Dr. Eleftherios “Lefteris” Iakovou is the Harvey Hubbell Professor of Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M
University and the Director of Manufacturing and Logistics Innovation Initiatives at the Texas A&M
Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). He further serves as the Director of Supply Chain Management
for the SecureAmerica Institute of TAMUS, a national consortium of industry and academia focusing on
Resilient and Secure Manufacturing Supply Chains for the U.S. Defense Industrial Base, and as the
Assistant Director for Resilience and Sustainability of Integrated Energy and Manufacturing Supply Chains
in the Texas A&M Energy Institute. Additionally, he is the Co-Director of the Global Value Chains
Program at the Mosbacher Institute of Trade, Economics and Public Policy at the Bush School of
Government and Public Service of Texas A&M.
Dr. Iakovou is also the Associate Director for Supply Chain Management and Applied Operations Research
at the Texas A&M Center of Applied Technology (TCAT). He has courtesy appointments as a Professor of
Supply Chain Management at the Mosbacher Institute of Trade, Economics and Public Policy at the Bush
School of Government and Public Service, and at the J. Mike Walker’66 Department of Mechanical
Engineering. Finally, he serves as the Supply Chain Lead for the Texas A&M Emergency Management
Advisory Group (TEMAG) that was formed at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Iakovou’s research areas include: Supply Chain Management, Applied Operations Research, Inventory
Management, Intermodal & Maritime Logistics, Food Supply Chains, Resilient and Sustainable Supply
Chains, Port Management, Global Logistics and Trade Facilitation, Manufacturing & Production Systems,
Humanitarian and Emergency Response Management Logistics. He has published more than 240 papers in
peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings, as well as three (3) books (including the “Supply Chain
Management for Sustainable Food Networks”, Wiley, 2015; and the “Breakthroughs in Growth: How
Supply Chains are Changing the World” forthcoming in 2022) and three (3) textbooks. He has supervised
more than 30 Ph.D. students and 20 Post-Docs. He is the Associate Editor for the Americas for the Maritime
Economics & Logistics (MEL) journal, and an Editorial Board Member for the International Journal of
Logistics Economics and Globalization (IJLEG).
Dr. Iakovou has entrepreneurially developed winning teams, initiatives and consortia with corporations and
governmental agencies alike, in the U.S., Greece and throughout the European Union. He can move easily
across professional fields and academic disciplines having in-depth experience in engineering,
management, policy-making, logistics and operations. He has served as the PI or Co-PI for more than 60
interdisciplinary research grants from federal, private, and industrial funding agencies and has consulted
extensively for a number of governmental and corporate organizations (including Fortune 500 companies)
both in the U.S. and the EU (including the European Commission), for more than two decades. He has
contributed in 100+ events as a keynote and/or invited speaker, and has organized and/or chaired 45
Workshops, and national and international Conferences, often involving heads of state, ministers,
ambassadors, and other dignitaries.
Dr. Iakovou received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1992 in Operations Research and Industrial
Engineering. Prior to joining Texas A&M in 2015, he served for 8 years as the Chair of the Department of
Industrial Management and then as the Chair of the School of Mechanical Engineering, at the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He guided the School in attaining the #1 ranking in Greece. He also
served as the President of the Board of Directors and later also as the CEO of the Alexandrian Innovation
Zone S.A.
Dr. Iakovou’s track record is based on the triple helix of being: (i) a nationally recognized supply chain
management academic scholar and leader; (ii) a successful fundraiser; and (ii) a strategic thinker with
transformational impacts on the organizations that he has served.