CSCMP names 2017 Emerging Leader Award winners

The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) has announced this year's winners of its annual Young Professionals Emerging Leader Award: Nathan Chaney, a branch manager for the logistics and transportation company Mainfreight, and David Perez, a director with the commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield. The awards will be formally presented during the opening general session at CSCMP's EDGE Supply Chain Conference on September 25 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The CSCMP Emerging Leader Award was created to recognize outstanding supply chain management professionals, age 30 and under, for their contributions to and future influence on the profession.

"The future of our industry lies with today's young professionals who will be tomorrow's leaders," said CSCMP President and CEO Rick Blasgen in a statement announcing the awards. "It is important that we recognize the contributions of emerging talent and the positive impact they have on our profession today and will continue to have in the future."

As a branch manager for Auckland, New Zealand-based Mainfreight, Chaney manages sales, recruiting, human resources, finance, and operations for the company's Dallas-Fort Worth-area distribution center, which he helped design and construct. Chaney is also heavily involved in CSCMP's Dallas/Fort Worth (Texas) Roundtable, where he has served as the hospitality chair and young professional chair, and is currently vice president of programs. As the young professional chair in 2016-17, he organized events for students and young professionals at a local high school, a community college, three universities, and the roundtable. These events reached more than 200 students and young professionals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Chaney received a degree in logistics and supply chain management from the University of North Texas in 2009.

Perez is a senior associate with Cushman & Wakefield's Orlando, Florida, Industrial Brokerage Services team. Since joining the firm in 2012, Perez has been involved in transactions totaling over US$300 million, and his team is routinely recognized as one of the top three producing teams in the Orlando market. Perez earned a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Central Florida (UCF) in 2010. He is a member of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) Developing Leaders initiative and was recognized by UCF's Real Estate Academic Leaders program.

An in-depth interview with both Chaney and Perez will run in the upcoming Q3/2017 issue of CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly. To read about last year's award winners, see "On the rise" from the Q3/2016 issue. Video interviews with past award winners can also be found here.