Jack van der Vorst is Professor of AgriFood Supply Chain Management in the Operations Research and Logistics Group of Wageningen University & Research. His research focuses on the design of effective, sustainable and resilient AgriFood Supply Chain Networks, with particular attention to the development of innovative logistics concepts and decision support models.
From 2015 up to 2025 he was member of the Board of Directors of Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands and Managing Director of the Social Sciences Group leading the university department of Social Sciences and two applied research institutes (Wageningen Economic Research and Wageningen Center for Development Innovation). Jack was Captain of Science within the Topteam AgriFood where he aligned science development with business challenges in public-private partnership projects, and he was board member of multiple organisations such as The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), Netherlands Food Partnership (NFP), Cocoa Horizons Foundation and the Supervisory Board of Florensis BV. Earlier in his career, Jack was active as management consultant for food industries and agribusiness at the consultancy firm Rijnconsult in the Netherlands, working a.o. on performance management, traceability and supply chain logistics.
Jack won several scientific awards, supervised 21 PhD students and published over 200 academic and business papers. He lectured in multiple BSc, MSc and MBA programs and was program director of the Executive Mastercourse Hortibusiness. Jack acquired many industrial and scientific research grants and has coordinated large co-innovation projects.