Prof Marcus Ambe

Professor of Supply Chain Management, Jackson State University (USA)
Founder & President, African Institute for Supply Chain Research (AISCR)

Prof. Marcus Ambe is an internationally recognized scholar-practitioner and institutional leader with more than two decades of experience advancing procurement governance, supplier development, and supply chain transformation across Africa and the global community. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Jackson State University (USA) from Fall 2023 and is the Founder and President of the African Institute for Supply Chain Research (AISCR), a Pan-African research and executive-development institute dedicated to strengthening institutional performance, professional standards, and supply chain leadership across emerging and developed economies.

Prior to relocating to the United States, Prof. Ambe built a distinguished academic and governance career at the University of South Africa (UNISA), one of the largest universities on the African continent. He was at the University for 16 years and rose through the academic ranks to Full Professor and held senior leadership roles including the Chair, Department of Applied Management. His governance portfolio included serving as Chairperson of UNISA’s Public Tender Committee (2016–2019) and Deputy Chairperson of South Africa’s Interim Supply Chain Management Council (2018–2022), roles that placed him at the center of procurement oversight, professional standards development, and national reform initiatives.

A landmark achievement of his institutional leadership was the design and launch of UNISA’s Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) Program, approved and funded by the UNISA Council with a total budget of R21 million over three years. As Chair of the Steering Committee, he led a structured capacity-building model that trained and developed 250 suppliers annually, 750 suppliers over three years, strengthening compliance capability, governance literacy, and sustainable enterprise participation in institutional procurement systems.

In May 2018, he convened the Inaugural UNISA Enterprise & Supplier Development Day, which attracted over 400 SMMEs from across South Africa. The event was officiated by the then Minister of Small Business Development, Honorable Minister Lindiwe Zulu, who delivered the keynote address. The convening positioned UNISA as a national leader in supplier empowerment and inclusive procurement and demonstrated Prof. Ambe’s ability to mobilize academia, government, and enterprise stakeholders at scale.

Prof. Ambe’s project portfolio reflects strong capacity in securing and executing high-value, policy-relevant initiatives. As Principal Investigator, he has led major funded projects including:

• $666,666 (R10.2 million) – National Supply Chain Management Learnership Programme for 200 employees (2021–2023), funded by the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA), South Africa.
• $132,000 (R1.98 million) – Contract Management Baseline Study and Implementation across eight municipalities (2020), funded by GIZ and South Africa’s National Treasury.

These initiatives demonstrate his ability to translate governance frameworks into measurable institutional reform, build scalable capacity programs, and strengthen public-sector supply chain performance.

His scholarship integrates theoretical rigor with applied institutional impact. He has authored over 100 scholarly outputs, including three prescribed textbooks, and his research has generated over 1,989 citations (h-index 23; i10-index 37). Prof. Ambe’s scholarly leadership extends beyond publication to editorial stewardship and global research curation. He has served as Guest Editor for leading international journals, including Strategic Sourcing in Africa: Integrating African Firms into Global Supply Chains (Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing, Emerald Publishing) and as Guest Editor for the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. His areas of expertise include sustainable procurement, public-sector supply chain governance, contract management maturity, strategic sourcing, supply chain analytics, and emerging frontiers such as AI-enabled procurement systems.

Under his leadership, AISCR has evolved into a credible continental platform for supply chain thought leadership and professional engagement. The institute has delivered over 100 webinars, convened two Pan-African Supply Chain Management Virtual Summits (350 participants in 2020 and 500 participants in 2021), and hosted the Inaugural Pan-African SCM Conference in Nairobi, Kenya (2024), attracting more than 100 high-level delegates from across Africa and the global community with over 55 academic papers. These convenings have positioned AISCR as a trusted hub for research-informed dialogue, executive development, and cross-sector collaboration.

As an academic mentor and institutional builder, Prof. Ambe has supervised and graduated more than 10 doctoral and 15 master’s candidates and continues to guide postgraduate research in procurement, logistics, and supply chain governance. He remains active in global scholarly service and professional associations, including CIPS, ISM, NIGP, ASCM, SAPICS, and IPSERA.

Prof. Ambe’s work is driven by a clear mission: to elevate procurement and supply chain management as a strategic governance function that advances institutional integrity, enterprise development, economic competitiveness, and sustainable transformation across Africa and beyond.