Nike just redrew the corporate power map. The sportswear giant eliminated two cornerstone C-suite positions and handed their responsibilities to a newly empowered Chief Operating Officer. The move has executives across industries debating whether this signals a broader shift in how companies should organize leadership.

The restructuring, part of CEO Elliott Hill’s “Win Now” strategy, removed the Chief Technology Officer role held by Muge Dogan and the Chief Commercial Officer position occupied by Craig Williams. Both executives are leaving the company.

In their place, long-time supply chain leader Venkatesh Alagirisamy, known as “Venky,” steps into an expanded COO role starting December 8. He now oversees supply chain, planning, operations, manufacturing, sustainability, and technology.

The changes don’t stop there. Regional heads for Greater China, EMEA, North America, and Asia Pacific/Latin America now report directly to Hill. Global Sales and Nike Direct (e-commerce and retail stores) now report to CFO Matt Friend.

The reaction from operations and supply chain executives has been swift and divided.

The Case for Consolidation

Dr. Francois Gourd, a strategy and executive management consultant, welcomed the return to simpler structures. “In the ‘old times’ there were only CEO, COO and CFO and it was working very well. The inflation of CXOs that came afterwards created silos, unnecessary structure, inefficiency, additional costs and confusion. The most efficient organizations are the simplest ones.”

His comment drew strong agreement, with nearly 80 reactions from executives who have watched C-suite proliferation complicate decision-making.

Dirk Fischer, COO at Huf Group, appreciated the validation of his role but raised a practical question. “Being a COO, this is of course nice to hear. But reading what you said, for what you need then a CEO? But one thing is also clear. It is the person that qualifies for these roles, not the title.”

Michael Stanier, a managing partner and brand builder, questioned why Nike ever diluted the COO role. “The surprising thing here is why Nike ever diluted the role of COO in the first place. It is the obvious C-Level operational integration role to enable fast decision-making and to deliver accountability.”

Technology Moves from Silo to Operations

The decision to fold technology under operations drew particular attention. Frederic Gomer, who analyzed the restructuring, framed the shift clearly: “Tech is no longer ‘IT’s job.’ It’s ops work. If tech touches service, lead time, inventory, delivery, allocation, store flow, forecast… it belongs with the people who run the system.”

Habeeb Rahman, a Group Deputy CTO, endorsed the logic. “Right move. Technology is the core driver of business. If COO does not understand technology, it becomes difficult to compete in the market.”

Nico Bac, founder of Digital Procurement Now and formerly at P&G, saw the move as part of a broader trend. “Technology is a real game changer and needs to be better embedded into every part of the business. There is still some way to go here for most big businesses.”

Marcela Escobar-Alava, a CIO and CDO, shared her perspective on integration. “I’ve always seen my role much more integrated into operations than a standalone tech silo. I love the less aligning part. Personalities and fiefdoms always get in the way of alignment and progress.”

The Skeptics Raise Valid Concerns

Not everyone sees the consolidation as wise. Ghassan Kabbara, a fractional CIO, warned of role overload. “This feels like the Peter Principle in action. Leaders are being loaded with responsibilities far beyond their core strengths. A strong COO now owns tech, sustainability, planning, supply chain and integration. That’s not operations anymore. That’s five professions in one.”

He extended the concern to the CFO’s expanded remit. “Same with the CFO: finance plus sales, customer experience and growth execution. This isn’t promotion. It’s sideways overload. Role saturation.”

Davide Petruzzi, founder of OrygoAI, shared similar reservations. “That looks risky. Too much stuff under one person. Plus tech is very fast moving and most COOs don’t have technical backgrounds. Let’s see if it works out well for them.”

Josep Ragull, a supply chain and ESG executive, questioned whether fewer voices improve decisions. “Not sure though how reducing the number of voices in the management team can help run the business better. Less debate, less opinions, faster decisions indeed, but better ones?”

He added a pointed concern about the commercial reporting line. “Putting Sales and Marketing under Finance is the best way to kill any creativity, innovation and disruption, which is what made Nike great.”

George Saives, a consulting executive, was more blunt about sales reporting to the CFO. “Sales reporting to the CFO! YIKES! CHIEF PREVENTION OFFICER.”

Integration as the Scarce Capability

Michael Allen, a global operations and supply chain executive, offered perhaps the most nuanced analysis. “This is less about org design and more about accountability. What Nike is signaling is that integration has become the scarce capability. When demand, supply, capital, technology, and sustainability are decoupled, performance degrades quietly until it breaks loudly.”

