Skip to content
Ralph Asher
Ralph Asher

Ralph Asher

Founder
Data Driven Supply Chain LLC
Bio

Ralph Asher is the founder of Data Driven Supply Chain LLC, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based consultancy working at the intersection of supply chain and decision science. Since 2021, Ralph and his team have used AI, decision science, and data science to build advanced supply chain models and advise clients on tough supply chain decisions around network design, inventory, and forecasting.

Ralph previously spent six years at Target, where he designed the groundbreaking last-mile e-commerce sortation center network, and two years at General Mills, where he designed supply chains for international acquisitions.

In addition to leading Data Driven Supply Chain, Ralph is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, currently serving with the Marine Innovation Unit. He also is an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas (St Paul, MN) in the Opus School of Business. Ralph holds a BS in Physics from Valparaiso University, and a MS in Operations Research from Florida Institute of Technology. He lives in the Minneapolis area.


N* Career Lessons from a Mid-Career Supply Chain OR Professional Turned Independent Consultant (N ~ 10)

For analytics professionals, career success can depend more on the lessons they didn’t learn in graduate school than those they did. These lessons have little or nothing to do with the nuances of integer optimization algorithms or how to select the right statistical distributions for a Monte Carlo simulation. Lessons like developing the art of influence and putting themselves in the shoes of the listener. Lessons like making decisions informed by the opportunity cost of your time.

In this talk, I will share ten or so lessons that I have learned from my time in supply chain operations research, both in the corporate world and now as the owner of a boutique consulting firm. Not simply “soft skills,” these lessons are intended to help attendees build careers that are not only technical, but impactful across organizations.