Stellantis appoints Tammy Ruelland and Maya Tumilowski to lead vehicle logistics and fleet operations in North America

Stellantis has promoted two key members of its logistics team in North America, including across important vehicle logistics and trucking fleet operations.

Earlier this autumn, Tammy Ruelland became director of finished vehicle logistics at Stellantis North America, with responsibility across all modes of transport, quality, imports and exports across the US, Mexico and Canada. She replaced Jon Schwartz, who has retired from Stellantis.

Ruelland moved from her role as director of FCA Transport (FCAT) and Auto Transport Services (ATS), the carmaker’s in-house fleet of truck and car carriers, which operates in parts of the US Midwest and Canada. She has been succeeded in that post by Maya Tumilowski, who was previously director of supplier delivery risk management within the supply chain organisation.

Both roles will have important functions in managing the carmaker’s logistics network both across its external logistics providers, as well as direct operations. The positions also will be important as Stellantis continues to adapt its network in an effort to reduce cost and vehicle inventory, as well as to improve logistics and delivery reliability in a period of unpredictable demand.

Mercedes Figueroa, vice-president of transport operations in North America, to whom both positions report, recently told Automotive Logistics that the carmaker’s flexibility was based on an important mix of managing internal resources and working with partners to adapt to volumes across the network.

“Internally we have to get accurate information and forecast availability of all the production changes that are coming, and then we build a strong logistics network that can react fast to those changes,” she said during a Red Sofa video interview this past autumn at Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Global  in Michigan. “The second thing that is important is to build strong partners in the supply chain so that they can also make these changes and support fluctuations in that demand.”

Following a wider global supply chain reorganisation this autumn, Stellantis has now also realigned its North America supply chain division to report to Scott Thiele, senior vice-president of commercial performance, CO2 and supply chain.

Managing end-to-end logistics operations

Tammy Ruelland has been with Stellantis since 2000 when she joined manufacturing for Chrysler Canada; she would go on to hold a range of transport, customs and supply chain roles for the wider company. As sustainability and standards manager, for example, Ruelland managed the auditing and validation of supplier claims for excess and obsolete material, developed tools to manage supplier delivery risk and managed budgets for excess transport. As SCM releasing manager, she oversaw daily supplier shipping requirements, ensuring the flow of critical parts and managing multiple IT systems.

Most recently leading FCAT and ATS, she oversaw management and logistics staff across multiple terminals and locations, as well as adherence to strict federal and state regulations. Along with its truck fleet and terminals for material, this responsibility also included vehicle logistics in Canada with haulaway firm ATS, where in recent years Stellantis has made concerted efforts to recruit drivers, including from the regular ‘dry van’ transport sector and attracting talent from schools and community colleges.

Maya Tumilowski takes over this position at ATS and FCAT, which also includes end-to-end management of material collection and return across key Stellantis suppliers, as well as route optimisation. She has been with the carmaker since 2011 across several global supply chain management and dealer support roles at Mopar – the carmaker’s genuine parts parts and aftersales business – before serving as the head of Mopar logistics responsible for all modes of inbound transport and dealer delivery network in North America.

From 2017 until recently, she held lead roles responsible for monitoring, mitigating and improving supplier delivery risk. This includes strategic supply risk mitigation process development and execution, leading critical supply efforts during the post pandemic restart of Stellantis assembly plants. She also led the delivery crisis team through the global microchip crisis, developing business intelligence solutions essential in ensuring delivery of critical parts to production.

Prior to Stellantis, Tumilowski worked for several years across third party logistics providers, including as a logistics analyst for Penske Logistics where she was responsible for logistics network design supporting Ford Motor Company; she later joined Ryder, taking on lead logistics provider operation roles, including logistics design engineering and international operations supporting key automotive customers such as tier-1 supplier Visteon and General Motors.

Jon Schwartz retired from Stellantis after more than 30 years in the industry. He joined what was then DaimlerChrysler in 2002 and had multiple senior inbound and finished vehicle logistics roles, including for capacity management and inter-regional flows. Among his many roles, he led production planning and capacity management for Stellantis’ assembly plants in North America making the Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Gladiator and Jeep Compass. He led position in vehicle logistics, before going on to work in component capacity management and scheduling, as well as taking charge of the inbound parts network and process design as the carmaker launched Jeep production in Brazil.

In 2023 he became director of inbound logistics for North America, before being appointed to lead vehicle logistics at the beginning of 2024. 

Wider leadership changes at Stellantis

These changes are separate from several wider recent management and organisation changes at Stellantis. Earlier this month, Carlos Tavares resigned as chief executive, which prompted the creation of an interim executive council to lead the company.

Stellantis has made other regional and organisation changes, including separating the global supply chain organisation from purchasing to report functionally to manufacturing with direct alignment to the regions. The supply chain function, which at Stellantis includes inbound and vehicle logistics, supply chain planning, demand and capacity management, had been combined with procurement, led by chief purchasing and supply chain officer Maxime Picat. 

With the change, the North America supply chain division – led by senior vice-president of supply chain, Anna Markett – now reports to Scott Thiele, senior vice-president of commercial performance, CO2 and supply chain, and functionally to chief manufacturing officer, Arnaud Deboeuf.

 Stellantis is also expected to announce a new global head of supply chain. In November it appointed Xavier Duchemin as vice-president of global supply chain to replace Yves Caracatzanis, however this month, shortly after Tavares resigned, Duchemin became managing director of Stellantis France.