Chris Clower is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Corporate Performance Improvement practice in Seattle. He specializes in enterprise cost reduction via supply chain levers, including strategic sourcing, supplier and vendor relationship management, logistics network optimization, and redesign and automation of procure-to-pay and order to cash processes. Mr. Clower has worked with a wide range of corporate and private equity / portfolio companies across various industries… Show more Chris Clower is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Corporate Performance Improvement practice in Seattle. He specializes in enterprise cost reduction via supply chain levers, including strategic sourcing, supplier and vendor relationship management, logistics network optimization, and redesign and automation of procure-to-pay and order to cash processes. Mr. Clower has worked with a wide range of corporate and private equity / portfolio companies across various industries, including food and beverage, heavy manufacturing, hospitality, aviation and hardware distribution. He brings deep expertise in leveraging the supply chain and operations as a means to drive sustainable performance improvements enterprise wide. Recent examples of projects include:• Mr. Clower has advised and led a strategic supply chain transformation assessment for a $1B brick-and-mortar retailer. Savings opportunities were identified that would reduce annual procurement spend by $9.1M (21%).• For a ~$350M manufacturer of medical equipment, led a comprehensive assessment of the end-to-end supply chain, including an comprehensive maturity appraisal, procurement and logistics spend analysis, SKU profitability and rationalization evaluation, and SG&A benchmarking. Identified improvement opportunities and capability enhancements throughout the supply chain estimated to drive annual increases of over $10M in EBITDA.• For a $20B global manufacturer and retailer of industrial products, Mr. Clower directed sourcing activities across multiple categories that resulted in annual savings of $10.0M on spend of $66M (15%). Optimized capital asset utilization resulting in $2.2M annual spend savings and over $40M in cost avoidance through elimination of future planned purchases. Show less

• Lead and support design, creation, testing and delivery of custom ERP software and reporting for nonprofit businesses with revenues averaging $100 million in revenues, 300 FTEs, and 20+ concurrent report users. • Drive transparent and consistent client engagement and communication with the focus on process automation, data consolidation, and reporting formats for ad-hoc client needs.• Lead projects from requirements gathering, project definition, and validation of strategy to final… Show more • Lead and support design, creation, testing and delivery of custom ERP software and reporting for nonprofit businesses with revenues averaging $100 million in revenues, 300 FTEs, and 20+ concurrent report users. • Drive transparent and consistent client engagement and communication with the focus on process automation, data consolidation, and reporting formats for ad-hoc client needs.• Lead projects from requirements gathering, project definition, and validation of strategy to final product build-out including ad-hoc reporting requests utilizing SQL, Access, Excel, and VBA skills. Show less

• Managed Reverse Logistics for 10,000 SKUs of kitted and dekitted inventory items world-wide; coordinated inventory planning cycle with internal and external partners, vendors, and 3P logistics companies. • Led a project to identify processes within Operations, Logistics, Manufacturing, Tax and Trade groups and external vendors that enable inventories to be repaired and refurbished through Latin American vendors. As a result, lead time was reduced by 1/3 and the process was redesigned to… Show more • Managed Reverse Logistics for 10,000 SKUs of kitted and dekitted inventory items world-wide; coordinated inventory planning cycle with internal and external partners, vendors, and 3P logistics companies. • Led a project to identify processes within Operations, Logistics, Manufacturing, Tax and Trade groups and external vendors that enable inventories to be repaired and refurbished through Latin American vendors. As a result, lead time was reduced by 1/3 and the process was redesigned to save up to $500,000/month. • Developed reporting and metrics to track the performance of national and international groups that increased transparency and consolidated and unified global team's performance under a common umbrella of daily KPIs. Show less

• Led forecasting, analysis, reporting, and purchasing activities related to hardware capacity and hardware inventory planning to support the $2.8 million International Retail organization and its 7 distinct sub-groups. • Developed capacity and capability assessment processes and mitigation strategies to improve inventory availability and increase purchasing efficiency for over 1,300 available hosts/items. • Led a project to automate the identification of Excess and Obsolete inventory… Show more • Led forecasting, analysis, reporting, and purchasing activities related to hardware capacity and hardware inventory planning to support the $2.8 million International Retail organization and its 7 distinct sub-groups. • Developed capacity and capability assessment processes and mitigation strategies to improve inventory availability and increase purchasing efficiency for over 1,300 available hosts/items. • Led a project to automate the identification of Excess and Obsolete inventory with subsequent reallocation of idle hardware capacity between datacenter users within the $160 million Consumer and Business Development organizations. The project resulted in instant savings of over $2,000,000 in company-wide capital investment and over $200,000 in ongoing monthly expense within the first 3 months. Show less

Senior Operations Manager (Production Controller)• Managed financial performance and resource allocations for a $280 million program including inventory management, purchasing, and forecasting for over 12,000 SKUs in inventories; through audit and utilizing Lean Six Sigma strategies steered the program toward originally targeted schedule and kept it on budget.• Developed and enhanced inventory planning tools and processes with the focus on improving resource availability, unit's KPIs… Show more Senior Operations Manager (Production Controller)• Managed financial performance and resource allocations for a $280 million program including inventory management, purchasing, and forecasting for over 12,000 SKUs in inventories; through audit and utilizing Lean Six Sigma strategies steered the program toward originally targeted schedule and kept it on budget.• Developed and enhanced inventory planning tools and processes with the focus on improving resource availability, unit's KPIs, and streamlining of weekly, monthly and quarterly reports and recommendations to senior management.• Led cross functional projects with Finance, Operations, and Asset Management to develop and enhance cost saving strategies for high volume, national mission-critical programs.Operations Manager - Forecasting and Planning • Forecasted optimum resource and cost utilization plans, managed internal reporting, and oversaw operational performance for $36 billion in assets while leveraging Lean and Six Sigma continuous improvement strategies. • Oversaw logistics strategies for over 50 categories of professions, including schedulers, buyers, analysts and shipping/receiving employees.• Led a project to overhaul the monthly KPI reporting processes via data consolidation and automation, resulting in labor savings of over 95% while simultaneously dropping error rate to 0%. Show less