Stellantis deepens supplier collaboration with new European advisory council

Automotive group Stellantis has launched a new European Supplier Advisory Council, reported to shift towards closer collaboration with partners as it looks to strengthen supply chain resilience and industrial performance.

Announced on March 25, the council brings together 26 supplier partners alongside senior Stellantis leaders in a structured forum designed to address shared industry challenges and co-develop solutions across the value chain.

The advisory council will meet across three sessions in 2026, focusing on key regional priorities including quality, launch readiness, cost competitiveness, innovation and supply chain resilience – areas increasingly critical as the industry navigates volatility, electrification, technological change and regulatory pressures.

Emanuele Cappellano, COO of Stellantis Europe, described the move as a milestone for the region’s operations. “The launch of the Europe Supplier Advisory Council represents an important milestone in our journey to strengthen the region’s industrial performance,” he said. “Today, more than ever, our success depends on deep collaboration with our supplier partners. By creating a shared forum where we openly discuss challenges and opportunities, we are building the foundation for faster execution, stronger competitiveness, and sustainable growth across Europe.”

From conference rhetoric to operational reality

The council builds on themes outlined by Stellantis executives just a week earlier at the Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Europe conference in Bonn, where the company emphasised a shift towards more collaborative, human-centric supply chain models.

Speaking at the event, Carlos Vazquez, vice-president of global purchasing and supply chain, highlighted how the role of resilience has evolved: “Agility changed when Covid arrived… resilience moved from a PowerPoint in a boardroom to everyday activities and operations.”

Vazquez added that the next step is to deepen that mindset across the entire value chain, not just within the OEM. “We need to improve that anti-fragile, resilient mindset on both sides at the same time – to understand that we need to evolve, we need to move and we need to create,” he said.

He pointed to the increasing interconnectedness of global supply chains as a key driver: “Everything is so connected that something happens in some place in the world and generates an immediate effect on the other one.”

He also stressed that technology alone will not define the next phase of supply chain strategy. “Technology is a must, but it is only an enabler,” Vazquez said, adding that “the cooperation across companies and across the value chain” is now central to performance.

That thinking underpins Stellantis’ “Engaged Program”, which promotes regular interaction, shared planning and in-person collaboration with partners – principles that appear to carry through directly into the structure of the new advisory council.

Embedding collaboration across the supply chain

While the Supplier Advisory Council is primarily oriented around suppliers and industrial performance, its scope touches on several areas central to logistics and supply chain management, including planning, operational bottlenecks and resilience.

Stellantis leaders Carlos Vazquez (pictured) and Benoit Gaucherand outline a shift from cost-driven logistics to AI-enabled, multimodal and human-centric supply chains, with resilience and partner collaboration at the core

Stephane Dubs, senior vice-president of purchasing and supplier quality at Stellantis Europe, said the council would address “the critical issues shaping our industry – whether in quality, launch readiness, cost competitiveness, innovation, or supply chain resilience – and turn them into strategic advantages for our entire ecosystem.”

The inclusion of European supplier associations such as FIEV and ANFIA also suggests an effort to align more closely with the broader supplier ecosystem, particularly as geopolitical instability, regulatory demands and market uncertainty continue to impact production networks.

Benoit Gaucherand, senior manager for enlarged Europe aftersales transport network design and cost control, reinforced the need for deeper partnership onstage in Bonn: “We are humble and we know we can’t do it alone; we need our partners because they have skills and experience and they can bring a critical view on what we are doing.”