He continued, “Placing technology under operations isn’t a demotion of tech. It’s an admission that value is created where systems meet execution. Code doesn’t move product. Operating models do.”

Stefano Bianchetti, a senior supply chain lead, reinforced this view. “The point is not that the COO role is getting ‘bigger.’ The point is that someone has to own the real trade-offs when demand, capacity, technology and capital collide. When that ownership is missing, organizations fill up with functionally correct roles that are systemically irresponsible.”

Context Matters

Several executives cautioned against treating Nike’s move as a universal template.

Patrik Paňko, a commercial and omnichannel strategy specialist, emphasized timing. “This feels less like a universal org blueprint and more like a phase-specific decision. When scale, inventory risk and capital efficiency dominate, integration under a strong COO makes sense. In a growth or disruption phase, separating Commercial, Tech and Ops often creates more speed and tension, in a good way.”

Puneet Dua, an FMCG specialist, agreed. “If this OM is what Nike needs to turnaround, great for them. Others don’t copy paste. Find your own OM. Context is important.”

Bruno Pontinha, a senior client partner, noted the model doesn’t fit all industries. “This logic is not totally true for Telco. The CTO remains a key role in this industry as CSPs still deeply rely on the mobile and fixed network tech infrastructure that enables their services.”

The Execution Question

Sotiris Karababas, a senior business leader and interim supply chain executive, raised a critical implementation concern. “IT moves under the COO, and the press release promises ‘faster decision-making’ and ‘operational synergy.’ But let’s be realistic: A change at the top doesn’t guarantee a more efficient company.”

He continued, “The real impact depends entirely on the structure one layer below. If you install an IT Director between the technical teams and the COO, you haven’t shortened the loop. You’ve likely lengthened it.”

Ingo Winterhoff, a former Adidas executive, emphasized that execution requires more than restructuring. “Customer centricity, product obsession and proper inventory levels are key ingredients to lasting success. Executing this or any operating model successfully requires team play at the highest level.”

What This Means for Operations Leaders

Maria S. George, a global supply chain strategy executive, posed the question many are asking. “The faster now and more complex cycles ‘idea to market’ call for streamlined decisions and end-to-end ownership to best serve ever demanding customers. The BIG QUESTION is: do companies have ‘ready now’ COOs to take on the larger scope?”

Gabriele Tagliavia, a global COO, suggested the evolution continues. “Running the operating model is clearly the future and I would push it even more: running the operating model by making a clear separation between what is still human-led vs AI.”

The debate over Nike’s restructuring reveals a profession in transition. The COO role is expanding from operational execution to enterprise integration. Whether that expansion creates clarity or chaos depends entirely on the leaders who fill these seats.

As Colin Emberson, who scales complex multi-market businesses, summarized: “Running ops is table stakes. Owning the operating model is the job now.”

Continue the discussion with operations and supply chain leaders on Chain.NET.

For decades, supply chain was underpaid.

But 2026 will be a breakthrough year for supply chain professionals.

This is not a feel-good moment. It’s a structural reset in how companies value supply chain talent, especially the CSCO office. The most acute shortages sit in middle management and transformation leadership roles, where fewer ready successors are available as experienced leaders retire.

When companies struggle to fill director and CSCO positions - roles that directly impact business resilience—that’s not a staffing problem. That’s a leverage moment.

The real problem wasn’t pay. It was pipeline collapse.

Supply chain salaries are expected to climb as the need for logistics, procurement, and supply chain analysis experts grows. But this isn’t generosity. It’s desperation.

Supply chain roles have grown 22% year-over-year since 2020, with demand for supply chain talent continuing to outpace supply. Yet the talent pipeline has quietly collapsed.

Read more

You’ve delivered results. You’ve built credibility. You’ve been promoted to a mid-tier supply chain leadership role. Yet something feels stuck.

You want to move into a senior position. You’d love to become a Supply Chain VP or the next Chief Supply Chain Officer. But opportunities to expand your scope aren’t materializing internally or externally.

Add one more concern. Some experts warn that increased AI adoption will make senior supply chain roles even more competitive. So what happens now?

The answer lies in five specific capabilities that ambitious supply chain professionals must build to lead in an AI-enabled future.

1. Stay close to supply chain technology

Many supply chain leaders reached their current level by mastering operations, forecasting, and vendor management. As they climbed, they moved away from the technology underlying those functions.

That era is ending.

Today’s most successful supply chain leaders combine operational expertise with deep technology understanding. They stay current on AI developments. They understand demand sensing platforms. They know what modern supply chain software can and cannot do.

