The Change that Senior Leaders Can’t Delegate: Confront the Orthodoxy, Develop Acceptance, Override Customizations

The design of a demand-driven operating model is proven. Whether a company actually captures the benefits depends on how the change is led.

In this final session of our four-part series, Erik Bush, EVP of Internal Operations at Algo, joins host Brad Mitchler, General Manager at Algo, to discuss the part of a supply chain transformation that can’t be handed to a project team: executive sponsorship.

Moving from MRP-led planning to a pull-based model meets resistance in three predictable places. Senior leaders whose careers were built inside MRP push back with measured, expert objections. Planners who have been evaluated on forecast accuracy for years worry about what the change means for their role. Local process owners defend the customizations that have built up around the old model. Erik and Brad walk through each one: how to tell a genuine design gap from discomfort with the shift, how to turn planner skepticism into advocacy, and when to hold the line.

They also take on a newer challenge. AI-assisted building, or vibe coding, has made local workarounds faster and cheaper to create than ever, and every new one makes standardization harder. The session covers the questions sponsors should ask before any AI-built tool goes live, and closes with five practices that separate the sponsors who see a deployment through from those who let it drift.

The session is built for boards, CFOs, and senior supply chain leaders preparing to sponsor, or already sponsoring, a demand-driven transformation.

• CFOs and finance leaders accountable for working capital
• COOs and VP/Director-level leaders in Supply Chain, Operations, and Planning
• S&OP and demand planning leaders
• Board members with oversight of inventory and working capital performance

• Why resistance is predictable, not a warning sign, and the pattern successful sponsors use to address it: understand the concern, engage constructively, and hold the line where the change can’t yield.
• How to recognize measured, expert objections from senior leaders and tell a real design gap from discomfort with the shift.
• The five commitments that build planner acceptance, from rebranding the role to showing wins early.
• How to review local customizations, including AI-built tools, so the deployment converges instead of drifting.
• The five sponsor practices that can’t be delegated, including staying visible through the performance trough.

Erik Bush

EVP, Internal Operations, Algo

Brad Mitchler

General Manager, Americas