Profiles

Jose-Luis Bretones-Lopez

About

Jose-Luis was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. Graduated with a MS and a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad. Politécnica de Madrid (ETSII). He joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1991, as an intern two years before graduating, to start his career optimizing manufacturing processes. He continued in the telecommunications industry progressing through several promotions and roles in the global supply chain and manufacturing operations arena, eventually earning responsibilities across several European markets. In 1998, was appointed EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) lead to a global supply chain re-engineering team, and was relocated to Oklahoma City, OK where Lucent Technologies headquartered its telephone switching business unit. During this assignment, he earned his MBA degree.

Jose-Luis left Lucent-Bell Labs in 2002 to join McDonald’s APMEA (Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa) and he moved with his wife to Chicago where McDonald's is globally headquartered. In his first role at McDonald's, reporting to the APMEA President, Jose-Luis was based in Chicago but spent most of his time traveling throughout China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, the Middle East; and a number of countries in Africa. For a period of almost six years in this role as regional lead for Strategic Planning, Program and Project Management, Jose-Luis partnered with country management teams, franchisee owners, suppliers and Boards to drive innovation and the adoption of strategic initiatives. 24Hrs (Hong Kong), Delivery (Egypt) and McCafé (Australia) are examples of successful innovation originated in APMEA during this time. In 2008, Jose-Luis stared his second and last role with McDonald’s as Director Global Supply Chain Strategy. He was internally endorsed by the COO and recruited by the CSCO to revitalize the global sourcing strategy for beef and pork (~$4B in annual spend), and to lead the sustainability and animal welfare strategy (for all protein-based products). During these years, he became a founding member and served as director for the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), partnering with WWF, Walmart, Cargill among other industry leaders, to drive impactful changes in the way cattle was raised around the world.

In early 2009, Jose-Luis joined his second Board serving as a volunteer Trustee with Roycemore School. During his tenure through July 2019, he held several roles as Vice-Chair, Treasurer and Chair for the Finance Committee. In late 2012, Jose-Luis was recruited to serve as EVP Strategic Sourcing & Supply Chain and executive officer at A.M.Castle (NYSE:CAS), a then $1B publicly-traded company. In this last corporate role, he was accountable to the Board of Directors and the CEO for redesigning the global supply chain operations during a time of turmoil and recession across the three industries where CAS operated: Industrial Metals, Aerospace and Oil & Gas. Due to the strategic turnaround nature of his role, Jose-Luis played a very active role as part of the Board of Directors in this publicly traded company.

Jose-Luis founded in 2015 a boutique global consulting firm called LINAR Advisors that he currently leads as Managing Partner. As of today, he also serves as an independent Board Member and Treasurer for the US-Spain Executives Community organization based in Washington DC. From time to time, Jose-Luis is often retained to serve as advisor for privately managed industry funds and firms. 

Most recently, Jose-Luis has been asked to serve as an Independent Director for Griffith Foods, a family owned global developer and manufacturer of customized food ingredients.

Jose-Luis has earned numerous professional accreditations from Kellogg School of Management (USA), INSEAD School of Management (France), Goldratt Institute (Spain), and APICS; and has been quoted and profiled as a thought leader and supply chain expert in several publications:

• Strategic Supply Chain Management: The Five Core Disciplines for Top Performance, 2nd Editon (By Shoshanah Cohen, McGraw-Hill 2013)
• Leadership without Excuses: How to Create Performance and High Accountability (Instead of Just Talking about It) (By Jeff Grimshaw, McGraw-Hill, 2010)
• Vested Outsourcing: five rules that will transform outsourcing. (By Kate Vitasec, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

Although Jose-Luis met his wife Lisa in Spain in 1991, it was not until 1999 that they got married in San Francisco where Lisa is originally from. Jose-Luis currently lives in Evanston, IL with Lisa and their two daughters.