Jan C. Fransoo is Professor of Operations and Logistics Management at Tilburg University's School of Economics and Management in the Netherlands. At MIT CTL, Prof. Fransoo collaborates in the Sustainable Logistics Initiative of Dr. Josué Velázquez Martínez, the Megacity Logistics Lab of Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, and the Food and Retail Operations Lab of Dr. Christopher Mejía Argueta. Furthermore, he is involved in advising and evaluating PhD students, and in lecturing in the residential and blended SCM master's Programs and in the GCLOG Program.
From 2018 until 2020, he was on the faculty at Kuehne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany, simultaneously serving as the University’s Dean of Research and Member of the Executive Board. Prior to joining KLU, he served for 22 years on the faculty at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, where he still holds an honorary visiting professorship in its School of Industrial Engineering. Prof. Fransoo holds a Master of Science (ir.) degree in Industrial Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy (dr.) degree in Operations Management and Logistics, both from Eindhoven University of Technology.
Prof. Fransoo’s research studies operations, logistics, and supply chain management decision making in the retail, chemical, food, pharmaceutical and transport industries. His current research focuses in particular on retail distribution and channel management in developing markets, on intermodal container transport, and on sustainability and social responsibility in supply chains. His recent books include "Reaching 50 Million Nanostores: Retail Distribution in Emerging Megacities" and "Sustainable Supply Chains: A Research-Based Textbook on Operations and Strategy".
Fransoo has published over 130 academic journal articles and book chapters in journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Operations Research, Transportation Science, and European Journal of Operational Research. He currently serves as Associate Editor of Production and Operations Management and Operations Research, and on the Editorial Board of several other academic journals.
During his tenure at Eindhoven, Prof. Fransoo was Founding Program Director of the MSc program in Operations Management & Logistics, and subsequently served as Dean of the University’s Graduate School and Director of the 4TU Institute of Technological Design. Prof. Fransoo co-founded Dinalog (Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics), a Netherlands center of excellence in the area of supply chain management, and served as the academic member in the Strategic Platform for Logistics, setting the national research and innovation agenda in logistics, mandated by the Dutch government. As part from his academic activities, he has conducted dozens of projects with industry, mainly through and with his PhD, PDEng and MSc students, and has consulted with the World Bank and various national governments in developed and developing countries. Fransoo held visiting appointments at various universities, including Clemson University; Stanford University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). In 2011, he was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
