Dr Imran Ali

Senior Lecturer in Operations and Innovation Management, CQUniversity Australia
Dr Imran Ali is a Discipline Lead in Management & Innovation and a Senior Lecturer in Operations and Innovation Management at CQUniversity's Melbourne Campus. He earned his PhD in Business Management from the University of South Australia (UniSA) Business School in August 2017, supported by a fully-funded scholarship. With over 18 years of experience in diverse academic, industrial, and research institutions both in Australia and overseas, Imran has established himself as an expert in supply chains and operations management.

Imran's research primarily focuses on operations, logistics and supply chain management, with a particular focus on emerging topics in agri-food supply chains, including digital transformation, risk management and resilience, circular economy, sustainability, and climate change. The current scope of his research aligns with multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (1, 2, 8, 9 & 13). Imran's work has been published in a range of A/A* (Q1) journals, such as the International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, International Journal of Production Economics, Production Planning & Control, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, and high-quality conference proceedings.

Imran currently sits on the Editorial Board of several prestigious journals: the Journal of Business Research, Production Planning & Control and the International Journal of Emerging Markets.

He works closely with the researchers of 'Fight Food Waste CRC' and the 'Centre for Regional Economies and Supply Chain' at CQUniversity to pitch his research to industry partners and funding bodies for external research grants. To this end, Imran's current research grants, as a lead investigator, include: CRCNA (external) - $30,000.00 (2020-2024); Industry partners' (external)- $30,000.00 (2020-2023) + $90,000.00 (2022-2025); CQU's Internal Competitive Research Grant - $12,801.00 (2019-2021).

Imran has received multiple teaching and research accolades, such as: Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Early-Career Researcher in 2022; Vice-Chancellor's Research Commendation Award for Outstanding Early-Career Researcher in 2021; Dean's Award for Outstanding Early-Career Researcher in 2021 & 2022 (two years in a row) at CQUniversity; the Educator of the Year Award in 2019; and the Best Proceedings Paper at the Academy of Management 2019 Conference (USA).

Before joining academia, Imran held various managerial positions (> 10 years) at small and large organisations and contributed to the organisations' productivity by conducting business analysis, problem-driven research, and benefits realisation reports. As a Business Consultant, Imran applied a range of business management tools and trained staff, earning him a "Best Performance Award" from the company's CEO.