Toyota Motor Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation has distinguished itself as a global pioneer in manufacturing efficiency and quality. The Toyota Production System (TPS), a revolutionary approach to lean manufacturing, has redefined industry standards. By eliminating waste, optimizing processes, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, Toyota has achieved unparalleled operational excellence. TPS principles and similar methodologies have been widely implemented across various industries and geographic regions.
Accepting the award for Toyota Motor Corporation
Steven Brown
Vice President, Toyota Motor North America
Steve Brown is the vice president at Toyota Motor North America. His organization is responsible for Toyota’s manufacturing parts supply chain operations for the North America region. In this role, he leads advanced planning, systems development, packaging development design, route design for inbound and outbound for manufacturing and retail, warehouse planning, new strategic planning for business change and export parts to Toyota’s global manufacturing operations.
Brown’s career began in Toyota’s plant in Kentucky in 1988. He had roles in manufacturing, operations management, production planning, after market supply, export parts management, vehicle model change project management, and strategic planning before becoming general manager production control of the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. He was subsequently named vice president of logistics for Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America.
Brown earned a bachelor of science in accounting and computer science at Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky.
Charles J. Corbett
IBM Chair in Management and Professor of Operations Management and Sustainability, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Charles J. Corbett, Ph.D., is the IBM Chair in Management and professor of operations management and sustainability at the UCLA Anderson School of Management; he holds a joint appointment at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He served as chairman and deputy dean of Academic Affairs from 2009-12, and previously as associate dean of the MBA program. He has received the Neidorf “Decade” Teaching Award, Citibank Teaching Award, the Executive MBA Class of 2006 Outstanding Teaching Award and the Robbins Assistant Professor teaching award, in addition to the UCLA Staff Assembly’s Faculty/Staff Partnership Award and the Anderson School’s J. Clayburn LaForce Faculty Leadership Award. He was an AT&T Faculty Fellow in Industrial Ecology. He founded and co-directed the award-winning UCLA Leaders in Sustainability graduate certificate program and the Easton Technology Leadership Program.
Corbett’s areas of teaching include sustainable operations and supply chains, time management and well-being, and operations of entrepreneurs and small business,. He has given (semi-) plenary and keynote lectures at conferences in Amsterdam, Bali, Istanbul, Lima, Mexico City, Montreal, Paris, Sao Paulo, Salvador (Brazil), Shanghai, Tainan (Taiwan), and Wrocław (Poland).
His current research focuses on sustainable operations and on time management and well-being. He has published in leading academic and business journals, has been guest editor of three special issues of Production and Operations Management and has held various editorial positions at other leading journals including Management Science, POM and the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Corbett holds a Ph.D. in production and operations management from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and a Drs. in operations research from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Additional Speakers
Aydın Alptekinoğlu Professor of operations and supply chain management and Robert G. Schwartz University Endowed Fellow in Business Administration, Smeal College of Business, Penn State
Aydın Alptekinoğlu is professor of operations and supply chain management and Robert G. Schwartz University Endowed Fellow in Business Administration at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.
Aydın holds a Ph.D. in operations management from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and has an industrial engineering background. His broad research interest is in product strategy. In particular, he studies variety, pricing and availability dimensions of product strategy, with product variety management making up the bulk of his research portfolio. He is currently teaching a capstone course to Smeal seniors majoring in supply chain management, and a Ph.D. course on the tools (e.g., discrete choice theory) and topics (e.g., product variety management) that fall under the operations-marketing interface research. He recently served as the vice president of meetings in the MSOM Society of INFORMS (2022-23) and as the director of research at Penn State’s Center for Supply Chain Research (2016-22).
Jeff Cawyer,
Group Manager, Toyota North America
Jeff Cawyer is a group manager at Toyota Motor North America. He is part of the Demand & Supply Management Department and is responsible for Toyota’s demand planning operations for the North America Region. In this role, he leads short- and long-range demand planning, sales plan development, vehicle configuration ordering, product allocation, export and affiliate management and leads the demand pillar of the digital supply chain transformation team.
Cawyer’s career began in Toyota’s Sales and Marketing office in Torrance, California, in 2015. He had roles in finance, revenue management, service parts and accessory demand planning, and business insight and strategy before becoming the senior manager of digital supply chain transformation for demand planning. He was subsequently named group manager of demand and supply management for Toyota Motor North America.
Cawyer earned a bachelor of business administration in finance and accounting and a master’s degree at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas.
Adam B. Cunha
Head of Global Key Client Sales – North America: Automotive/Technology/Chemical, A.P. Moller – Maersk
Adam B. Cunha is the head of global key client sales – North America: Automotive/Technology/Chemical, A.P. Moller – Maersk, a role that he has held since he joined the company in April 2022. In this role, his main objective is leading a team that expands the global share of wallet of Maersk’s largest strategic clients by unlocking unique value within their supply chains, leveraging all of Maersk’s end-to-end products and services.
Cunha’s global logistics career began with Kuehne+Nagel in 2006 when he entered as a management trainee based in Charlotte, North Carolina. This program allowed him to gain hands-on experience in all areas of the global supply chain, and included international stints in Liverpool, England and Salvador, Brazil.
Upon the traineeship completion, Cunha’s career at Kuehne+Nagel kept him in Charlotte from 2008-10 as key client implementation supervisor, to Memphis, Tennessee as the general manager of sea freight (2010-12), and to southern Brazil where he was the ocean manager responsible for the Kuehne+Nagel Curitiba and Itajai offices.
In 2013 Cunha joined Aeroportos Brasil Viracopos (VCP) as the presidential advisor for cargo where along with leading the revenue growth of the cargo division, he spearheaded several historical initiatives such as being the first Brazilian airport to become AEO Certified, and more.
To get back into the global logistics arena, in 2017 Cunha joined Panalpina as route development manager USA/Brazil, based in Sao Paulo. In 2018 he relocated back to the U.S. with Panalpina to take on the challenge of Route Development Manger – USA/Latina America.
His last stop prior to joining Maersk was at CEVA Logistics, starting in 2019 as Area Sales Manager – Chicago. In 2020, Adam was promoted to Country Head of Sales for US Central.
Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sarah Day Kalloch
Founding Executive Director, Good Jobs Institute
Sarah Day Kalloch has dedicated her career to connecting public and private sector leaders with front line workers to build better businesses, create good jobs and define stronger social policy. She serves as the founding executive director of the Good Jobs Institute, which inspires industry leaders to redefine what it means to run a successful business and help their companies thrive by creating good jobs. She has built partnerships with more than 35 companies and investors looking to improve job quality, operational performance and customer service through the Good Jobs strategy. She was a 2018-19 Aspen Institute Job Quality Fellow, has written MIT case studies on Quest Diagnostics and PayPal, and has guest lectured on Good Jobs and sustainable operations in MIT Sloan's Executive Education and MBA programs.
Kalloch previously spent over a decade in international development, improving the health, human rights and financial independence of communities across the globe. At Oxfam, she spearheaded global partnerships that encouraged leading food and beverage companies to adopt more sustainable supply chain sourcing policies. As an executive at Physicians for Human Rights, she co-founded two health and human rights organization in Uganda and Kenya and secured billions in HIV/AIDS and global health funding. She has been a Truman National Security Fellow since 2012 and is an Oxfam Sisters on the Planet Ambassador.
Kalloch graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and also holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she was awarded the Seley Scholarship for her leadership, community contributions and academic achievement.
Read about the history of the Salzberg Medallion:
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