George Fenton

Chief Executive and Co-Founder of the Humanitarian Logistics Association

George Fenton is an experienced consultant and evaluator, working with both the aid and private sectors, in the fields of emergency preparedness, response procurement, logistics and standards, including digital cash transfers and market-based interventions. He is an expert and thought leader in humanitarian supply chain management with over 30 years of experience. George is also co-founder and Chief Executive of the Humanitarian Logistics Association, a membership organization that supports research and knowledge management in the sector; he also founded the East Africa Inter-Agency Working Group for disaster preparedness, which is connected with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) contingency planning initiatives. He has played an influential role within international fora such as the World Humanitarian Summit, the Humanitarian Response Network and has been a long-standing member of several global inter-agency humanitarian supply chain initiatives.

George has led global interventions to specify, source, procure and pre-position humanitarian relief supplies globally, and led emergency operations and logistics teams to ensure successful multi-million-dollar responses to a wide range of global humanitarian crises over the two past decades. He has used his academic, private and aid sector networks, broad management experience and skills to support innovations and improvements to the delivery of aid by influencing practical changes to ways in which resources are used.

As a senior executive George has worked at HQ and field levels for several of the world’s largest non-governmental organizations and aid donors, leading the development of new technologies, such as mobile data solutions to facilitate cash transfers, developing national procurement and supply chain strategy and capacity, and managing key relationships with a broad range of stakeholders. He has significant senior level experience of delivering the supply chain component for UN agency evaluations.