This matters because AI is fundamentally reshaping supply chain work. Demand forecasting, inventory optimization, supplier risk management, and logistics planning are all being augmented by machine learning.

Future supply chain executives are expected to be expert resources on pioneering technology. They demonstrate how AI fulfills supply chain responsibilities. They ask sophisticated questions about deployment, integration, and business impact.

The supply chain leaders who win are the ones who stayed close to technology as they advanced.

2. Get hands-on with digital and AI

Promotion often means stepping back from day-to-day technology work. Resist that temptation.

The most career-minded supply chain professionals remain technically hands-on. They experiment with AI tools. They understand capabilities and limitations. They test forecasting models. They explore optimization algorithms. They build proof-of-concepts.

This hands-on experience creates competitive advantage. You understand what AI can actually deliver versus the hype. You know deployment challenges. You recognize when AI adds value and when it creates problems.

The key questions every supply chain leader should ask are: How do I deploy AI into my specific supply chain? What business problems does it actually solve? How do I re-envision my supply chain processes using these tools?

Ambitious supply chain professionals answer those questions through direct experience, not secondhand knowledge.

3. Develop a can-do attitude

The disconnected supply chain function of the past relied heavily on consultants and external expertise. That model is outdated.

Today’s supply chain is embedded in business strategy. It’s recognized as a strategic lever for competitive advantage. This shift demands a different mindset from supply chain leaders.

The days of leaning back and blaming external providers are gone. Supply chain is now everyone’s responsibility, and leaders must drive outcomes directly.

This requires a can-do attitude. Pick your biggest supply chain challenge. Test solutions. Fail fast. Learn quickly. Scale what works.

“I’d rather people try something, succeed at two initiatives, and stumble on a third, than get nothing done,” should be your philosophy. Success comes from action and iteration, not endless planning.

4. Learn to adapt

AI tools and supply chain technologies will always evolve faster than professionals can master them. Chasing every new platform or technology is exhausting and ineffective.

The real competitive advantage lies in developing adaptive capacity. This means cultivating curiosity. Building critical thinking. Developing collaboration skills. Understanding human behavior and organizational dynamics.

The supply chain professionals who thrive are those who understand how systems interconnect. Why organizations resist change. How incentives shape behavior. Why people adopt certain innovations and reject others.

An AI system isn’t just an algorithm. It raises operational, ethical, financial, and strategic questions. Futureproofing your career means learning to ask the right questions across all those dimensions.

Build resilience in your thinking. The professionals who succeed won’t be those who memorize today’s tools. They’ll be those who make sense of tomorrow’s complexity.

5. Build your network intentionally

Continuous learning requires staying connected to peers, mentors, and market developments. Create contacts that accelerate your career path.

Stay curious about new technologies. Explore and experiment with AI. Look for opportunities to test new tools. Avoid fear of change.

Regularly audit your skills. Assess what you know today and what you’ll need tomorrow. Don’t focus only on hard skills like supply chain analytics or AI certifications, though those matter. Develop soft skills equally. Critical thinking. Emotional intelligence. Communication. Creativity. Stakeholder management. These are increasingly vital as supply chain silos dissolve.

Build a modular skill set that applies across supply chain domains. Software engineering basics. Project management. Data literacy. These cross-domain capabilities compound your value.

Then activate your network. Being part of professional communities like GSCC keeps you current on industry developments and emerging best practices. Participate regularly in forums and roundtables. Connect with peers facing similar challenges. Stay visible in your professional community.

Keep your network fresh. The more you stay current and the more you maintain your relationships, the more likely opportunities will emerge to advance your career.

Start this week

Pick one AI tool or supply chain technology you haven’t fully explored. Spend time this week getting hands-on with it. Understand its capabilities and limitations. Ask yourself how it could reshape your supply chain.

Reach out to one peer or mentor working in a supply chain role you aspire to. Ask what keeps them current. Learn what they prioritize professionally.

Identify one supply chain challenge where you could take a can-do approach. Something with limited downside where you can experiment and learn quickly.

The supply chain leaders who reach the C-suite aren’t the ones who wait for perfect information or complete mastery. They’re the ones who stay close to technology, work hands-on with emerging tools, adopt a can-do mindset, build adaptive capacity, and intentionally build networks.

You can be one of them.

What’s your supply chain career strategy?

Which of these five areas is your strongest? Where do you need to develop capability? What’s one step you’ll take this month to future-proof your supply chain career? Share your thoughts in the comments. What advice would you offer ambitious supply chain professionals building careers for an AI-driven future?

This article is part of our Strategy & Leadership coverage on The Chain.

In today's volatile, global business environment - marked by inflation, geopolitical shocks, and the rapid expansion of AI - supply chain leaders have transcended their traditional operational roles. Modern organizations increasingly rely on strategic procurement, resilience planning, digital expertise, sustainability, and innovation. These critical capabilities place talented Supply Chain Management (SCM) professionals in an elite leadership role, often becoming a direct path to the CEO seat.

However, the competition is still intense. Executives from sales, marketing, operations, and finance continue to dominate CEO pipelines. To stand out, SCM leaders must evolve from operational experts to enterprise strategists who speak the language of value, risk, and growth.

1. What Makes Supply Chain a Powerful CEO Pipeline

A. Operational Agility Meets Business Strategy

Supply chain leaders often manage global delivery networks, crisis response, supplier dependencies, and demand flows. That translates to real-time involvement in capital allocation, customer satisfaction, and competitive positioning—critical skills for any CEO.

B. Data, Analytics, and Digital Transformation

From AI-enabled sourcing tools to real-time logistics dashboards, SCM leaders generate, standardize, and act on vast data flows. Executives who leverage that data to drive strategy clearly differentiate themselves from peers relying solely on intuition.

C. ESG and Sustainability Leadership

With 90% of emissions lying in supply chains, SCM leaders are tasked with designing and managing deforestation-free sourcing, Scope 3 reductions, and circular economy models. Executives like Annette Clayton and Lisa Martin are prime examples of how procurement leadership now means climate leadership.

D. Resilience Through Complexity

Supply chain professionals train for scenarios—be it tariffs, climate disruptions, or labor crises. Toyota’s proactive shift of suppliers during COVID and IDEXX Laboratories’ use of AI to identify sanction-vulnerable suppliers demonstrate how SCM can be a company's first line of defense.

Read more

In the 1990s, transportation was seen as a necessary evil : a cost center to be optimized, rarely a strategic lever.

The focus was on inventory optimization, demand planning, and manufacturing efficiency — but rarely on trucks, transit times, or tracking.

Then globalization and e-commerce changed everything.

Supply chains stretched across continents, subcontracting spread worldwide, customers became more demanding, and lead times shrank.

Transport emerged as the glue of global performance: without it, no customer promise, no lean model, no advanced planning could hold.

And yet, in many Western organizations, transport has not received the strategic attention it deserves.

It is still viewed as technical, secondary, and often delegated to field specialists who lack influence in strategic decision-making.

A Blind Spot in the Education and Culture of Supply Chain Managers

In the past two decades, specialized programs and degrees in supply chain management have multiplied. They now produce generations of skilled managers, comfortable with Sales & Operations Planning, Demand Forecasting, IBP, and advanced planning tools.

Transport remains a marginal topic, sometimes reduced to a few hours in a multi-year curriculum.
The result: we are training supply chain experts but with significant gaps in transport knowledge.

Many managers can discuss forecasting algorithms, collaborative planning, or even AI but would struggle to explain the difference between full truckload and groupage, or between a TMS and a WMS, or to read a freight rate grid in road or ocean transport.

Yet understanding transport means understanding the real world of the supply chain — roads, ports, warehouses, drivers, and disruptions.

That’s where customer promises are kept, where environmental performance is played out, and sometimes where company survival depends.

A delegated and undervalued domain

In many organizations, transport is delegated to mid-level teams. These professionals, often technically excellent, have little or no access to strategic decision-making. They manage the day-to-day — tenders, disputes, carrier relations — but remain on the sidelines of strategic management.

The position of VP Supply Chain rarely goes to someone with a background in transport.

Preference is given to profiles from forecasting, procurement, or production planning — seen as more “analytical,” “clean,” and “corporate.”

This cultural bias perpetuates a misconception that transport is the weak link : costly, unreliable, and polluting. It reinforces the idea among Supply Chain Managers that it’s safer to keep transport at arm’s length rather than truly understand it.

The “Magic” 4PL solution

When the logistics equation becomes too complex with fragmented flows, driver shortages, rate increases, or customs constraints. The natural reflex is to hand the “mess” over to a major 4PL. Their pitch is reassuring: “We’ll take care of everything, while you retain strategic control.”

But this transfer of responsibility has a cost : the loss of internal expertise.
By outsourcing transportation management, companies gradually lose their detailed understanding of flows, costs, and performance levers.

