Brig. Gen. Stitzer is a well-respected and highly-decorated officer, who most recently served as Deputy to the Director of the Air Staff Headquarters of the United States Air Force; and Principal Deputy Director for Logistics, The Joint Staff at the Pentagon. As part of the role, he coordinated and integrated policy, strategy, resources, processes, and cross-functional issues for the Air Staff. Brigadier General Max Stitzer’s distinguished military career included decades of experience spanning across influential government projects, during which time he has won numerous awards, accolades, and decorations. Having graduated in Science and Logistics Management at Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, General Stitzer followed up with a Master’s Degree in Aeronautics from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida, complementing his three decades of national service helping him earned promotions every few years.
Ret. Brigadier General USAF, Ronald. E. Jolly, SR’s distinguished military career includes years of experience across prestigious Government projects and diverse high-profile, hands-on industry domains. He was commissioned through ROTC at Oklahoma State University in December 1990, and he began his career as a Gold Bar recruiter with the Air Force ROTC program at the University of North Texas in August 1991. He graduated from the Aircraft Maintenance and Munitions Officer Course in January 1993 as an aircraft maintenance and munitions officer at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. General Jolly is a fully qualified aircraft maintenance officer and logistician having served tours as Training Wing Commander, Air Logistics Complex Deputy Commander for Maintenance, Chief of Staff for Headquarters, U.S. Central Command Directorate of Logistics and Engineering, Maintenance Group commander, Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Staff Officer at the Headquarters Air Force level and numerous wing level maintenance and logistics positions.
Eric West
Director of Technology Partnerships at Ford
Eric’s career started on the manufacturing floor of the BLACKHAWK Helicopter, and moved towards DARPA-funded R&D projects and now more lately in external-focused resources across open innovation at Harman, professional services at Samsung, and strategic technology partnerships at Ford. Originally an aerospace engineer for 12 years, Eric learned how to impart structure around ideas that transform them into solutions in mobility across the transportation industry. His work is inspired by the learnings from exploring new mechanical engineering and robotics principles in the R&D lab. It was Eric’s curiosity in translating these skills into making a larger impact on business that led him to pursue an MBA. Eric holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering/Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Alan Barnard is one of the leading Decision Scientist and Theory of Constraints (TOC) experts in the world. As CEO of Goldratt Research Labs, he worked directly with Dr Eli Goldratt (international best-selling author, scientist, business leader and creator of Theory of Constraints) to spearhead the research and development of new applications of TOC in especially large and complex organizations from both the private and public sector wishing to achieve more (goal units) with less (resources) in less time. Alan also contributes his time and experience to a number of non-profit organizations to help apply the insights and benefits Theory of Constraints to public sector organizations, NGOs and individuals. Alan also serves on the Science & Innovation Council Board at BHP Billiton.
Takao Sakai
Lean Expert
Takao Sakai is the award-winning and globally-recognized Lean Expert & Author of “The Secret Behind the Success of Toyota” and “The Age of Talent”. Takao is from the family of Kotaro Honda, famous for helping the Toyoda Family create Toyota Motor Company & Inventor of Just-in-Time & Kaizen, and developing the first Japanese Computer-Aided Design software for automotive. His clients include influential global industrial leaders and cutting edge manufacturing companies. Takao is a highly sought-out keynote speaker, headlining the most influential Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma global conferences.
Dr. Hagen Hultzsch was Member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Telekom AG, the CIO & Executive Director of Volkswagen AG, and member of the Board of ICANN. Hagen conceived and led the creation of T-Systems as well as T-Venture. He was inspired by multi-billion dollar Industrial Enterprise Data projects at IBM Research Labs & Volkswagen. Hagen was mentored by the late Electronic Data Systems founder Ross Perot. Among others Hagen currently advises ThroughPut on how to navigate the German technology market. Hagen is the author of Informationsmanagement als Führungsaufgabe at Hanser & Prozessdatenverarbeitung at Teubner.
Dr. Ramesh Bollapragada is a distinguished professor and world-renowned, award-winning expert in Industrial Automation, Manufacturing Management, and Decision Sciences with over 30 years of pioneering experience in academia, the public, and the private sectors. Ramesh’s graduate thesis advisor was world-renowned Applied AI & Supply Chain Management Professor & Entrepreneur Dr. Norman Sadeh, who pioneered the world’s first shifting-bottleneck machine learning algorithms. Ramesh has held academic positions at University of California-Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, San Francisco State University, Lucent, and Bell Labs. Ramesh has deep expertise in Theory of Constraints & Inventory Control Queue Modelling. Ramesh is responsible for optimizing traffic for all Bay Area Highways, where his work led to the modernization of today’s FastTrak lanes.
Rocky is a preeminent mind in Artificial Intelligence (AI) with over 25 years experience in applying AI to real-world applications, including industrial, logistics, supply chain, government, and military operations. As a serial entrepreneur, he has founded, built, and exited some of the most advanced technological hardware and software ventures in the world. He has worked at leading public entities and government organizations including Northrop Grumman, Texas Instruments, Harris Corporation, NSA, the U.S. Air Force, and others. Rocky has expertise in signal processing and data transmission, with over 15 patents.
Mukund Srinivas
Advisor
Mukund has over 20 years of experience in supply chain & manufacturing optimization software. Mukund led the Automotive Manufacturing vertical at MuSigma, the leading Sequoia-backed unicorn focused on decision sciences. Mukund served in key leadership roles at leading optimization powerhouses such as MuSigma, i2, JDA, and PwC across more than 10 industrial verticals. Mukund started his career as a Manufacturing Operations Lead at ASEAN paints.
Robert Alpert
Advisor
Robert is a serial industrialist following in the footsteps of Andrew Carnegie. He has founded and restructured over 50 companies in automotive, steel, shipping, waste management, software technology, and other industrial verticals. He has served on numerous public boards including Auto Nation, Republic Waste Services, Interlock Technologies Corp, Tubular Corporation, Diamond Shamrock, Babcock & Wilcox, Brunswick / Land N’ Sea, Aviation Sales Corp, PalEx, AZ Digital Farm, and many others.
Rob Hull is the Founder of Adaptive Insights, recently acquired for over $1.5 Billion by Workday. Rob is a serial entrepreneur and CFO, raising hundreds of millions in venture capital during his Silicon Valley-based career. Rob was previously the CEO ChemTracker, CFO LoopNet [LOOP], CFO of Risk Management Solutions, and others.
Steve Robinson
CEO, The Supply Chain Project
Steve is an award-winning supply chain and operations expert with over 20 years of experience heading multi-billion dollar global strategy, operations, and supply chain transformations for some of the world’s largest, most complex organizations.
