Pete Connelly is Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer for Leggett and Platt, Incorporated, a $4.5 billion diversified manufacturer with 200 factories worldwide. His previous engineering, operations, and purchasing experience was at Xerox, Alcon Laboratories, and Trinity Industries in Zurich, Switzerland. He has a Mechanical Engineering degree, MBA, MA, and Doctorate from Columbia University, and a Masters degree from Southwestern Theological Seminary.
Mike is a strategic thinker and has held leadership positions within the Supply Chain organizations of major corporations in the Aerospace, Defense, and Commercial Industries.
He has a vast knowledge of the interdependency of the Supply Chain. His enthusiastic focus is in Manufacturing Operations, Logistics & Procurement. He has a passion for the development of talent and understands the necessity of organizational design.
Mike’s success is the result of implementing programs and processes to increase the value in the supply chain. His contributions include strategic sourcing and the associative cost savings, analyzing corporate and business segment spend, and implementing programs to enhance supplier performance. He relies on his knowledge of Lean/Six Sigma methodologies as he develops and leads cross functional teams within varied business segments.
On a global scale his leadership has led to increased supplier performance, process rigor for analyzing spend, and the implementation of aggregation and consolidation opportunities. Teams under his leadership create programs to leverage and optimize the supply chain, including demand management governance and discretionary spend controls.
Mike is a US Navy veteran and a product of evening and weekend education opportunities He holds an Executive Master’s degree with a concentration in finance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Science in industrial technology and Bachelor of Science degree in business from Central Connect State University.
John Proverbs has more than 18 years experience in strategic sourcing. Currently John is the Senior Director of Supply Chain at KLA-Tencor. Notably, KLA-Tencor was a recipient of the ISM's 2006 R. Gene Richter Award for Leadership and Excellence in Supply Management. Prior to KLA-Tencor, John was a Senior Executive at a start-up engaged in strategic sourcing solutions. Previously, John was an integral member of teams at Hewlett-Packard and IBM that received, in 1992 and in 1999 respectively, Purchasing Magazine's Medal of Professional Excellence for organizing global procurement transformation. While at IBM, he led global sourcing teams. He has experience in both direct and indirect supply chain with strong skills in strategy development, strategic sourcing, contracts development, negotiations and building organizational capability.
Joseph Richardson is Manager, Global Subsea Sourcing at FMC Technologies. He is a member of Various Boards of Directors, Institute for Supply Management, National Black MBA Association; Awards: Procurement Excellence Award, Digital Equipment Corporation; Stock Recognition Award, IBM; Best-of-the-Best in Supply Chain Management, A.D. Little; International Procurement Excellence Award, Samsung. He holds Undergraduate & Masters Deghttp://www.wbresearch.com/WorkArea/edit.aspxrees from Cambridge College, Business & Management; Ph.D. Trinity University, Organizational Behavior.
Randall C. Clark is a Global Senior Strategic Buyer for Volvo Group Non-Automotive Purchasing (NAP). His role is to create the procurement strategy for MRO and Packaging products and services required by the brands of Volvo Group worldwide. He is focused on the requirements of each manufacturing facility to create the process for supplier selection, negotiation, implementation and development. He has over 15 years of manufacturing experience focused on reducing cost, increasing revenue and streamlining operations through the procurement strategy. Cost containment, supplier rationalization and revenue enhancement are areas that he has contributed to several industries with strategic initiatives on a global basis.
Randall has also been featured in Purchasing magazine on several occasions regarding supplier selection, procurement strategy, and the overall distribution chain of MRO suppliers. He has served on Volvo Group NAP steering committees to develop the Strategic Sourcing Process and the Project Management Process. He is frequently asked by companies and universities to lead workshops and discussions on international business procedures.
One of his core values states that every meeting with a supplier is a negotiation. Our job in procurement is to understand the market so we can establish a fair profit margin and mutually beneficial business relationship for both buyer and seller.
BJ DeFelice is currently the Global Sourcing Leader for Indirect materials and services at UTC Fire & Security (formerly GE Enterprise Solutions, GE Security, a division of GE Corporation) and is the past leader of the GE Enterprise Solution Indirect team and past member of the GE Corporation’s Global Indirect Sourcing Leaders team. He oversees/manages a total indirect spend of $1 billion for UTC Fire & Security and 22 sites globally.
He has over 15 years of procurement experience with well-known companies including Harsco Track Technologies, Solectron, Marconi Networks and Bose Corporation and his specialties include low cost country outsourcing, temporary labor and BPO models.
Before taking on a procurement role, BJ spend 5 years as an engineer with the Reda Pump Company and Square D Company. He holds a BS in Petroleum Engineering and a BS in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University.
Ryan Doerksen has been Director of Strategic Sourcing of Indirect Materials & Services since 2004. Prior to that, Ryan held various positions within Cessna’s Supply Management Organization, Finance, and Information Technology. Over the past five years Ryan has lead the implementation of Cessna’s Indirect Commodity Teams, successfully lead the roll-out of the Ariba procurement process, and development of an automated “pay on receipt” process for indirect goods and services.
Ryan’s current responsibilities include all strategic and sustaining sourcing, contracting, and fulfillment activities related to Indirect Materials and Services for the Aerospace Center of Excellence. This includes all Cessna Aircraft Company facilities and all Bell Helicopter facilities located in Texas.
In 2003, Ryan was part of the Supply Chain Management team at Cessna that was awarded Purchasing Magazine’s, Medal of Professional Excellence. Ryan has been published three times in Purchasing Magazine, detailing best case practices concerning strategic solutions for office equipment sourcing, the automation of indirect spend, and Cessna’s team-based buying strategy.
Ryan has a Bachelors degree in Mass Communication and is currently working on his Masters Degree at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Ryan is married with two children and resides in Wichita, Kansas.