Peter Baker spent the early part of his career in international freight forwarding, conduct- ing export and import freight movements and ship's agency work. He became an office manager prior to taking an MSc degree in Distribution Technology and Management at Cranfield University.
After a period with a specialist materials handling and distribution consultancy, he worked for 12 years with Deloitte Consulting in their Supply Chain and Consumer Business divisions. During his period in consultancy, he has conducted over 100 supply chain projects across a wide range of industries and public sector organizations. He has undertaken projects in many European countries, as well as in North America, the Far East, Central Asia, West Africa and the Middle East. These projects have included supply chain strategy, procurement, international logistics, distribution centre design, inventory control, transport operations and supporting computer systems.
He became a lecturer, senior lecturer and then visiting fellow, at the Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield School of Management, where he completed his PhD on the subject of the role, design and operation of distribution centres in agile supply chains. He has continued his consultancy work during this period. He is a Fellow of both the CILT (UK) and the Higher Education Academy. He has published regularly in books, trade journals and academic journals.