Roberto Perez-Franco

Roberto Perez-Franco grew up in the countryside of Panama. He studied mechanical and electrical engineering at the Technological University of Panama, and later received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he completed a Masters and a Ph.D. in supply chain management and logistics. After his graduation in 2010, he worked as a researcher at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics, serving as Director of the Supply Chain 2020 Project (later the Supply Chain Strategy Lab), as Director of the GCLOG Program, and as Director of Digital Learning. Changes in the USA's political landscape prompted his move to Australia in early 2017. He now lives in Melbourne, with his wife and daughter, and works as Senior Research Fellow in Supply Chain Strategy at Deakin University.

Roberto's expertise is in supply chain strategy, especially in assessing and reformulating the supply chain strategy of organisations, and facilitating cross-functional strategising within business units and in supply chains. He also has extensive experience with the application of scenario planning techniques to facilitate the discussion of long-term plans, particularly for infrastructure. He was part of the core team that conducted a three-year million-dollar scenario planning project to inform infrastructure decisions in the US. Recently he was the principal researcher of a scenario planning project that examined the future of supply chains and freight in Australia.