The risk?
Becoming dependent on a single provider, unable to challenge KPIs or innovate in carrier relations. In other words, a supply chain blind in its own legs.

A cultural divide between strategy and operations

There is now a clear cultural divide between supply chain strategists and transport practitioners.
The former think in terms of flows, scenarios, models, and digital twins.
The latter speak in time slots, waiting times, port congestion, and driver shortages.

These two worlds coexist without truly understanding each other.
The first operates with modeled data; the second lives with raw data — the kind that comes from a broken truck, a closed border, or a sick driver.

Without mutual understanding, the supply chain cannot be resilient.
A strategy only works if it reflects the operational reality and that reality is transport.

Why does this situation persist?

Several factors explain this persistent disconnection:

• Historically, transport has often been outsourced.

• Culturally, logistics is seen as “execution,” while planning is seen as “intelligence.”

• Structurally, TMS tools have remained less integrated than ERP or APS systems, further isolating transport functions. Only 15% of manufacturing companies in Europe use a TMS, compared to 99% equipped with a WMS.

• Educationally, most programs focus on theory not on execution.

Over time, these biases have created a durable imbalance — one that even the most ambitious digitalization programs struggle to fix.

The new battleground for sustainable performance

Things are changing. The Covid crisis, the driver shortage, environmental pressures, trade wars, and geopolitical instability have all reminded us of one simple truth:
Without a controlled transport function, there can be no high-performing supply chain.

Today, transport is where the key battles are fought:

• CO₂ reduction,

• Service reliability,

• Agility in disruption management,

• Speed of decision-maing.

Transport is no longer an appendix of the supply chain, it is its beating heart.
And yet, few executives give it the strategic attention it truly deserves.

The Ugly Duckling or the key to maturity?

One might ask whether transport is doomed to remain the ugly duckling of an agile and resilient supply chain or whether it could finally become the engine of a new generation of supply chain leaders, grounded in the reality of physical flows.

This shift requires a rebalancing of skills:

• Training managers in transport execution and control,

• Giving operational experts a stronger voice,

• Promoting hybrid profiles who can connect data to the road.

Because it’s in this reconciliation, between strategy and execution, between data and reality that the truly intelligent supply chain will emerge.

It’s time to make transport great !

In thirty years, the supply chain has evolved from back-office to boardroom. But along the way, it left transport by the roadside.

If we want to build supply chains that are sustainable, resilient, and effective, we must restore transport culture to the heart of our organizations.

Alain Borri is co-founder and CEO of Sightness. He is based in Singapore. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alain-borri-91136617/

Sightness is a Data as a Service (DaaS) platform dedicated to freight. A leader in the European market, Sightness aims to expand its services to the ASEAN region. https://go.sightness.com/en/sightness-presentation-video

The world’s supply chains are breaking. Not slowly, not predictably, but in cascading waves that leave executives scrambling to react. From the Suez Canal to semiconductor shortages to geopolitical shocks, the traditional playbook no longer works.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if your company is still choosing between cost efficiency and resilience, you’re already behind. A new Roland Berger report, “Supply Chains in Polycrisis,” released recently, exposes why the old toggle-switch approach to supply chain management has become a liability. The consulting firm’s analysis reveals that companies must fundamentally rethink how they design global networks or risk being outmaneuvered by competitors who adapt faster.

When Everything Breaks at Once

The numbers tell a stark story. Between 2009 and 2025, global supply chains endured more disruptions than in the previous four decades combined. Each shock didn’t just cause temporary pain. It permanently altered the landscape.

COVID-19 shut down global trade overnight, exposing just-in-time manufacturing as dangerously fragile. The Ever Given container ship blocking the Suez Canal in 2021 proved a single bottleneck could halt $9 billion in trade per day. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced manufacturers across Europe to tear up production maps they’d relied on for decades.

Then came 2024. US tariff policies exceeded even pessimistic forecasts. China’s economic slowdown rippled across Asia-Pacific. Climate disasters disrupted transportation routes with increasing frequency. Political upheaval across multiple continents created uncertainty that traditional risk models couldn’t capture.

CEOs and supply chain officers now face a reality their predecessors never dealt with: disruptions don’t happen in isolation anymore. They compound. They overlap. They create cascading failures that traditional contingency planning can’t handle.

Read more

Most supply chain managers still spend hours each week chasing status updates, shepherding projects, and nudging people for data. That work is getting automated. Fast. AI planning tools, control towers, and agent workflows now pull status in real time, create plans, and trigger escalations without a human in the middle. If your value lives in coordination, your role is at risk.

This is not doom. It is a reset. The managers who let software handle the busywork and step up to strategy, risk, and people development will be the ones left standing.

Why the coordination model is collapsing

• Live data killed the status meeting. Control towers ingest demand, supply, transport, and risk feeds. Everyone sees the same truth. Fewer check-ins. Fewer handoffs.

• Agent workflows handle the routine. AI agents chase ASN mismatches, request ETAs, draft vendor nudges, propose expedites, and book alternates within policy.

• Planning loops run continuously. Forecasts, replenishment, slotting, and routing update on fresh signals. Less scheduling. More supervising exceptions.

Translation: the old middle layer that lived on updates and reminders is shrinking. What remains is the hard stuff: trade-offs, resilience, design, and people.

What the new supply chain manager actually does

1. Design the system. Choose service levels, buffers, postponement, and supplier mix. Codify guardrails that AI executes.

2. Own risk and resilience. Model scenarios, run stress tests, and pre-wire playbooks for labor strikes, port closures, and upstream quality slips.

3. Coach teams. Teach analysts to question models, validate data, and escalate early. Grow judgment, not just dashboards.

4. Align the business. Translate ops trade-offs into finance and commercial language. Secure buy-in quickly.

5. Protect the customer promise. When the model says ship partial or hold for complete, decide with context and brand impact in mind.

Signs your role is at risk

• Your calendar is packed with update meetings that a shared dashboard could replace.

• You spend more time moving information than making decisions.

• Your most common tasks are scheduling, status consolidation, and ticket triage.

• You cannot explain your plan’s assumptions or how they would break under a shock.

• Your team waits for you to assign tasks instead of proposing options with data.

If three or more feel uncomfortably true, it is time to pivot.

A practical 30–60–90 day pivot plan

Days 1–30: Kill low-value work

• Replace status calls with a shared live view: orders at risk, fill rate, late lines, dwell time, expedite spend, forecast error, and inventory health.

• Automate triage. Route ASN misses, carrier delays, or MOQ breaches to an AI agent that drafts vendor or carrier outreach for you to approve.

• Standardize escalations. Define when the system can auto-expedite and when a human decides.

Days 31–60: Raise decision quality

• Institutionalize scenario planning. Monthly war-game for demand spikes, supplier outages, or lane disruptions. Document triggers and playbooks.

• Make assumptions explicit. Service levels, lead time distributions, and supplier reliability belong in writing with owners and review dates.

• Adopt two metrics for every decision. One efficiency metric (cost-to-serve). One resilience metric (time-to-recover or at-risk revenue).

Days 61–90: Build capability

• Run short AI drills. 20 minutes, twice a week. Example: “Rebuild yesterday’s S&OP summary and challenge two assumptions.”

• Coach for judgment. Review one exception per week as a team: what the model suggested, what you chose, and why.

• Map talent. Who is great at prompts and validation, who is strong at negotiation, who is ready for scenario ownership.

Useful AI prompts for modern supply chain managers

Copy, paste, and adapt to your context. These work in ChatGPT or your co-pilot.

1. Exception triage

Here are yesterday’s exceptions [paste list]. Cluster by root cause, estimate revenue at risk and cost to serve. Propose the 5 highest value actions that fit our policies: max expedite spend per order is [X], preferred alternates are [list], and promised service levels are [list]. Output a one-page action plan.

1. Assumption challenge

Our plan assumes service level [95%], supplier reliability [92%], and average ocean lead time [28 days]. Play devil’s advocate. Where are we overconfident, and which two assumptions should we pressure-test this week? Suggest quick tests.

1. Scenario playbook

Build a step-by-step playbook for a [two-week port closure at X]. Include early-warning signals, inventory reallocation, mode shift options with cost deltas, customer comms templates, and decision thresholds for each step.

1. Supplier risk brief

Create a risk memo on supplier [Name]. Use public signals: financial, geopolitics, ESG, labor news, and logistics disruptions. Rate probability and impact next 90 days, and recommend mitigation actions within our contract terms.

1. S&OP in one page

Summarize this S&OP pack for the exec team [paste bullets or link text]. Highlight three decisions needed, trade-offs, and expected P&L impact in the next quarter.

1. Policy codification

Turn these unwritten rules into operating policies the AI agent can follow [paste rules]. Add guardrails, thresholds, and exception routing.

1. Customer promise check

For these top 20 customers, simulate the next 8 weeks under a 15% demand spike. Where do we break our promise, what is the revenue at risk, and which levers recover service fastest with the lowest cost?

