Chris Barrett is Vice President of Engineering for Stratford Managers Corporation and heads the Engineering discipline. He is a seasoned R&D manager and systems architect with over 16 years experience in companies of all sizes.
Profile
Chris has an extensive background in engineering management, R&D and operations. His experience covers all aspects of product lifecycle management from hardware, mechanical design, system and management software through to testing, support, operations and supply chain.
Chris thrives on transforming new ideas or technologies into successful products. Working closely with Product Management and Sales, his technology leadership has led to the delivery of engineering programs across the development spectrum from strategy, conception and requirements gathering to manufacturing a quality product and supporting it.
Prior to joining Stratford Managers, Chris was Vice President of Engineering at Pleora Technologies where his responsibilities covered all R&D and operations activities. He led a rapid increase in new product introduction and drove changes in operations and supply chain management. As one of the first employees at Gridpoint Systems, he built a high performance engineering team to take a new product from conception to trial-readiness. Chris has also held engineering management roles in companies of all sizes, from start-ups to large enterprises such as Nortel, Alcatel and CIENA.
Chris holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of New Brunswick and an undergraduate Diploma from the Dr. J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship.
Significant Accomplishments
- Brought leading products to market from conception to market-ready in a start-up environment
- Re-engineered supply chain to reduce inventory by 50% and shorten the cash conversion cycle to two weeks, while maintaining security of supply and maximizing margins.
- Created a professional services organization to unlock new revenue sources, resulting in profitability within the first year of operation.
- Chris has seven patents pending or in the applied phase
