Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Global Agenda Council said Ratliff’s leadership will be “instrumental in helping this Council collaboratively develop pertinent insights and solutions to address this global challenge.”

Ratliff, the executive director of Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, has previously served on the WEF Logistics & Supply Chain Global Agenda Council and co-authored a chapter in the WEF Global Enabling Trade Report 2012: Reducing Supply Chain Barriers that outlined the requirements that an optimization model for supply chain design should fulfill, and some of the obstacles faced in its construction.  Ratliff was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996 and is a fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE).

Established in 2008, the Network of Global Agenda Councils is an invitation-only knowledge network that serves as an international brain trust to the World Economic Forum and the world at large. Each of the 80 Councils focuses on specific issues, and the six Metacouncils dealing with cross-cutting themes are comprised of 20 globally renowned experts from business, government, academia and civil society. The Network gives its members a unique platform to support the Forum's vision to better understand and catalyze global, regional and industry transformation.