In addition, Meadows will lead the procurement effort within Project Fuel, Hospira’s multi-phased initiative designed to identify and liberate resources across the organization to reduce complexity, improve efficiencies and optimize financial performance. The procurement effort will leverage Hospira’s global scale to provide a sustainable advantage in the areas of productivity, cost, innovation and flexibility with the company’s suppliers.

Brian is a proven operations executive with leadership strengths in supply chain management and cost reduction, said Terrence C. Kearney, chief operating officer, Hospira. Establishing Hospira’s supply chain as a competitive advantage is a key strategic imperative, and we’re excited to have Brian leading this effort.

Most recently, Meadows was senior vice president of supply chain management at Sprint-Nextel Corporation, where he led the integration of the supply chain operations of Sprint and Nextel Communications. Prior to Sprint, Meadows was the senior vice president of supply chain management at Nextel, where he centralized and built the supply chain organization. His supply chain operating experience is complemented by a consulting career in which he was a principal at A.T. Kearney and a partner at Deloitte Consulting.

Meadows earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and his master’s of business management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.