The metamorphosis of supply chain from a humble collection of support functions like purchasing, shipping and production to true business leadership is huge. Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) increasingly control 50% or more of a company’s annual spending, with two thirds of all employees directly reporting to the role. More importantly, CSCOs have begun to play a vital role in strategy development, product and service innovation, and even sales.
Why the change? For one thing, globalization blew up the traditional factory-centric model of most product businesses while adding huge complexity to network design. For another, digitization has upended the merchant-driven operating model of most retailers and forced a radical rethink of how planning works across all industries. Finally, a rise in platforming strategies that bake complexity into core product designs and manufacturing process technologies call for supply network decisions that can take years to pay off.
The net effect is that the modern CSCO approximates the thought process of the CEO, balancing risk and opportunity, fighting the near-term battle with an eye on long term strategy, and focusing above all on profitable growth.
Who’s Making the Move?
Among the more prominent supply chain leaders who’ve made it to the top slot we can count Tim Cook of Apple AAPL -0.93%, Mary Barra of General Motors GM -0.86% and Brian Krzanich of Intel. More recently we’ve seen Fabian Garcia, formerly of Colgate Palmolive, tapped to take over at Revlon and John Hendrickson recently promoted to CEO of Perrigo. Promotions within company for CSCOs include some who have taken over business unit leadership roles, including Beth Ford at Land O’Lakes, Pier Luigi Sigismondi at Unilever, Sonia Syngal at Gap and Gerry Smith at Lenovo.
The common thread in all these cases is an executive who is multi-talented. They think like engineers (most are trained as such), but they also think like salespeople. They’re able to communicate and influence to get the job done. They get their money’s worth, but not at the expense of long-term partnership. They lead by example and don’t wilt in the face of challenge or even conflict.
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Emerging supply chain leaders are those who can handle the day-to-day work of plan-source-make-deliver while simultaneously seeing further over the horizon. This means understanding where the business’s strategy is likely to hit a wall or, better still, what confluence of trends might create a sustainable profit opportunity down the road. 
Some CEOs Already Get This
Chief Executive Officer has the ring of ultimate power. In practice, however, most CEOs feel the heat of many bosses with boards, shareholders, equity analysts and even the general public bearing down on their every move. Add in the deep water threat of activist investors whose incentives usually run counter to those of employees and even customers, and one sees the job for what it is – a constant balancing act with incredibly high stakes.
Some CEOs approach this challenge as a supply chain strategist might, recognizing the constraints of time and material science while pushing for breakthroughs that are worthy of capital investment.  They know, in other words, that selling is only half the battle. Delivery is the other half.
Paul Polman, Unilever’s CEO, is one such leader. His 90 minute free-form keynote at SCM World’s Leaders Forum in Gleneagles a few years back demonstrated a deep grasp of operational reality.  More important, however, was the way he used his credibility with an elite supply chain audience to challenge the profession on sustainability. A rousing and spontaneous standing ovation gave witness to the shared understanding between CEO and CSCO.
Another is Stanley Black & Decker CEO and Chairman John Lundgren, who will be keynoting our Leaders Forum this year in Dublin. Lundgren’s approach to supply chain is so much more sophisticated than the increasingly obsolete “cost centre” mentality that it even has a name: Stanley Fulfilment System 2.0.
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SFS 2.0, as they call it, builds on 12 years of operational strategy focused on service excellence and working capital efficiency. The new incarnation (2.0) emphasizes accelerated innovation, proactive leverage of digital and perpetual transformation. The strategic architecture is a perfect expression of CEO goals written in operational terms.
Agility Over All
Stability has given way to agility in business. Capital flows faster than water and customers expect the world. CEOs understand this. 
CSCOs live it.