the most-discussed supply chain presentations in recent Australian industry events. He brings extensive experience working with software vendors and international manufacturers and retailers to his advisory and speaking work.

Narayanan represents the practitioner-educator archetype that is often underrepresented in supply chain thought leadership lists but is enormously valuable to the working supply chain professional who needs frameworks they can actually apply. His ability to make complex supply chain metrics and performance measurement concepts accessible and memorable has made him a sought-after speaker across the Australian supply chain and logistics community. His work demonstrates that the most effective supply chain thought leaders are often those who can translate complex ideas into language that practitioners can use immediately.

32. Celeste Schubiger

OzHarvest, Queensland

Celeste Schubiger is Queensland Engagement Manager at OzHarvest, Australia's leading food rescue organisation, and brings a perspective on supply chain sustainability and circular economy principles that is grounded in the real-world challenges of redistributing surplus food at scale. Her work involves managing the corporate partnerships, fundraising, and volunteering programmes that connect businesses with OzHarvest's mission of reducing food waste across Australia. She brings a powerful perspective on the social and environmental dimensions of supply chain decision-making.

Schubiger's supply chain perspective is distinctive because it comes from the receiving end of commercial supply chain decisions, specifically the food waste generated when supply chains prioritise efficiency over circularity. Her participation in the ASCLA International Women's Day 2026 programme in Queensland reflects her standing as a voice on supply chain sustainability that sits outside the conventional consultant or corporate practitioner frameworks. Her experience connecting corporate supply chains with social impact outcomes is increasingly relevant as organisations navigate their ESG commitments.

33. Genevieve Malcolm

AcademyGlobal, Australia

Genevieve Malcolm is a supply chain and logistics educator whose work at AcademyGlobal focuses on the evolution and future of supply chain, logistics, and transport education in Australia. She delivered the keynote on this topic at the Logistics Bureau and Supply Chain Partners Virtual Summit in 2023, addressing how the profession is developing the next generation of practitioners and what employers need from education providers in a rapidly changing industry. Her focus on the professional development pipeline that supply chain will need over the next decade addresses a challenge that too few senior voices in the profession spend time on.

Malcolm represents the education and professional development perspective within the supply chain thought leadership community, a voice that is essential to the long-term health of the profession but often absent from lists that focus on commercial consulting and executive practice. Her work at the intersection of industry and education keeps her connected to both the employers who need supply chain talent and the practitioners who are developing it, giving her a distinctive perspective on where the profession's skill gaps are most acute.

34. Tessa Boyle

Carlton United Breweries

Tessa Boyle is General Manager of Customer Supply Chain at Carlton United Breweries, one of Australia's largest beverage companies, and brings deep expertise in FMCG supply chain management at a scale and complexity that few practitioners experience. Her role at CUB, spanning customer supply chain across one of Australia's most recognised beverage portfolios, requires managing the intersection of large retail customer relationships, demand planning, distribution complexity, and the specific seasonal and promotional volatility of the Australian beverage market.

Boyle has been a speaker at SCLAA International Women's Day events, contributing to the association's commitment to elevating female voices in supply chain and logistics. Her willingness to engage publicly with the supply chain profession reflects the kind of senior practitioner participation that makes industry associations and events genuinely valuable for the broader community. Her operational experience at CUB gives her insight into the specific demands of large-scale FMCG supply chain management in Australia that is directly applicable to the thousands of practitioners working in similar environments.

35. Jonno White

Consult Clarity, Brisbane

The people on this list are the thinkers and practitioners shaping what Australia and New Zealand's supply chains can become. Jonno White is the person you bring in when you are ready to act on what they say, to build the team culture, have the difficult conversations, and lead the change that makes supply chain strategy actually work. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with 10,000 copies sold globally and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with leadership teams across industries including supply chain and logistics to help them communicate better, resolve conflict faster, and build the high-performing team cultures that supply chain transformation requires.

He delivers keynotes, workshops, and executive team offsites across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally, and many organisations find that international travel is far more affordable than they expect. His book Step Up or Step Out provides teams with the framework they need to have the difficult conversations around performance, accountability, and change that every supply chain transformation demands. To explore how Jonno could support your supply chain leadership team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several supply chain practitioners were seriously considered for the final list but did not make the final 35. Adrian Williams at Argon and Co has done genuinely important work on supply chain transformation in Australia but his content output has slowed over the past year. Mark Millar, a Hong Kong-based supply chain speaker who has consulted across Asia Pacific, holds strong credentials but his primary operational base is outside Australia and New Zealand. Dr John Olsen, formerly at QUT's logistics research centre, holds strong credentials but has shifted his primary focus away from supply chain management as a practitioner topic. Belinda Shannon at The Busy Group is a respected voice on workforce safety and forklift operations but her primary discipline sits closer to workplace safety than supply chain management broadly. Darcy Thompson, a procurement technology specialist with significant experience in Australian market implementation, was considered but has a lower public content profile than others on the list.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Engaging With Supply Chain Thought Leadership

