Executive Leadership Team
Executive Leadership Team
Fawaz Khalil
President and Chief Executive Officer
Cathy Venable
Chief Financial Officer
John Heffernan
Chief Operating Officer
Krishna Kundur
Senior VP of IT and Chief Information Officer
A. J. Wesseler
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Fawaz Khalil
President and Chief Executive Officer
Fawaz has 25+ years of experience across a range of industries and geographies leading teams to deliver above market growth. For the past 12 years, Fawaz has been a P&L owner for businesses ranging from middle market private equity owned to Fortune 500 companies, delivering results in turnaround, growth or strategic shift situations. Prior to joining ModusLink, Fawaz was President and CEO at Halco Lighting Technologies, and President at Filtration Group, besides leadership roles at Danaher and Acuity Brands.
A hands-on leader, Fawaz has also introduced and implemented Hoshin Planning and Lean management principles across the last three businesses he led. In addition, he has worked with and led multi-cultural teams across Europe, South America, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific and is well versed with business practices and principles in global markets. He is just as comfortable working with gemba-based associates (be it shop floor, sales, customer service or field service) to implement/teach lean flow as he is working within the C-Suite on Strategy Deployment, Commercial Excellence, Fiscal Discipline and Breakthrough Growth. He’s passionate about working with people and bringing out the best in them to win in the market. He holds a BS in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Virginia, Darden Graduate School of Business.
Cathy Venable
Chief Financial Officer
Cathy Venable was appointed Chief Financial Officer in January 2020 and has 30+ years of Accounting and Finance Operations experience, including over 20 years in the global supply chain industry while working at ModusLink. She is an executive who delivers value through excellent working relationships to drive strong domestic and international operations and has helped the company to navigate its way through the life cycles of growth and investment opportunities.
Cathy works as a partner to the business and is a hands-on leader with a focus on value added information to enable better decision making, as well as efficient processes and organizational structures such as implementing offshoring and outsourcing strategies and establishing regional Accounting Hub operations. Her experience includes Budgeting & Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics, Profit & Loss Management, Profitability, Working Capital Management, Risk and Opportunity Assessment, Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures, Strategic Planning & Execution, Lean Principles, GAAP and Internal Controls Compliance.
Previously, Cathy served as ModusLink’ s Senior Vice President of Global Finance, and in various other regional and international finance roles at ModusLink. She started her career working at the independent audit, tax and advisory firm of Grant Thornton LLP.
Cathy holds a Bachelor of Arts, concentration in Accounting, from Seattle University, and a Master in Business Administration from Utah State University.
John Heffernan
Chief Operating Officer
With more than 20 years of supply chain management leadership and expertise, John Heffernan has utilized his operational experience to provide innovative manufacturing and logistics solutions for companies ranging from small and large-scale startup companies to publicly traded global enterprises. While the supply chain industry has been undergoing a shift in both consumer and retailer behaviors, John has worked to ensure that ModusLink remains at the forefront of innovation to support its growing network of global customers.
In his role as Chief Supply Chain Officer, John oversees the Company’s automation, freight and material strategy. In particular, he is responsible for defining the approach to automation and implementing process efficiencies to ensure alignment with current and new business opportunities – all the while seeking ways to drive profitability and growth, and enabling clients to lower their cost structure.
Previously, John served as ModusLink’s Senior Vice President of Global Operations, building global business units, and integrating client-facing and operations teams for enhanced collaboration and innovation. He also held the posts of Vice President of European Operations and Regional General Manager.
John continues to lead ModusLink’s Global Process Excellence program, which identifies and deploys a variety of best-in-class processes for customers and leverages innovation and automation to help them gain a competitive advantage in their respective markets.
John holds a Bachelor of Business Studies in Human Resources from the University of Limerick.
Krishna Kundur
Senior VP of IT and Chief Information Officer
With over 25 years of Technology leadership and expertise, Krishna Kundur, SVP of IT & CIO, leads our Information technology organization, overseeing all facets of IT. From keeping the lights on to aligning the technology organization to enable the business, Krishna is keen on optimizing IT by partnering with the business to gain key insights, drive growth and deliver new strategic capabilities across supply chain and eCommerce to serve our global customers. Krishna has a deep appreciation of the pivotal role technology has in building a modern eco-system with the critical capabilities that can accelerate growth by building competitive advantage and transforming the organization.
Krishna began his career at Bell Laboratories, a premier R&D organization, attaining world class Information Technology and Management know-how over a 10-year career and harnessed these skills to deliver pioneering solutions across diverse industries and technologies. His expertise includes IT strategy, business transformation, solution delivery, mergers & acquisitions, and emerging technologies. He has managed diverse, international teams and served global clients, by envisioning, articulating and implementing cutting edge digital transformations and legacy system migrations to SAP, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Microsoft Azure Cloud solutions. Over an expansive IT career, Krishna has an impressive track record for providing unparalleled Technology leadership in diverse environments, from Internet start-ups and medical software companies to distribution and logistics and expense and utilities service providers by leveraging highly innovative technology solutions to transform and optimize the business.
Krishna has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from JNTU (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University), Hyderabad, India. In his spare time, Krishna likes to play golf and spend time with his family.
A. J. Wesseler
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Joining in 2023, A.J. leads Human Resources for ModusLink globally. In this role, A.J. partners with business leaders to deliver and achieve a positive people experience. He operates on a strong core belief system that how we win matters, fostering success through people by driving employee inclusion, engagement, empowerment, and accountability.
A.J. has over 20 years of experience in Human Resources, concentrated in manufacturing and distribution. Over that time, A.J. has successfully partnered with all facets of business to deliver on organizational and people strategy including process optimization, greenfield site startup, mergers, acquisitions, and integrations. A.J.’s diverse HR Leadership experience includes full talent management, continuous improvement, project and change management, compensation, benefits, global HRIS / HCM, and overall HR thought leadership.
A.J.’s prior experience includes HR leadership roles with Orora Visual and Trajus / Republic Elite, in addition to roles with best-in-class people strategy at Apex Tool Group, Nestlé, and Kimberly-Clark. An SPHR and SHRM-SCP certified professional, A.J. holds a BA in Organizational Communication from Purdue University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management with concentrations in strategy and operations research.