Case-style examples to learn from

• Apparel retailer rethinks meetings. A European fashion brand replaced three weekly status calls with a control tower view and exception queue. Meetings dropped 60 percent. Fill rate improved 2 points because decisions moved to where the data lived.

• CPG vendor creates guardrails. A food manufacturer encoded expedite policies into an AI agent. The bot drafted 70 percent of carrier and supplier messages for human approval. Expedite spend fell 18 percent with on-time delivery stable.

• Industrial distributor runs monthly war games. The team reviewed two shock scenarios each month and refreshed playbooks. When a key supplier’s plant flooded, time-to-recover dropped from four weeks to ten days.

What makes managers indispensable in the AI era

• Strategy first. You design service and cost trade-offs that match the brand and market, then let software run them.

• Human capability. You grow analysts into decision makers. You teach how to challenge, not just how to click.

• Psychological safety. Your team flags bad data and unpopular truths early because you reward it.

• Storytelling with numbers. You make operations decisions legible to finance and sales so alignment is fast.

• Ethics and trust. You know when an optimal plan is wrong for customers, partners, or people, and you steer accordingly.

Managers who master these will not go extinct. They will run the place.

Key takeaways

• Coordination is getting automated. Decision quality, resilience, and coaching are the new job.

• Kill status work. Codify policies. Raise the bar on scenarios and assumptions.

• Use AI as a thinking partner. Prompts plus guardrails beat ad hoc heroics.

Your turn

Where is coordination still clogging your week? Which prompt will you try first with your team? What would a no-status-meetings month look like in your operation?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. Then keep the conversation going with peers inside our global community, Chain.NET. Joining is free and only takes a few minutes: www.chain.net

In the world of supply chain and transportation, trust in component quality is sacred. Tires - those black rings of rubber under 40-ton trucks - are expected to do their job silently and without fail. But when they don’t, the consequences can be fatal.

That’s precisely what happened in a growing scandal engulfing Goodyear. The American tire giant stands accused of knowingly distributing defective truck tires across Europe, concealing the danger for years, and engaging in calculated efforts to suppress the truth. The revelations are chilling: defective Goodyear Marathon LHS II and LHS II+ tires may have caused multiple fatal accidents. Instead of issuing recalls, Goodyear allegedly compensated logistics companies under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to buy their silence.

This isn't just a story about faulty tires - it's a story about systemic corporate deception within the supply chain.

A Timeline of Concealment

The central defect involves Goodyear's Marathon LHS II series tires, particularly those used on the steer axle of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). Independent investigations, notably in France, revealed that these tires suffered from tread separation, a potentially catastrophic failure mode that leads to sudden air pressure loss and loss of vehicle control.

“The tire didn’t just burst. It exploded like a grenade,” said one French forensic crash investigator, describing a fatal accident in Doubs.

Goodyear reportedly became aware of issues as early as 2013. Internal documents later revealed the company had flagged over 56,000 tires for removal from the market, citing the risk of tread separation. But instead of launching a transparent recall, Goodyear opted for a limited, under-the-radar “exchange program” in markets like Czechia. There was no Europe-wide alert. No formal notification to supply chain stakeholders.

And the silence came at a cost—human lives.

The Role of NDAs: Paying for Silence

When tire failures led to crashes, Goodyear allegedly moved fast—not to warn others, but to settle and silence. According to the Arte documentary Sophie Rollet Takes On Goodyear, numerous logistics companies who experienced blowouts or accidents were contacted directly by Goodyear and offered private settlements.

“We were told it was a known issue but that it would be handled quietly,” confessed a former fleet manager for a French transport company who requested anonymity. “They paid for the damage, but we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

The most egregious example? A 2014 crash in France that killed a British national. Goodyear is said to have paid a “nine-figure” sum to the logistics company involved—on the strict condition that the cause of the tire failure and any connection to Goodyear not be disclosed.

Such tactics effectively buried the pattern of incidents, allowing the same tires to continue circulating across European fleets, unchallenged and unexamined.

How the Supply Chain Was Complicit—and Compromised

Many logistics operators suspected issues with Goodyear tires but were either appeased or intimidated into silence. These companies operate in fiercely competitive markets. A free replacement or a payout from a supplier, coupled with the avoidance of legal proceedings, was often too tempting to pass up.

“The risk of going public wasn’t worth the backlash,” said a senior executive at a Dutch transport group. “Our insurers told us: settle and move on.”

