Chainge Capital Llc

John S. Thorbeck, Chairman of Chainge Capital LLC, is an expert on speed-to-market applications at retail and short life-cycle product companies. He has collaborated extensively with industry leaders, including Dr. Warren H. Hausman, professor of management science and engineering, Stanford University, to develop and pioneer Lead Time Optimization (LTO)™. Thorbeck and Hausman are co-authors for “Fast Fashion: Quantifying the Benefits,” in Innovative Quick Response Programs in Logistics and Supply Chain Management (2010); and a Stanford Case Study on implementation, “InnerMost: Strategies for Fast Fashion” (2012). The LTO trade-off to manage global product speed, cost and flexibility has now exploded in financial importance. Thorbeck is a former CEO of Rockport (Adidas) and G.H. Bass & Co.(PVH), and senior marketing executive for Nike, Timberland and the Aspen Skiing Company. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School. Through Stanford-based research and case studies, Chainge Capital’s distinctive contribution to retailers and brands is to adapt postponement, familiar in numerous industries, for fashion products such as apparel and footwear. Lead Time Optimization (LTO)™ stages manufacturing, separates out finished goods orders from commitments to materials and capacity, demonstrates the value of pre-positioning and hedging materials, reduces finished goods inventory and provides the ability to do ‘what if’ logistics scenarios that include sea and air freight. The result is to reduce order cycles from months to days for new products and rapid in-season replenishment.