Shekar Natarajan | |
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Born | Chandrashekar Natarajan 23 July 1979 |
Education | B.Tech and MSc |
Alma mater |
Shekar Natarajan (Chandrashekar Natarajan; born 23 July 1979 in Secunderabad, India) is a business executive known for his work in the supply chain industry. [1] He has held supply chain executive positions at various corporations including Coca-Cola Consolidated, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, Disney, Walmart, Target and American Eagle Outfitters. [2] [3] He also writes in the field of supply chain management. [2] [4] [5]
Natarajan was born in Secunderabad, Telangana, India. Natarajan received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad in India and master's degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2003. [1] [6] He also holds an executive certificate from the Center of Transportation and Logistics at MIT, and an advanced management degree from Harvard Business School. [7]
Natarajan began his career as a Corporate Development Specialist for Alliance Rubber Company, and then worked with Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated as the Senior Supply Chain Network Manager. [8] He moved on to PepsiCo in 2006, where he was the Director of Supply Chain Planning. At PepsiCo, he headed the project to increase storage and productivity at Pepsi Beverages Company warehouses. [9]
He then moved to Anheuser-Busch to serve as the North American Senior Director of Supply Chain Planning. [10] In September 2013, Natarajan was named Vice President of Business Process and Technology at Disney. [11]
In November 2014, he became the Vice President of Last Mile and Emerging Sciences at Walmart, [12] where he led the implementation of autonomous drones in Walmart distribution centers to reduce time required for inventory checks, collaborating with the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA. [13] Natarajan demonstrated the technology at a distribution center in Arkansas in 2016. [14] In November 2016, he became the Senior Vice President of Network Planning and Operational Design of Target Corporation. [15]
Natarajan joined American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) in December 2018 as Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain, Logistics and Services before becoming Executive Vice President, Chief Supply Chain Officer for AEO and President of Quiet Platforms. On March 31, 2023, Natarajan left AEO and Quiet Platforms owing to a disagreement with its board on vision execution for the company. [16] [17] [18]
In 2013, Natarajan partnered with Ron Hammond to research best practices in the supply chain management industry. Based on that research, they created a "supply chain maturity model", used to identify a range of corporate behaviors and place corporations into one of five categories: myopic, sluggish, aware, anticipative, and prescient. [19] [20]
He is also a public speaker on the subject of supply chain and executive management. [20] [21]
Natarajan's delivery systems, typified by the "CoolLift" technology, reportedly reduced the workplace injuries by 97%, reduced the carbon footprint of the system by 50%, and reduced delivery costs by 2.5%. He has also been involved with on the ground delivery logistics, creating delivery plans in traffic-congested cities like São Paulo, Brazil to deal with traffic jams. In Tanzania and Zambia, Natarajan also linked his delivery systems to the delivery of children's medication through the ColaLife program. [22]
As of 2020, Natarajan has been issued 73 patents [5] in subjects such as autonomous vehicle and UAV delivery, predictive buying, automatic inventory replenishment using IoT, hyperspectral imaging to detect food quality, and virtual shopping. [7] [23] [24] At Walmart, he led the Emerging Sciences division, which reportedly had 1,800 patent applications. [5]
Natarajan has served as a member of the editorial advisory board for Material Handling & Logistics, [10] an industry member of the board for the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education, [25] on the board for the Material Handling Institute of America, the co-chairman of the Institute of High Performance Planners, [26] on the board of ColaLife, [20] an advisory board member of the supply chain magazine DC Velocity, [27] and a member of the Catastrophic Disaster Recovery Plan program headed by the White House. [28]
In 2008, the Brazilian government formally recognized him for his keynote delivery at Movimat 2008 for "the content and insights he provided for developing and managing supply chain processes". [29] [26] In 2009, Global Supply Chain Review named Natarajan to its list of "Top 25 Supply Chain Executives". [30] In 2010, he received the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals Supply Chain Innovation Award. [7] In 2010, he was named one of the top visionaries of the year by Consumer Goods Technology [8] and a 2009 as well as 2010 "Rainmaker" by DC Velocity. [27] [31] In 2010, he also received an Institute of Industrial Engineers Medallion for "outstanding contribution to the field of industrial engineering through leadership and innovation of methodology". [1] [29] In 2011, Natarajan was named a Next-generation Thought-leader by Supply & Demand Chain Executive [20] and again called a thought leader in 2013 by Logistics Insight Asia. [32] In 2013, Natarajan was named one of the "Non-Resident Indians of the Year" in the Professional category by Times Now television. [33] [34] Supply Chain Quarterly named Natarajan a "Pragmatic Futurist" in 2018. In 2020, he won the Retail Innovator of the year award. [7] In 2021, he won the American Supply Chain Leadership Award and Visionary Award. [35]
Natarajan is married to Hima Venkata since 2007. [36]