The result? A culture of willful ignorance, perpetuated across the supply chain. Transport companies, tire resellers, and maintenance managers turned a blind eye to what was increasingly evident: Goodyear had a defective product, and people were dying.

Whistleblower Bombshell: The USB Stick That Changed Everything

The silence was finally shattered when an anonymous whistleblower handed over a USB key to French authorities. Inside were dozens of internal documents, including emails and spreadsheets from Goodyear managers. These revealed the scope of the problem—and a shocking strategy of containment.

One document described a “risk matrix” used to assess which clients could be compensated quietly and which were considered a “media risk.” The goal was not to fix the issue, but to minimize exposure.

“Their entire focus was on brand protection,” said a source close to the French investigation. “Safety came second.”

The Regulatory Black Hole

What makes this scandal uniquely disturbing is the regulatory failure. Despite hundreds of accidents—including at least seven fatalities in France alone—there was no EU-wide recall or alert. How could such a massive defect escape detection?

One reason is that Goodyear avoided the official EU safety alert system (Safety Gate) by opting for internal “exchange programs” that were limited in scope and geography. By not issuing a formal recall, Goodyear avoided triggering wider regulatory action.

“It’s a loophole,” noted Dr. Anna Meyer, an EU transport law expert. “Exchange programs are treated as customer service gestures. They don’t show up on regulatory radars unless someone blows the whistle.”

Goodyear’s Defense: A Familiar Playbook

Goodyear has denied any systemic defect or cover-up. In official statements, the company says it is “fully cooperating” with ongoing investigations and insists that the Marathon LHS II and LHS II+ tires are “distinct products with no proven causal link to any series of accidents.”

However, the company’s credibility has been undermined by its history of similar behavior.

In the U.S., Goodyear’s G159 tire—used on RVs—was linked to at least eight deaths and dozens of crashes. There too, Goodyear used confidential settlements and fought to seal court records, effectively preventing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from acting for nearly two decades.

“This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a pattern,” said attorney Sean Kane, who investigated the G159 case in the U.S. “They’ve perfected the art of denying, deflecting, and delaying.”

Logistics Leaders React: “We Were Misled”

As more evidence surfaces, logistics leaders across Europe are reevaluating their relationship with Goodyear.

“We were never told there was a risk,” said the CEO of a Spanish freight company that experienced two blowouts in 2015. “We switched to Michelin after that, but we now know we were running defective tires for years.”

Another operator in Luxembourg confirmed they received Goodyear tires as OEM equipment in 2013–2014 and were never informed of any risk—despite internal Goodyear documents showing the tires were flagged for removal as early as 2013.

“We trusted the brand. That trust is now broken.”

Legal Reckoning: Manslaughter and Deception Charges

In May 2025, French prosecutors formally charged Goodyear France and Goodyear Operations SA (Luxembourg) with involuntary manslaughter and deceptive commercial practices. The charges cover three fatal accidents between 2014 and 2016, and authorities say more may follow.

Under French law, deception involving consumer products can lead to fines of up to 10% of global revenue—potentially billions in Goodyear’s case.

“This is one of the most serious legal threats Goodyear has ever faced in Europe,” said French prosecutor Etienne Manteaux. “And it all could have been avoided if they had acted transparently from the start.”

Lessons for the Supply Chain Industry

The Goodyear scandal is not just a cautionary tale about product defects. It exposes a critical vulnerability in modern supply chains: the over-reliance on supplier honesty and the absence of strong enforcement mechanisms.

• Suppliers can exploit fragmented regulatory systems.

• Logistics firms, driven by cost and convenience, may accept unsafe goods.

• Settlements and NDAs can prevent defect patterns from emerging.

As one industry watchdog put it:

“This case shows how a defective tire can travel through borders, fleets, and years of operation—killing people along the way—and no one stops it. That is a supply chain failure of epic proportions.”

Profit Over Safety, Silence Over Accountability

For over a decade, Goodyear allegedly prioritized brand reputation over road safety, engaging in what appears to be a calculated campaign to minimize liability, conceal risk, and silence victims. The use of NDAs, the lack of transparent recalls, and the quiet payouts to logistics firms all point to a disturbing reality: the world’s roads became more dangerous because a corporation feared the cost of honesty.

The Goodyear tire scandal is a wake-up call to the logistics and transportation sector. Accountability doesn’t begin in court—it begins in the warehouse, on the maintenance floor, in the boardroom.

And for once, thanks to whistleblowers, relentless investigators, and courageous voices, the truth is finally catching up.

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