Manuel Backhaus is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in operations. He has a deep knowledge of the functional areas of procurement, supply chain management, and production. In particular, he is an expert in spend reduction, efficiency improvement, and state-of-the-art information technology in procurement. Furthermore, he is adept in business process outsourcing, organizational design and process reengineering.

Manuel started his consulting career at Roland Berger & Partner in 1988. Later, he joined A.T. Kearney, where he led the Central European Supply Management Competence Team for the last two years before joining AlixPartners. In this function, he was responsible for various engagements, mostly for large global clients, with a specific focus on cost reduction and organization, including:

• Strategic sourcing and purchasing organization redesign for leading global corporations in various industries: automotive, engineering, electronics and high tech, consumer goods, energy, utilities, transportation, financial institutions, and media.
• Company-wide spend management and procurement synergy identification for a large, globally operating utility group.
• Strategy, design, and implementation of a group-wide B2B platform for a global automotive OEM.
• Supply chain redesign in various industries: automotive, high tech, energy, and consumer goods.
• Restructuring programs for various corporations in engineering and media.
• Post-merger integration for major utilities company.

Besides his work on client engagement, Manuel has been extensively involved in the development of innovative concepts for procurement. Moreover, he participated or led several large, worldwide procurement benchmark studies.

Manuel holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Aachen, Germany. He also holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. He is an author of various publications on supply management, and he is a regular guest speaker and moderator of procurement conferences and conventions.