In January, Rodrigo Paolucci sold his 50-person video distribution startup in São Paulo, planning to go to business school overseas. Although he'd long dreamed of getting an MBA in Silicon Valley or New York, he applied only to the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. The reason: The Trump administration's anti-immigration rhetoric "makes it harder for foreigners," says Paolucci, who got a scholarship from Rotman that covers 40 percent of tuition.

It's a whole new era of supply chain, with demands that were scarcely imaginable decades ago, and the techniques for training both new and veteran supply-chain professionals must change accordingly. It's a whole new era of supply chain, with demands that were scarcely imaginable decades ago, and the techniques for training both new and veteran supply-chain professionals must change accordingly.

The so-called platform economy promises to drastically change the nature of work. Is that a bad thing, or a good thing?

As the current Baby Boomer-dominated generation of supply chain leaders starts to reach retirement age, the industry will increasingly need to tap into the younger generations of managers and influencers.

Analyst Insight: Lehigh University developed the first MBA SCRM class in 2010. The concept has now grown to a global level: The SCRM Consortium includes 17 companies; SCRM continues to be a popular course at Lehigh and ERM is currently taught at Villanova University; 20-plus workshops and 10 conferences per year are held around the globe. A recently published book and the Consortium itself continue to support companies to Identify, Assess, Mitigate and Manage supply chain risks. - Gregory Schlegel, founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium