Balancing Risk, Technology, and Sustainability
In today’s dynamic landscape, manufacturing and supply chain operations face increasing complexity, driven by global risks, environmental considerations, and rapid technological advancements. The upcoming MIT ILP Lead Edge Webinar, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, will explore critical challenges and emerging strategies shaping the sector's future.
Topics will include managing supply chain risks, evaluating environmental impact scenarios, and leveraging AI and digitalization to improve operational efficiency and resilience. The webinar will also address approaches to carbon footprint mitigation and the role of accurate carbon accounting in advancing sustainability objectives.
Register today to gain valuable perspectives on navigating the evolving manufacturing and supply chain environment.
Registration Fee: Complimentary
José Ramos comes to CR from OSRAM (R&D), where he was Head of Engineering and Business Development at Innovation Americas. In his role at OSRAM, Ramos was a strong proponent of the ILP, attended many of our events, and experienced first-hand the OSRAM-ILP relationship. Before OSRAM, Ramos was Project Developer at NORESCO/United Technologies in Westborough, MA, where he managed engineering, sales, marketing, financial and legal teams to implement sustainability projects for industrial, commercial, and institutional customers in the US and the Caribbean. Before that, Ramos was an independent technology consultant for many years focused on Spanish-speaking markets. Ramos has also held positions as Lecturer at MIT (Spanish), Engineering Manager (Shooshanian Engineering), and Mechanical Engineer for Central America and Caribbean projects (Stone & Webster).
Ramos earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a Master of Arts in Spanish at Boston College. He also completed a one-year Icelandic language program at the University of Reykjavik.
Research Scientist, MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics Director, MIT Supply Chain and Global Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network
Christopher Mejía Argueta is a Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. He develops applied research on retailing operations and food supply chains for multiple stakeholders, including consumer packaged goods manufacturers, carriers, and retailers in the MIT Emerging Market Economies Logistics Lab (EMeL), formerly the Food and Retail Operations Lab. His research focuses on improving the efficiency and flexibility of operations in multiple stakeholders, designing route-to-market and logistics strategies to address changing purchasing patterns, coupling these dynamic consumer profiles with the retail landscape, and reducing undesired socioeconomic and health problems related to income disparity, social backwardness, food malnutrition, food waste by proposing sustainable policies, business models to help vulnerable population segments.
Dr. Chris Mejía is also the Director of the MIT Supply Chain and Global Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network for Latin America. This initiative, conducted by the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics in the region, aims to lead impactful research and education projects for all companies, the public sector, and society together with top Latin American universities and the support of the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI). In addition, Dr. Chris Mejía serves as the Director of the MIT Graduate Certificate in Logistics & Supply Chain Management (GCLOG), an elite program from the MIT SCALE Network geared towards outstanding graduate students from Latin America.
He holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering focusing on supply chain management and multicriteria optimization, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering focusing on Humanitarian Operations. Dr. Mejía got both degrees with summa cum laude honors (best grade, top 1% students) in both classes at Monterrey Tech, Mexico. In 2013, Dr. Mejía was the academic leader at CLI, where he developed dozens of projects with industry and other academic partners related to disaster response, green logistics, packaging, and last-mile distribution in emerging markets. Before joining MIT CTL, Dr. Mejía Argueta was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUe), the Netherlands, where he investigated retailing operations for emerging markets and formulated estimation models to analyze the prevalence of nanostores in emerging markets.
Global supply chains are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions like climate change, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of resilience strategies. During the presentation, Dr. Mejia will present the effect of behavior in making decisions, which often increases waste. We will explore the tradeoffs in taking actions for perishable items and understand the role of Triple-A capabilities—agility, adaptability, and alignment—in mitigating the negative impacts of significant disruptions on corporate performance and guiding capacity improvement after a disruption. Dr. Mejia will present a case study analyzing the movement of agri-food cargo in an international network of ports, which uses millions of data rows to explore how adaptability and alignment strategies can make supply chains more resilient and efficient. Other mitigation strategies will be presented to the audience for reflection.
Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
Camilo A. Mora-Quiñones is a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, specializing in applied research, field experiments, and optimizing last-mile logistics in emerging markets to better serve nanostores. His work integrates technology, urban logistics, and supply chain innovation to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of micro-retail operations.
Mora-Quiñones holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences with a focus on last-mile logistics and urban freight transportation, as well as an M.Sc. in Engineering Sciences and a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey, where he graduated with high distinction.
Dr. Mora-Quiñones is the 2020 recipient of the Best Master’s Thesis in Mexico Award, issued by the Mexican Logistics and Supply Chain Association, recognizing his outstanding contributions to logistics and supply chain research.
Beyond academia, he is the host of the "Emerging Market Retail Podcast," where he engages with industry leaders and researchers to explore the future of retail in developing economies.
Prior to joining MIT, Mora-Quiñones was a lecturer at Tecnológico de Monterrey, leading research on urban freight distribution, digital transformation in nanostores, and data-driven logistics solutions. With over 12 years of experience spanning real estate, food & beverage, retail, energy, recycling, and technology, he has worked across Mexico, Colombia, the USA, and Canada, bridging industry and research to solve real-world logistics challenges.
Nanostores—small, informal grocery outlets—are the backbone of retail in emerging markets, providing essential goods to billions of consumers and serving as a primary source of income for millions of families. However, their integration into modern supply chains presents significant last-mile logistics challenges. This presentation examines the inefficiencies in current distribution models, the impact of curbside availability on delivery productivity, and the economic, social, and environmental benefits of dedicated loading-unloading zones. Drawing on field research and real-world case studies, Mora will explore strategic, tactical, and operational solutions to optimize urban last-mile deliveries for the world’s largest retail channel.
Last-Mile Logistics for Nanostores in Emerging Markets:
Co-founder, NetaCarbon
Mar is from Mexico and a recent MBA graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management. She has extensive experience in corporate finance, investor relations, and carbon management.
She worked at a Kenyan-based forestry company, where she experienced firsthand the struggles businesses face in navigating the complexities of carbon projects.
She has developed strong domain expertise and a robust network of connections in the carbon space. In her free time, you can find her sailing on the Charles River or running marathons around the world.
Before co-founding NetaCarbon, Grace was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where she helped launch its Sustainability Practice in Greater China. She then worked at KawiSafi Ventures, a climate VC fund based in Kenya. There, she co-authored a whitepaper on the value of the carbon market to emerging market investors.
Grace is from Hong Kong and is currently based in Boston. She recently graduated with a joint MBA/MPP degree (with Distinction) from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. Outside of work, she loves traveling, hiking, and enjoying a good glass of wine or cocktail drink with friends.
CEO & Co-Founder, Helix Carbon
Evan Haas is CEO & Co-Founder of Helix Carbon, an industrial decarbonization company that turns CO2 into carbon-negative industrial chemicals. Prior to Helix, he was the Senior Fellow at E14 Fund, the MIT-affiliated venture fund that invests in deep technology startups, and a consultant at BCG where he focused on military aerospace and climate technology commercialization & policy with Breakthrough Energy and the Biden Administration. Evan holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and MBA from MIT.