ISM World 2024: Awards Gala Celebrates the Profession
The “Oscars of Supply Management” — Institute for Supply Management’®s (ISM®) Awards Gala — featured a packed room of talent, from students to practitioners to executives, many of them award winners and all avid supporters of supply management.
“It’s really important to celebrate the wins,” ISM CEO Thomas W. Derry told the crowd gathered Tuesday evening at the black-tie event during ISM World 2024 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Supply managers “are making great things happen.”
Shelley Stewart Jr., MBA, CPSM, the event’s master of ceremonies, said, “Tonight, we want to come honor the accomplished professionals making their marks, the organizations and teams and the senior leaders, and those at the genesis of their careers.”
Awards presentations were interspersed with dinner, conversations and networking. A pre-event social hour offered additional time for networking.
The Gala honored:
The 30 Under 30 Rising Supply Chain Stars, global emerging leaders across various industries and supply management disciplines. Zain Rauf, supply chain lead, renewable fuels at Shell in Houston was honored with the Megawatt Award. Other 30 Under 30 award winners represented such companies as Capital One, H.B. Fuller, Hilton Supply Management and U.S. Steel.
The 2024 R. Gene Richter Scholars, who make up the program’s 21st class. Each recipient receives US$15,000 in education funding, the opportunity to work with a junior (a previous Richter Scholar) and senior (company executive) mentors, and complimentary registration to the ISM World 2024 Conference.
The winners are Alivia Clawson and Megan Marie Merola of Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania; Alex Cousino of Wayne State University in Detroit, James Webb Fox III of the University of Cincinnati and Taahera Islam of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.
Since 2004, the R. Gene and Nancy D. Richter Foundation and ISM have celebrated notable supply management majors talent from universities across the country through the Richter Scholars. The program was created in memory of R. Gene Richter, a formidable force in the field of procurement. Admired for helping elevate the function to a “seat at the table,” Richter led the supply management organizations at Stanley Black & Decker, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
ISM Trailblazer Awards winners, companies across the profession that made an impact and offer learning examples for other organizations. Among the categories, which included five new categories, were risk and crisis management, innovation, thought leadership, data and analytics initiative and supply chain consultancy project. Trailblazer Award winners include companies DuPont, Zimmer Biomet, IHG Hotels & Resorts and Velcro Companies, among others.
The J. Shipman Gold Medal Award winner. “ISM’s most prestigious award to present,” Stewart said, was given to Tony Milikin, MBA, chief supply chain officer at Athletic Greens. Former positions include chief supply chain officer at Keurig Dr Pepper and chief procurement and sustainability officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev.