Dr. Christopher S. Gopal, PhD

Dr. Gopal has more than 40 years of experience consulting and providing industry executive management in global supply chain and operations strategy, execution, and technology.  His expertise has focused on innovating, structuring, improving, and managing supply chain operations, business processes, services, and technology-use for leading global companies.

For products companies, this has included developing innovative supply chain, customer life cycle experience, and information strategies on a global basis, cost reduction, risk mitigation, stabilizing and improving operational efficiency, and executing for world-class results.  In the services arena, he has built and run world- class professional services and consulting practices for major companies, consulted in supply chain strategy, management, and technology with leading global companies, and has developed technology solutions, innovative new services in accelerated strategy and process design, and executive education programs.

Dr. Gopal has held executive positions at leading companies, including VP in World-Wide Operations, Dell Computer; Partner & Director of Global Supply Chain & Operations services, Ernst & Young Consulting; and executive VP positions at Unisys, Overland Storage, and SAIC.  Currently, he is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Board of the Global Fund in Geneva, a public-private sector health organization focused on HIV, TB, and Malaria.

Dr. Gopal is a recognized thought leader in the field of global supply chain & operations.  He is the co-author of four books, the latest being Breakthrough Supply Chains: How Companies and Nations Can Thrive and Prosper in an Uncertain World (endorsed by the Council for Supply Chain Management Professionals and accepted into the Pentagon Library).  Dr. Gopal has authored several articles and is an invited speaker and panelist at numerous international business conferences for Business Week, Defense Logistics Agency, the Harvard Business Review, the Milken Institute Global Forum, and the OECD, among others.  He has testified before the Congressional US-China Committee and has served as an Advisor and Board member to leading–edge technology companies.  Dr. Gopal served as an Advisor to a prominent think tank project in Washington on Industrial Competitiveness, and on a White House sub-committee on Manufacturing Technologies.

Currently, Dr. Gopal is a strategic advisor to several small companies in the field of technology, supply chain, and customer experience.  He consults with companies in supply chain & operations, risk mitigation, technology, and solutions development.  He teaches at the University of California San Diego and University of Southern California (USC).  Dr. Gopal serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Supply Chain Management Center at USC.  He holds a PhD in Business from the University of Southern California; an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management, UK; and a B.Sc. from Bangalore University, India.