Students and alumni are invited to participate in an exclusive Office Hour with engineering alumni Jim Vounassis (BASc '94), Chief Operating Officer at Bombardier Transportation!
During this Office Hour, Jim Vounassis will talk about his career and lessons learned, 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. He also leads its industrial strategy to enhance competitiveness across all ecosystems. His priorities notably include 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 Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an Executive MBA from Queen’s School of Business in Kingston, Canada.