Susan Lacefield has been working for supply chain publications since 1999. Before joining DC VELOCITY, she was an associate editor for Supply Chain Management Review and wrote for Logistics Management magazine. She holds a master's degree in English.
The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) has recognized internationally renowned academic and researcher Remko van Hoek for his lifelong commitment to furthering the supply chain profession by presenting him with the 2025 Distinguished Service Award. The University of Arkansas professor of supply chain management will also be inducted into CSCMP's Supply Chain Hall of Fame, an institution that van Hoek himself helped to establish.
Van Hoek said he was "deeply humbled" to receive the award, which is widely recognized as one of the top achievements in the profession. Past award Distinguished Service Award winners include H. Lee Scott, former CEO of Walmart Corp.; Fred Smith, former CEO and founder of FedEx; and Donald Bowersox, former professor and dean emeritus at Michigan State University, an influential logistics and supply chain management academic and researcher.
Van Hoek's work as a researcher has stretched both wide and deep. He has contributed to over 100 publications, including the international textbooks Leading Procurement Strategy (now in its fourth edition), Logistics Management and Strategy (now in its sixth edition), and Blockchain in the Supply Chain. His research has focused on topics such as risk and reshoring, sustainability, supplier diversity programs, and digitization. Recently van Hoek has published articles in the Harvard Business Review and MIT's Sloan Management Review on Walmart's efforts to automate supplier negotiations.
Van Hoek also has extensive experience in the corporate world, serving in executive positions in procurement at organizations such as The Walt Disney Co., PwC, and Cofely, the energy and environmental efficiency services brand of the French multinational utility company GDF Suez.
Van Hoek became a full-time professor of supply chain management at the University of Arkansas in 2018. Van Hoek says his return to academia was driven by the belief that he could best serve the field through teaching and research, which had the potential to reach thousands of professionals.
"As a leader, it's your obligation to serve," says van Hoek. "In academia, I teach hundreds of students a semester, not just a few 100 people that that happened to be in my organization. And so, I can do so much more toward that service mission."
Additionally van Hoek says working in academia on research gives him the freedom to innovate on a greater scale and then work with dozens of organizations to see those new ideas work in the real world.
Throughout his career, van Hoek has been a long-time member and staunch supporter of CSCMP. In addition to serving on numerous committees over the years, van Hoek served as CSCMP's board chair from 2017-2018. It was during that time the concept of creating a Supply Chain Hall of Fame was first floated. Van Hoek subsequently ran with the idea, securing funding to build a physical location for the Hall of Fame in Rogers, Ark., and hosting it through the University of Arkansas' Sam M. Walton College of Business. He also wrote a book honoring and draw lessons from hall of fame inductees. (An excerpt of the book can be found here.)In the foreword to the book, Mark Baxa, president and CEO of CSCMP, says the following about van Hoek: "Remko cares deeply about the contributions he makes to everyone he meets and about his personal reputation, so he consistently does the right things for others in some magnificent ways. ... Remko is always looking for opportunities to show people -- not just tell them -- how they might do things differently and better so they can achieve better outcomes."