"Leading Through Challenging Times"
Students and alumni are invited to participate in an exclusive Office Hour with Waterloo Engineering alumnus Jim Vounassis (BASc '94), Chief Operating Officer at Bombardier Transportation!
During this Office Hour, Jim Vounassis will talk about his career and his experience leading teams through challenging times, while sharing career advice and insights into the future of engineering, particularly in the transportation sector. Join fellow alumni and students for this virtual office hour to get advice on your career, ask questions, and get to know the COO of Bombardier Transportation. Please bring your questions!
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Jim
Vounassis
BASc 1994,
Mechanical
Engineering
Chief
Operating
Officer
Bombardier
Transportation
Biography
Dimitrios (Jim) Vounassis was appointed Chief Operating Officer for Bombardier Transportation in June 2018. In this role, he is responsible for Transportation’s global operations, quality and procurement functions. His priorities notably include leading the industrial strategy to enhance competitiveness across all ecosystems, driving operational excellence within Bombardier’s rail segment, and delighting customers with improved quality and delivery performance.
Mr. Vounassis joined Bombardier in June 2015 as Vice President, Operations Strategy. In this position, he conducted detailed reviews of the company’s operations and implemented strategies to increase value creation across the organization. In January 2017, Jim Vounassis was promoted Chief Transformation and Procurement Officer, with extended responsibilities to lead the company’s operations transformation, manage its relations with suppliers and ensure that goods and services purchased by Bombardier meet the highest quality standards.
Mr. Vounassis started his career at Kraft Canada before moving to Pratt and Whitney, where he spent nine years and fulfilled various management roles, including Vice President, Strategic Sourcing from 2007 to 2009. In this position, he developed and implemented an emerging markets strategy that lowered costs while supporting efforts to gain access to new business. As Director, Logistics and Materials Management, he developed lean inventory management strategies and deployed supply base monitoring tools. He also helped to integrate a newly acquired manufacturing campus into Pratt & Whitney’s organization as Deputy Director, Polish Operations, and led a Chinese aircraft component facility as General Manager, SPWAEC Joint Venture.
More recently Jim Vounassis worked at Baker Hughes, a Houston-based oilfield products, technology and services company from 2009 to 2012, first as Vice President, Strategic Sourcing and Manufacturing Strategy, and then as Vice President, Global Manufacturing. In these roles, he implemented a major transformation across the manufacturing and supply base of the company which decreased cost while increasing customer intimacy and capacity across the global footprint. Prior to joining Bombardier, Mr. Vounassis was Vice President, Global Operations at Pharmascience, a pharmaceutical company supplying generic and branded products in Canada and around the globe.
Jim Vounassis holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an Executive MBA from Queen’s School of Business in Kingston, Canada.
Connect with Jim Vounassis on LinkedIn.