By Maria Saporta
Atlanta business and civic leader Duriya Farooqui has been tapped to be president of Georgia-Pacific’s Point A Center for Supply Chain Innovation, which was launched last year.
Most recently, Farooqui has served as the director of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, a city of Atlanta led blue-ribbon group of top business and civic leaders. Her leadership at ACP was instrumental in launching a Center for Workforce Innovation, a partnership between five corporations and Atlanta Technical College.
In her new role, Farooqui will oversee Point A’s strategic direction and lead member recruitment efforts. The center, which opened June 2018 in Atlanta’s TechSquare Labs, is a forward-thinking innovation hub where members collaborate to develop solutions that drive global supply chain efficiency.
“Companies across industries face similar challenges, while existing and next-generation technologies have the power to redefine their future supply chain,” Farooqui said. “By bringing companies together to contribute their unique capabilities and develop solutions that benefit all, we have the opportunity to cement Atlanta’s position as a global leader in supply chain innovation.”
A former principal at Bain & Company, Farooqui also held several leadership positions with the government of the city of Atlanta, including chief operating officer.
She is on the boards of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) and its subsidiaries, including the New York Stock Exchange. She is also an advisor for Engage, an Atlanta venture fund and accelerator created to strengthen collaboration between corporations and entrepreneurs – of which Georgia-Pacific is a member.
Farooqui earned a master’s degree in public administration in international development from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and mathematics from Hampshire College.
“Duriya brings nearly 20 years of executive leadership and strategic consulting experience in which she successfully led organizations through complex challenges and opportunities,” said Kevin Heath, Georgia-Pacific’s senior vice president and chief procurement officer. “Her depth and breadth of experience make her the right choice to lead this effort to help transform the global supply chain.”
The Point A Center for Supply Chain Innovation is a place where leading companies, start-ups and academic institutions come together to solve complex supply chain challenges through rapid experimentation. Opened in June 2018 and backed by Georgia-Pacific, Point A members conduct use cases for harnessing and applying Industry 4.0 innovations such as robotics, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning and autonomous vehicles to build the supply chain of the future.
