Brent Johnson

Brent Johnson is a supply chain engineering and transformation leader with more than 25 years of experience designing, optimizing, and modernizing distribution networks across complex retail and wholesale environments. His expertise is rooted in industrial engineering and spans a wide range of material handling and fulfillment systems, facility and network design, real estate strategy, construction, and capital planning.

During his career at Walgreens, Brent spent 15 years in a high-volume distribution center. Deeply ingrained in the daily management team, he drove improvements in productivity through operational processes, management systems, designing and implementing upgrades to the material handling systems, and gaining hands-on experience that reinforced the importance of understanding where and how the work happens.  Throughout this time, Brent progressed through leadership roles spanning Project Management and Industrial Engineering.  When he moved to a corporate role in Supply Chain Engineering Management, he led strategic projects and programs throughout the nationwide network, broadening his approach and deepening his knowledge in retail distribution and e-commerce fulfillment.

At Essendant, Brent became a key member of the Supply Chain Leadership Team, where he gained an extensive understanding of distribution network design and real estate.  He built and led an integrated multidisciplinary team responsible for material handling engineering and facility design, facilities management and maintenance, indirect procurement, capital planning, network modeling, EHS, physical security, operational regulatory compliance, supply chain systems, project management, and the execution of strategic transformation initiatives.

This progression has provided Brent with a unique perspective that combines hands-on operational understanding with executive-level strategy development and investment planning. Brent has seen firsthand how scale impacts processes and systems and that successful implementations are built upon a detailed understanding of how people, processes, and systems interact to maximize and leverage the benefit each can provide. His approach combines analytical rigor with practical implementation experience, enabling clients to move confidently from vision to strategy, from strategy to plan, and ultimately from plan to successful execution.

Brent holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been trained in the Maynard Operation Sequence Technique (MOST) system of work measurement and Lean Six Sigma.