About Us
Global Lean Summit
OUR STORY
A Passion For Lean
In the midst of the COVID shutdowns Jared Thatcher had many friends that owned small businesses who were on the verge of bankruptcy. He knew that if they understood the principles of Lean, it could help them ‘bounce back’. In an effort to help as many as possible, Jared hosted what he thought would be a one-time free virtual Lean summit. What began as a response to crisis and giving back to the community, quickly evolved into an annual event, thanks to the overwhelming support and positive feedback from both attendees and speakers. Today, he runs two events. The first is the Virtual Lean Summit, a free event, giving back to the community that has supported him. And the second is an in-person event, the Global Lean Summit, designed to help companies break past barriers to Lean implementation so they can create a thriving Lean Thinking culture in their organizations.
"My vision for these Summits is simple: create an event where every speaker, every session, every interaction leaves you feeling enriched, enlightened, and eager for more. An experience that creates unparralleled value for the participants and their organizations."
-Jared Thatcher, Host and Founder
Our Team
Jared’s journey into the world of Lean began over two decades ago when he was the manufacturing plant administrative manager at Kimber of America. Later at Daimler Trucks North America, he was part of the global effort to bring Lean Thinking into the office side of the business. While in the project management office, his team saved Daimler over $1.1 billion dollars over three years. He was recruited by a consulting firm where he helped with Lean implementation at organizations like Nike, Mercy Corps, Portland General Electric, and many others. He was the Business Transformation Designer at Alaska Airlines restarting their Lean department, and for the last five years has worked on Lean implementation in government. He holds an MBA from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and attended EADA Business School in Barcelona, Spain.
Anna Thatcher brings a wealth of experience as a project manager with a background in both large and start-up companies. She has joined the Global Lean Summit and looks forward to implementing best practices from previous summits to have another outstanding event! Anna’s educational background includes a degree in Economics from Portland State University, she a certified Scrum Master, and holds Certificates in Technical Project Management and Business Analytics from MIT xpro and the Harvard Business Analytics program. She is very passionate about Lean and applying its principles in daily life!
OUR SPEAKERS
At the end of this year, we have had the privilege of working with over 160 speakers from around the world addressing an audience spread across 95 countries. Our speakers are thought leaders, authors, experts and practitioners of Lean and other fields. In addition to Lean, we have had experts in Operational Excellence, Change Management, Design Thinking, Agile, Supply Chain and many other business disciplines helping their organizations to improve. Our speakers are dedicated to helping our attendees gain critical skills and improve their knowledge to be able do the same thing for their organizations.
