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The Evolution of the Enterprise Chief Supply Chain Officer - Part 2: Building the Next Generation

8 min read

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As supply chains localize and functional lines blur, the premium shifts to leaders who can see the whole system, connecting plan, source, make and deliver to revenue, risk and growth. That conclusion raises an obvious question. If the role now asks for more, does the traditional path into it still produce the leaders it requires?

In Part I, we argued that complexity is redefining the enterprise Chief Supply Chain Officer rather than retiring it.

The five current and former CSCOs we spoke with were consistent on the answer: not on its own. The next generation has to be built deliberately, by the individual, and by the organization.

Build breadth on purpose

The clearest theme across every conversation was the deliberate development of breadth both inside and outside the core supply chain disciplines. Christina Slaughter, CSCO at Stanley 1913, recommends that early-career professionals move across operational, strategic and analytical roles, and spend time in marketing or product development to understand customers and commercial priorities from the inside. Kim Faulkner of Tate & Lyle and Graeme Carter of Coty both stressed early exposure to manufacturing. It is not only about learning the fundamentals of the value chain. The plant floor is also where an early-career leader may first manage people at scale, often earlier than anywhere else in the company.

Peter Anderson, former CSCO at Cummins and WestRock, extends the point beyond the function entirely, advocating for moves through finance and sales. He describes the career as a “Christmas tree” with many branches. Leaders need the chance to move between them, and upward, rather than becoming stranded at the end of a single functional limb. Graeme adds a geographic dimension, arguing for rotating relatively junior talent across markets so that global perspective is built early rather than bolted on late.

Several leaders also pointed to the value of exposure to more than one company culture and industry. This is not about job-hopping, but rather about developing a broader instinct for how different businesses, customers and markets actually work.

The goal each of them described was the same. Leaders need to understand not just how supply chain works, but how it creates value for the wider enterprise in a volatile environment.

A wider aperture, with limits

Breadth is what turns a functional expert into an enterprise leader, and increasingly into a candidate for the top job. But the leaders were candid that the path is neither automatic nor uniform.

Peter’s Christmas tree carries a warning within it. If you go too far out on any single branch, there may be no way back toward the trunk. In consumer-facing businesses in particular, one sitting CSCO drew a hard line around the ascent. There is a set of skills, rooted in deep consumer and innovation insight, that supply chain experience alone does not build.

The implication is not that every future CSCO needs the same career path. It is that organizations need to be more deliberate about the experiences that build the particular combination of skills their business requires.

Beyond the leader: reskilling the organization

Developing individual leaders is only half of the task. As Peter observes, the shift toward systems thinking, digital tools and commercial fluency is not a requirement for the CSCO alone. It reaches across the entire supply chain organization and into the wider business.

The buyer, the planner and the plant manager will all be asked to work differently as automation absorbs routine analysis and judgment becomes a differentiating human skill. This implies a substantial reskilling agenda. Functional specialists will need to learn to read across the system, work fluently alongside data and AI, and translate operational decisions into business terms.

Organizations that invest only in a handful of high-potential leaders, while leaving the layers beneath them unchanged, will find their redefined CSCO with no bench to lead.

What organizations must do

If the next generation needs broader functional experience, commercial exposure, global perspective, digital fluency and stronger leadership, those experiences have to be engineered, not left to chance.

Rotations belong in development plans on a deliberate cadence. High-potential leaders should be moved into roles outside their comfort zone, even when doing so creates short-term operational risk. Companies should also learn to recognize the roles that already build enterprise range, including commercially embedded supply chain positions and global process ownership, and treat them as CSCO training grounds rather than staffing conveniences.

A useful test, in Torsten Pilz’s framing, is whether a leader is a net exporter of talent. Leaders whose best people are repeatedly promoted into the wider business are building the bench. Those who only ever import talent may be signaling that they are not developing enough leaders beyond their own function.

Above all, organizations should codify these shifts into how they identify, move and reward the leaders they will need.

The CSCO is not disappearing. It has been redefined.

The operating environment is becoming more regionalized, more technology-enabled and more complex. Some responsibilities will move closer to markets and business units. Some decisions will become automated. Some capabilities will grow more specialized.

Taken together, these changes raise the value of leaders who can see the whole system rather than optimize a single silo. Titles and operating models may vary, but the need for enterprise coordination across supply chain activities, and orchestration across functional and regional lines, will remain.

The future CSCO will need to be technically credible without being defined by one function, commercially minded without losing operational depth, fluent with data and technology without outsourcing judgment, and culturally astute enough to operate across regions while holding the enterprise together at the center.

Supply chain is no longer only a functional destination. In the right context it is a genuine route to broader enterprise leadership, and potentially the CEO seat. That opportunity will depend on leaders who build range, as well as organizations that recognize and reward talent able to span traditional boundaries.

The next generation of CSCOs will not emerge by accident. The fundamentals remain: plan, source, make and deliver still matter. But the leader who can connect those activities to the customer, the balance sheet, the workforce, the technology and the strategy will be the one equipped to lead the whole system.

Building that leader is a choice, and one the strongest organizations are already making on purpose.

Our thanks to the five supply chain leaders who generously shared their experience and perspectives for this article: Peter Anderson, independent advisor and former CSCO at Cummins and WestRock; Graeme Carter, Global Chief Supply Chain Officer at Coty; Kim Faulkner, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Tate & Lyle; Torsten Pilz, CEO and President of Counterpoint Labs, and former CSCO at Honeywell and 3M; and Christina Slaughter, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Stanley 1913.

A special thanks to Utsav Subramani for his support in researching this piece, and Caroline Van Meerbeeck for her writing support.

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