The first and most common mistake is treating supply chain thought leadership as primarily about technology. Every list, conference, and publication in the supply chain space is dominated by discussions of AI, automation, blockchain, and digital transformation. These are genuinely important topics. But organisations that focus exclusively on technology adoption while underinvesting in the leadership capability, change management, and team culture needed to implement it consistently produce technology that sits underutilised after launch and teams that quietly revert to previous ways of working. The best supply chain practitioners on this list understand that technology is only as good as the people who adopt it.

The second mistake is following only the globally famous voices and ignoring the practitioners who understand the specific context of operating supply chains in Australia and New Zealand. The geographic, market, and regulatory context here is genuinely different from the US and European environments where most globally prominent supply chain thought leadership originates. Australia's remoteness from major manufacturing hubs, New Zealand's island geography, the specific demands of the Australian retail market, and the regulatory requirements of the Australian Modern Slavery Act all create a set of supply chain challenges that require local expertise as well as global frameworks.

A third mistake is consuming thought leadership passively rather than using it to drive change. Following supply chain thought leaders on LinkedIn, reading their articles, and attending their conference sessions is valuable. But the organisations that extract the most benefit from engaging with this community are those that bring the ideas back into their organisations, test them against their own context, and build the internal conversations needed to translate strategy into action. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, works with supply chain leadership teams to build exactly the communication practices and team alignment that turning external ideas into internal action requires. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore what that could look like for your team.

A fourth mistake is treating sustainability as a separate workstream from supply chain management. As this list makes clear, some of the most compelling supply chain thinking in Australia right now is happening at the intersection of operational effectiveness and environmental and social sustainability. The organisations that treat these as separate disciplines, with a supply chain team optimising for cost and service and a sustainability team managing reporting, are missing the strategic integration that the Australian Climate-related Financial Disclosure regime and the Modern Slavery Act increasingly require.

Finally, many organisations make the mistake of underinvesting in the talent pipeline that supply chain leadership requires. The supply chain talent shortage is real and acute across Australia and New Zealand. The ASCLA mentoring programme, the CIPS ANZ education framework, and the thought leadership platforms built by people like Rob O'Byrne, Tania Seary, and Hayley Jarick exist partly because the profession has recognised that it needs to be better at developing its own next generation. Engaging with those platforms is not just personally valuable. It is a contribution to the profession's long-term health.

Implementation Guide: Building Your Supply Chain Thought Leadership Feed

The first step is identifying which of the domains covered by this list is most relevant to your current role and your organisation's most pressing challenges. There is no shortage of supply chain content available. The discipline is in curating it deliberately rather than consuming whatever the algorithm serves. Identify whether your current need is for strategy and systems thinking, consulting and education frameworks, procurement and sourcing guidance, operational and technology insights, or sustainability and ethics leadership, then prioritise the voices on this list who work in that domain.

Follow the people on this list on LinkedIn, where most of them publish regularly. Rob O'Byrne's content is practical and immediately applicable. Tania Seary's content challenges assumptions about what procurement can and should be. Peter Jones's analysis of the Australian market is grounded and specific. Hayley Jarick's content on sustainability will help you understand what the regulatory and market environment is demanding of supply chain teams in the next five years. Vivek Sood's daily publishing discipline models what it looks like to contribute consistently to a professional community.

Subscribe to MHD Supply Chain News and the ASCLA newsletter if you are not already doing so. These are the primary industry publications through which many of the practitioners on this list communicate their thinking to the broader profession. For a more academic perspective, the University of Wollongong's supply chain research output and the UNSW Human Rights Institute's work on modern slavery in supply chains are worth following. Attend at least one major industry event each year, whether Supply Chain Week Australia, Megatrans, or an ASCLA state event.

Consider engaging a speaker, facilitator, or consultant from this list for your team. Theoretical understanding of supply chain improvement is only part of what drives change. Working with a practitioner who can help your team apply the ideas to your specific context, challenge your assumptions, and build the internal capability to sustain improvement is where the real value lies. Email jonno@consultclarity.org if your supply chain leadership team needs someone to help translate the thinking on this list into practical action that sticks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential supply chain thought leaders based in Australia?

