Listen up! As a teenager, T.W (Theo) Fletcher learned to do that very well. Growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, he was very active in the Junior Achievement organization and participated in the city's innovative juvenile jury where young offenders, usually in court for traffic violations, were tried by a jury of their contemporaries.

“It was a terrific learning experience,” recalls Fletcher, who was appointed foreman on one case. “We not only had to solicit the opinions of others but we had to reach consensus. It really forced you to do effective listening.”

That is a characteristic that Fletcher has used to good effect throughout his 37-year career at IBM. From his earliest days in finance and planning to his current position as IBM's vice president of import compliance and supply chain security, he has consistently demonstrated first-rate communication skills. “The Number One leadership trait is communication, communication, communication—and communication is not so much about speaking as it is about listening,” he says.

Fletcher gets to do plenty of listening in his current role, interacting with everyone from suppliers' executives and logistics experts to customs officials. He has worldwide responsibility for establishing the relationships with government officials and the internal processes necessary to ensure the efficient, compliant, and secure importing of IBM's goods into more than 170 countries where IBM conducts business. “It's our job to ensure that we have a secure supply chain around the world—that there are no disruptions as a result of any goods carried in our containers.”

It's a monumental task, made all the more complex and politically sensitive with every new terrorism threat. But it is one for which he is very well prepared. A protégé of acclaimed procurement chief Gene Richter, Fletcher spent 10 years in IBM's procurement organization where his many experiences and successes on the front lines of global procurement stand him in good stead.

Early in his career with Big Blue, Fletcher rose quickly to become pricing director for IBM's fast-growing services business where he and his team were responsible for establishing the financial structure and pricing for IBM's first outsourcing contract. Later, he was named financial planning director for IBM United States, responsible for establishing the annual strategic financial plan for the company's $25 billion-a-year U.S. operations.

In 1994, Fletcher joined IBM's global procurement organization as its director of financial planning and controller. Gene Richter asked him to put in place a measurement system for consolidating and measuring the competitive advantage of IBM's $40 billion in annual global purchases. “It was the first time we were able to capture purchase spending worldwide,” recalls Fletcher. “One of the first things we learned was that we had multiple contracts with the same supplier across different IBM businesses. By understanding what our prices were for that same item, we were able to consolidate all that spending under one contract.”

Six years later, he became director of global sourcing, tasked with selecting the prime suppliers globally for IBM's resale and internal needs. That meant taking the reins of all non-manufacturing sourcing for IBM—everything from IT equipment and travel to temporary staffing. When he took over the job, fully a quarter of that spending occurred outside of the company's formal procurement process. By the time Fletcher moved to his next role, the non-procurement portion had dropped to 3 percent.

In 2001, he was named vice president of global procurement operations, where he had the opportunity to help globalize IBM's supply chain activities. Previously, purchase order processing had been carried out in about 300 locations worldwide, but Fletcher and his staff were able to bring that down to three locations. (Again, he had to be an active listener because his efficiency initiative sparked plenty of struggles for local control.) By 2004 he was in charge of supply chain compliance, security, and diversity. He took on his current role in July 2005.

Fletcher must be in constant listening mode if IBM is to be viewed as a trusted partner by overseas administrations as well as by the U.S. government. When he took on the new role, he believed it was essential to meet with top customs officials in all 20 of the countries that IBM considers strategic sources of supply. By mid-2007 he had met the senior officials in 19 of those 20 countries. “It's important because it allows us to better understand their priorities,” he explains. “It also helps those officials understand that IBM is abiding by the laws and has processes in place to continue operating beyond what the laws require.” At the same time, Fletcher has to be able to hear out the concerns of IBM managers worldwide as they respond to the need for Big Blue to “self-regulate” with respect to import rules all across the supply chain.

The proof of Fletcher's skills lies in the results that he can point to. “We have taken import compliance and security from being a U.S.-focused activity and truly made it global,” he says. “I've expanded my team worldwide to start driving common practices and standards around the world.” The trust-building has also paid off on the occasions when there have been difficulties with a shipment and overseas customs officials have been available and willing to help solve the problem.

A supply chain that is widely recognized to be secure generates phenomenal economic benefits. Not only can IBM lean out its pipeline inventory but it can step up its delivery performance by improving the predictability of planned customs inspections and by legitimately bypassing many of the unplanned container inspections that customs officials can impose.

IBM has long been in the vanguard of supply chain security. “We truly understand the benefits of a secure supply chain,” says Fletcher. “After September 11, we were one of the first companies to be validated by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol as having a security program in place.” In many cases, Fletcher and his teams have led overseas governments in pilot programs to develop secure freight shipment programs. IBM has been the only multinational to work on Australia's security program and the only company invited to describe its supply-chain security procedures by the government of Singapore.

Fletcher regularly extends his supply chain expertise far outside of his own company. He is on the board of governors of the National Center for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and is a director of the Business Alliance for Customs Modernization. He is also a stalwart supporter of minority supplier communities as a director of the Business Consortium Fund of the National Minority Supplier Development Council and a member of the Conference Board's Council on Supplier Diversity.

Fletcher also makes it his business to pass along his knowledge and experience to the next generation of supply chain leaders. He is a founding member of Howard University's supply chain management program and an advisory board member of the minority business executive program at Dartmouth College's Amos Tuck School. “We spend time on campus each year—we come and teach a session,” he says of the many IBM executives who are also advisory board members of school programs.

It's a fair bet that Theo Fletcher does just as much listening to his students as he does lecturing.