Jim Gowen

Senior Vice President, Sourcing, Global Supply Chain, and Chief Sustainability Officer at Verizon

Jim Gowen is Senior Vice President, Sourcing, Global Supply Chain, and Chief Sustainability Officer for Verizon. Since taking on these complementary roles in 2009, his team has enlisted more than 58,000 Verizon employees in 53 countries around the globe in helping to reduce the company’s environmental footprint while increasing the efficiency of a growing enterprise. Jim has been deeply involved in the advancement of innovative and sustainable technologies and spearheaded the launch of Verizon’s first ever green bond in the first quarter of 2019. Jim oversees other green initiatives throughout the company including setting Verizon’s first approved science based emissions reduction targets, committing to operational net zero emissions, expanding recycling and waste reduction, and management of end-of-life-cycle material recovery. In his supply chain role, Jim leads all sourcing, inventory planning and logistics operations globally. Jim is responsible for the planning of over $35B of inventory across all Verizon’s lines of business. Additionally, Jim has responsibility for procurement, warehousing, transportation, quality, returns and end-of-life monetization. He is a member of Penn State University’s Smeal Sustainability Advisory Board, the current Chairman of GeSI, and a board member of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium.