The story of a supply chain practitioner who built an industry readiness model referenced for 2034
Rajan Kumar has spent his career moving fast: startups in India, a global role at DHL in Malaysia, then the company’s headquarters in Bonn — each chapter defined by the same instinct: see the problem, build something, run a proof of concept. Fail fast. Start again.
“My persona was that way,” he says. “I not only see the problem — I immediately jump to a solution.”
He tried a PhD first—one and a half years in, he understood it wasn’t working. The research was disconnected from the ground he was standing on. A manager put it plainly: since he was known to be a practical person, academia wouldn’t cut it for him. The Doctor of Business Administration would give him the rigor without severing the connection to practice. He switched.
He enrolled in 2022, in the middle of a move from Malaysia to Germany, in the middle of a pandemic that hit his family three times. He gave himself one hour a day, every day. He did not wait for longer stretches to materialize.
The three years that followed demanded something his career had not: extended, deliberate, methodical planning. His research — on the convergence of 6G, the Internet of Everything, and blockchain technology as a framework for the future of supply chain management — required him to read over 300 academic papers and interview more than 30 CEOs and CTOs across the global supply chain industry. He produced two original frameworks that industry leaders are now applying to their organizations. A book is in the works.
In meetings, he says, he now listens first. He asks questions where he used to propose answers. People come to him with their hardest problems. “Earlier I was a Rajan,” he says. “Now I’ve been called Dr. Rajan. That makes a big difference.”
He attended his first ever graduation in May 2026, in San Francisco having watched his daughter graduate from her diploma program just weeks before. Standing in the same kind of room, wearing the same kind of gown, he let himself enjoy his moment.
“This is my moment,” he says. “This is what I’m supposed to get.”
Rajan Kumar completed the Doctor of Business Administration through Golden Gate University’s online DBA program — a fully accredited, fully online doctorate for working professionals.
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