Fractional Supply Chain Advisor

Twenty years building supply chains across six continents. Experience that's available to you — without a full-time hire.

Providing advice to organisations and operators on designing, fixing, and scaling global supply chains — drawing on two decades leading them for Ericsson, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Canon, and Expro, across more than 30 countries spanning the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Richie Cuthbert
RICHIE CUTHBERTUAE / GLOBAL
The defining path

A career that grew in scope at every stage

Early in my career I learned the value of trust in people through leaders who took a chance on me — from my first EPC role, my first overseas assignment with Ericsson, and my entry into pharma. The knowledge and values they instilled gave me the confidence to take on new challenges and build successful teams. From single-country project roles, through multi-country management and regional leadership, to building supply chain capability across 21 countries, and ultimately a global corporate remit — traversing industries, cultures, and complex supply chains brought fresh perspectives and the opportunity to cross-pollinate best practices at every stage, applying cross-industry insights to build resilient, optimised networks. I'm truly grateful for each and every learning.

01

EPC

Single country project roles

Project-focused, single-country roles — building a solid foundation of operational knowledge, structure, discipline, and quality on which to build on.

02

Telecoms

Multi-country management

Management team responsibility across multi-country projects and teams, contract management and budget management, a secondment to corporate head office, and promotion into a first leadership role.

03

Pharmaceuticals

Regional leadership

Regional role — new affiliate set up, establishing a function and a regional supply chain infrastructure from the ground up. Exposure to highly regulated manufacturing environments. Regional toll manufacturing responsibility.

04

Technology

Growth markets — 21 countries

Leadership focused, providing direction to a team of supply chain professionals. Developing upon existing team and infrastructure to build supply chain capability supporting YoY double-digit growth. Strategic roadmap for future infrastructure development.

05

Energy — Oil & Gas

Global leadership

Corporate role with functional responsibility for global warehousing, materials planning, and inventory, with focus on standardisation and alignment between projects, manufacturing locations, countries, and regions.

Global footprint

Six continents.

Beyond the roles that shaped my career, I have worked directly across the following markets:

Based / Lived
CanadaIndonesia NetherlandsRussia UAEUK USZambia
Markets Directly Worked
BruneiMalaysiaThailand ChinaIndiaBahrain QatarKuwaitSaudi Arabia EgyptLebanonSyria LibyaTunisiaAlgeria MoroccoIranIsrael Czech RepublicSwedenPoland GermanySpainItaly FranceBelgiumSouth Africa ArgentinaBrazilColombia
The journey

From EPC sites to boardrooms

Behind every stop on this path were great people — influential leaders, supportive colleagues, and challenging projects that shaped how I think. What I've valued most has been building teams and mentoring newly promoted managers, watching people grow into roles they weren't always sure they were ready for. I believe success is delivered through team connection and guidance, motivation and empowerment, and leading by example.

1990s

EPC Projects — Enron, Shell, BP, AMEC, Kvaerner

Early career grounded in large-scale engineering, procurement, and construction projects — supply chain discipline, robust quality systems, structure, process, and communication in highly collaborative cross-functional project environments where deadlines matter.

1997–2002

LM Ericsson — UAE, Qatar, Zanzibar / Ericsson Business Consulting, Sweden

Relocated to Abu Dhabi to support telecoms infrastructure projects during the dotcom-era telecom boom. Seconded to corporate head office for the development of a standardised global logistics solution.

2002–2007

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (Pfizer)

Headhunted via KPMG to build the Middle East supply chain from the ground up as part of the establishment of a regional affiliate office. Supporting distributors, government hospitals, and global tenders with solid dose pharma, cold chain biopharma, and nutritional products.

2007–2014

Canon Europa NV — Emerging Markets

Redeveloped existing supply chain infrastructure supporting double-digit YoY growth across MENA markets, integrated Francophone African markets into a centralised supply chain model, delivered major transformation initiatives, demand-driven supply chain, implemented an EMEA distribution hub in Dubai, and built a capable, confident supply chain team — before taking on direct responsibility for Canon's operations in Russia.

2014–2020s

Expro Group — Aberdeen, Dubai, Houston, Kuala Lumpur

Corporate role with responsibility for the Global Materials Management function, standardisation of warehouse, planning, and inventory processes, supporting manufacturing locations, oil & gas energy projects, and maintenance of the asset fleet worldwide. Established supply chain shared services function, supply chain audits, due diligence reviews for potential acquisitions, and post-merger integration (people, processes, and systems).

Now

Fractional Advisor, and Interim Opportunities

Working with organisations and individuals across global locations to build and develop operational capability through advisory, training, and fractional leadership.

Cross-cultural experience

Learnings from four very different cultures

A career built across four very different cultures — British, Scandinavian, American, and Japanese organisations — equipped me with a very different perspective and logic on how organisational decisions get made, risks get managed, and transformation gets delivered, radically shaping my adaptive leadership style, and equipping me to lead with both strategic agility and deep empathy. A fluency that has contributed to the individual I am today.

Scandinavian — LM Ericsson

Consensus & long-term trust

Low hierarchy, open debate regardless of title, and trust extended before it's earned. Decisions take longer to reach but land with genuine buy-in once made, and sustainability is treated as a long-term discipline, not a slogan.

Principle applied today

Build alignment before you build a plan — it moves slower up front and faster all the way through.

Japanese — Canon

Discipline, kaizen & process

Continuous incremental improvement as a daily habit, not a programme. Decisions build slowly through group consensus (nemawashi), but execution afterward is exceptionally disciplined and quality is treated as non-negotiable.

Principle applied today

Small, relentless improvement compounds further than any single large initiative.

British — Enron, Shell, BP, AMEC, Kvaerner

Rigour, process & protocol

Structured chains of command, rigorous quality and HSE standards, and an unspoken code of professionalism and understatement. Problems get solved through clear protocol and process discipline, not improvisation.

Principle applied today

Get the framework right first — good process prevents most problems before they start.

American — Wyeth (American Home Products)

Speed, ownership & accountability

Clear individual ownership, direct communication, and comfort with rapid course-correction. Bias toward action, measured relentlessly against clear KPIs — the cost is occasional short-termism, the benefit is real momentum.

Principle applied today

Assign one owner, set the metric, and move — perfect alignment can wait for the next iteration.

How we can work together

Fractional supply chain expertise, without the full-time overhead

01

Projects, Programmes & Advisory

Strategic input and guidance on supply chain infrastructure projects and change programmes — improving vendor performance or managing your logistics partners, on a fractional basis.

02

Fractional Leadership

Hands-on supply chain leadership for organisations that need senior capability without a full-time executive hire.

03

Training & Capability Building

Developing in-house supply chain people and processes, retaining capability within your business for the long term.

Get in touch

Let's talk about your supply chain

Whether it's an advisory position or an interim opportunity, a fractional leadership need, a training programme for your team, or even just a chat — please reach out directly.

20+ yrsGlobal supply chain leadership
6Continents worked across
30+Countries with hands-on supply chain experience
€1B+Combined supply chain value managed annually