The most globally influential supply chain thinkers based in Australia include Dr John Gattorna, whose dynamic alignment framework has shaped supply chain design practice for decades and whose books are used in university programmes worldwide, Vivek Sood of Global Supply Chain Group, who has led more than 400 supply chain transformations across 84 countries from his Sydney base, and Tania Seary, who founded Procurious and The Faculty and built the largest professional community in global procurement from Melbourne. Each brings a different lens: Gattorna is theoretical and strategic, Sood is transformational and commercial, and Seary is community-focused and advocacy-driven. All three represent a distinctly Australian contribution to the global supply chain conversation.

What is the biggest supply chain challenge facing Australian businesses in 2026?

The 2025 Australian Industry Group Trade and Supply Chain Survey found that 44 per cent of manufacturers planned to increase supply chain resilience investment, reflecting the sector's recognition that geopolitical volatility, tariff uncertainty, and the ongoing fragmentation of global trade networks have made the lean, highly optimised supply chains of the pre-pandemic era unsuitable for current conditions. The consensus among Australian supply chain practitioners, reflected in Peter Jones's widely shared January 2026 MHD analysis, is that 2026 is the year in which the divide between organisations that invested in resilience and those that did not will become clearly visible in financial performance.

What is ASCLA and why does it matter for Australian supply chain professionals?

ASCLA, the Australasian Supply Chain and Logistics Association, is the peak industry association for supply chain and logistics professionals in Australia and New Zealand, formed through the rebrand and expansion of the Supply Chain and Logistics Association of Australia. It provides education, mentoring, networking, and advocacy for supply chain professionals across the region. It expanded into New Zealand in 2025, establishing a dedicated Kiwi chapter and committee structure that has made it a genuinely Australasian body for the first time in its fifty-year history. The ASCLA mentoring programme, International Women's Day events, and national conferences are among the most valuable touchpoints for practitioners at all career stages.

How was this list compiled?

The list was compiled through research across industry publications, conference speaker lineups, association leadership, LinkedIn content, academic output, and cross-referencing across multiple sources. Selection criteria included the quality and consistency of each person's contribution to supply chain thinking in Australia and New Zealand, the geographic and disciplinary diversity of the final list, and the currency of each person's engagement with the profession. Particular attention was paid to ensuring New Zealand voices were represented, that women make up more than 40 per cent of the list, and that the full breadth of the discipline, from strategy to sustainability to operations to technology, is covered.

Can I hire a facilitator to help my supply chain leadership team apply the ideas on this list?

Yes. The ideas on this list are most valuable when they are applied to your specific context by a team that has the communication practices, alignment, and leadership capability to execute change. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out with 10,000 copies sold globally and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with supply chain and logistics leadership teams to build the team culture and difficult conversation capability that supply chain transformation requires. He delivers keynotes, workshops, and executive team offsites across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect. To explore how Jonno could support your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Final Thoughts

Australia's supply chain profession is in a genuinely important moment. The disruptions of the past five years have elevated supply chain management from a back-office function to a board-level strategic priority, and the practitioners, consultants, and association leaders on this list are the people helping Australian and New Zealand organisations navigate that shift. The challenge is not finding ideas. The challenge is building the leadership capability, team culture, and communication practices to turn ideas into action.

The best supply chain transformations do not happen because the strategy was brilliant. They happen because the people implementing the strategy trusted each other enough to have difficult conversations, adapt when things went wrong, and maintain alignment through extended periods of uncertainty and change. That is the leadership work that sits beneath every successful supply chain improvement programme. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, specialises in supporting exactly that work. If your supply chain leadership team needs help building that foundation, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

The voices on this list deserve to be followed, engaged with, and challenged. The supply chain profession in Australia and New Zealand is stronger for their contributions, and the practitioners who engage actively with their thinking will be better equipped to lead in one of the most demanding professional environments of the next decade.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits across the UK, India, Australia, Canada, Mongolia, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, USA, Finland, Namibia, and more. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read: 27 Best Thought Leaders in Logistics Leadership

If you work in supply chain or logistics and you are looking for thought leaders to follow, the challenge is not a shortage of people calling themselves experts. The challenge is finding the voices who consistently produce ideas worth following, people whose thinking actually changes how you see the problem in front of you.

This is different. I put together a list of 27 thought leaders who are actively shaping the conversation around logistics leadership globally. These are researchers, consultants, podcast hosts, authors, and senior practitioners who are consistently producing content and frameworks that help logistics and supply chain leaders get better at what they do. The timing matters, as the logistics leadership challenge in 2026 is no longer just filling seats. It is building leaders who can manage volatility, AI, talent shortages, and network redesign simultaneously.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-logistics-leadership