{"id":966,"date":"2026-06-30T14:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/?p=966"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:59:11","slug":"industry-innovator-dr-jane-sieglers-intrepid-travels-into-supply-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/2026\/06\/30\/industry-innovator-dr-jane-sieglers-intrepid-travels-into-supply-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Industry Innovator: Dr. Jane Siegler\u2019s Intrepid Travels into Supply Chain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Brad Seehausen<\/strong>
Marketing and Communications Intern, Lacy School of Business ’26<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be hard to find a better place to begin a career in supply chain management than at the Crossroads of America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some follow trends, others capitalize on them. Early in her career, Dr. Jane Siegler recognized that a supply chain boom was coming \u2014 and chose to build her expertise before the field fully emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many years later, those educational and entrepreneurial investments have paid dividends. Now eight years into her tenure at the Lacy School of Business, she is exposing students who share her passion for supply chain to the opportunities she identified decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born and raised in Brazil, Dr. Siegler was instilled early with a passion for entrepreneurship and business \u2014 one she pursued in the classroom and in the marketplace at the same time. Across her undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral studies, she put her learning into practice in parallel, her industry of choice: cosmetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was in the beauty industry and ran a few cosmetic stores, but there was also a school component,” Dr. Siegler says. “We would provide cosmetology training while also supplying the products and equipments for any new entrepreneurs starting their businesses in the cosmetics industry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching through experience was a strength she would carry through the rest of her career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was during her Ph.D. at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a leading higher-education institution in S\u00e3o Paulo that she decided her journey would continue somewhere new: Indianapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having planted her roots in Indianapolis, the Associate Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Analytics has gone on to teach around the world \u2014 from undergraduates to MBA students, from the U.S. to Brazil, Europe and\u00a0India. That global reach now extends into her research as well. She chairs the SC4 Network (Supply Chain 4.0) and collaborates with partners across Europe and Brazil. Despite the range, Dr. Siegler emphasizes that supply chains play an integral role no matter the location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Across the world, supply chains are apparent, but it is not the same as here,” Dr. Siegler says. “From a teaching perspective, you need to understand that it’s not what you were teaching, but who you are teaching to. In India, for example, I had to look for a case that was meaningful to the students. I remember trying to use an example of Peloton. The students would look at me like ‘what are you talking about?’ So, when we talk about effective communication across cultures, it’s not just about the language that you are speaking, it’s about conveying the language of the business.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenges of teaching across cultures only deepen Dr. Siegler’s conviction that understanding them matters. In shaping her approach within\u00a0Lacy’s MBA program<\/a>, she watches both domestic and international trends closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the recent establishment of the\u00a0Supply Chain program at Lacy<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 built with her direct involvement \u2014 the curriculum has centered on a deliberately diverse skill set. From forecasting sales to managing production and labor costs, Dr. Siegler stresses that supply chain management develops soft and technical skills in equal measure. Her pitch to interested students? Look at where the technology is heading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you look at the top ten purposes of AI usage in business, they are related to operations and supply chain,” Dr. Siegler says. “So if you’re curious and want to look ahead at what technology and AI are going to do to your job, while also being able to make a difference, look at a career in supply chain.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a background in the cosmetics industry, much of Dr. Siegler’s research has since moved into the automotive industry \u2014 a fitting focus for a Hoosier. Indiana is the only state to host U.S. assembly plants for three of Japan’s major automakers: Toyota, Subaru, and Honda. Her work increasingly examines how automotive supply chains and manufacturing clusters operate across regions and borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Siegler does not underestimate the importance of that industry to the state, and she wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t believe that you can teach business if you’re not very much integrated in the business atmosphere. Indy is where you do that, it’s where you get integrated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sense of integration shapes how she runs her classroom, especially with graduate students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her goal is a collaborative environment built on transparent learning, where she draws on students’ lived experiences for two reasons: relatable case studies and real value creation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are not a lot of expectations that the professor has all of the knowledge,” Dr. Siegler says. “You build knowledge together. Part of the deliverables is actually creating value for students to bring to companies that are looking to grow and expand their business abroad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That approach clearly resonates. In 2025\u20132026, Lacy’s MBA students elected Dr. Siegler the program’s Most Outstanding Faculty of the Year \u2014 a recognition that came from the very students she credits as her partners in building knowledge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Her time at LSB has only sharpened her ambition to grow the supply chain program. She credits her success not only to her own work but also to the staff, students, and faculty of Lacy. She is also proud of having raised two Butler graduates herself and remains optimistic that the program’s opportunities for real-world experience will keep expanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer months show no sign of slowing her down. From a research conference in Europe to consulting work with energy companies in Korea<\/a>, her drive for the field is unmistakable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of operations, Dr. Siegler enjoys gardening, hiking, running, and cycling. She may be as much an expert in athletics as she is in supply chain management, having completed a marathon, an ultra-marathon, and a 100-mile \u201cCentury\u201d bike ride. Her beloved dogs and loving family keep her company as she continues to thrive in a booming industry that continues to evolve in Indianapolis and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It would be hard to find a better place to begin a career in supply chain management than at the Crossroads of America. <\/p>\n

While some follow trends, others capitalize on them. Early in her career, Dr. Jane Siegler recognized that a supply chain boom was coming \u2014 and chose to build her expertise before the field fully emerged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9198528,"featured_media":1023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-insights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9198528"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1030,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/1030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}