2024 Speakers

Ms. Maria Pia De Caro currently serves as Global Operations & Sustainability EVP for Pernod Ricard, where she is responsible for the entire supply chain organization including strategy, manufacturing operations, planning and logistics, procurement and safety, sustainability and quality management. Ms. De Caro has a track record of more than 30 years of leadership in areas such as engineering, manufacturing, M&A and supply chain at a number of fast-moving consumer goods companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Mondelez. Ms. De Caro holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Sapienza University of Rome and is an avid supporter of diversity and inclusion.

Stephane Piat has dedicated his career to leading transformation and operations within the manufacturing and industrialization sector. With a strong background in quality, logistics, and planning, he has consistently demonstrated his expertise in driving efficiency and innovation. As a global citizen, Stephane has gained invaluable experience working in various regions, including Asia, East Europe, and contributing to global transformation initiatives.

Currently, he holds a role as Senior Vice-President Supply Chain Strategy & Performance. In this position, he is responsible for spearheading transformation efforts within the supply chain. His focus is on continuous improvement and delivering impactful results across the entire value chain. This includes empowering customers to become Impact Makers through the company’s offers and solutions, optimizing internal supply chain operations, and cultivating strong partnerships with suppliers.

Fares “rallying cry” for his organization is #BreakingRecordsTogether, as he believes in achieving ambitious goals through strong collaboration and sharing, through building skills and confidence, and through being openminded to technical evolutions that help  businesses & organizations to serve consumers better than ever before.

Fares leads the global Product Supply Organization of P&G’s biggest business, producing world-class Fabric-Care products and serving consumers around the world. After starting his P&G career 35 years ago in the Dammam plant, he led 4 different P&G plants in Yemen, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, before broadening his scope as the Product Supply Director of P&G’s Central Europe, Middle East & Africa & Western Europe regions.

After this, Fares led P&G’s Global Ambi Pur Division as General Manager, bringing in his extensive Supply Chain-, Business- and Consumer experience. Before taking on his current role as Global Leader of Fabric Care Product Supply, Fares led P&G’s European Supply Chain organization for 10 years, developing the Product Supply function to automate and digitize the end-to-end planning systems as he led in parallel the in Global Business Services and IT for supply planning.

Paul has almost 30 years Supply Chain experience supporting Pepsi’s food and beverage businesses, across procurement, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, customer facing and planning. Paul has worked across Europe in multiple countries and in a global capacity leading PepsiCo’s flavour supply chain and currently heads up PepsiCo’s supply chain for Europe.

Alpesh Chaddha, Vice President Global Operations Strategy & Excellence at Philip Morris International, has deep experience in the areas of strategy development and implementation for Supply Chain, Procurement, and Sales, achieving robust and sustainable business transformation.

At PMI, Alpesh leads the mid-to-long-term strategy development and implementation focusing on transformational activities which accelerate PMI’s journey to a smoke-free future. Along with the strong focus on business Strategy, within Alpesh’s remit also lies Industrial Strategy, End2End Agility, Digital and Analytics, and Business Excellence.

The work of Alpesh and his team spans beyond Operations – connecting, influencing, and working with all of PMI’s functions and the markets. He and his team are modeling a cross- functional, horizontal way of working towards achieving shared goals which is new to the company.

Before joining PMI, Alpesh was a Partner at McKinsey and Co., where he set up and led the transformation practice in India. With corporate clients across India, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, Alpesh shaped the organizational journeys of several global enterprises. His knowledge in driving enterprise-wide change is well recognized externally. A thought leader for Operations, Alpesh is able to shape strategic initiatives while supporting the implementation of Business Excellence and Capability building. Prior to joining McKinsey, Alpesh was a software engineer at Cisco.

Alpesh holds a Masters Business Administration degree from the India Institute of Management, Calcutta and a Bachelor degree (Engineering), from the Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi.

Dr. Arne Flemming is currently responsible for the Supply Chain Management of Bosch in total. In addition he also leads the Global Logistics Services, which is assigned to a global service division. Dr. Flemming has worked in various supply chain and operations roles for almost 20 years at Bosch.

Stefano Perego is Amazon’s Vice President of International Operations & Global Operations Services. In his role, he manages Amazon’s customer fulfillment and transportation networks internationally, as well as real estate, reliability processes, supply chain procurement, engineering, and security for the company’s operations globally. With over 13 years of experience at Amazon, Stefano’s journey with the company has been marked by several key milestones. He played a pivotal role in the launch of Amazon Operations in Italy, headed fulfillment for France, Italy, and Spain, led the network’s transition to robotics in the UK, and managed fulfillment and supply chain networks across Amazon’s North American and European business before taking on his current role leading all operations in Europe, the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Stefano has an MSc MEng from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and lives in Luxembourg with his wife and two sons.

Aksel Eroglu has worked across Europe with Nestlé for over 25 years. He has held supply chain roles in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Switzerland.

Namrata Patel is the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Haleon, one of the world’s largest consumer healthcare companies, taking up this position in November 2023.  Namrata joined Haleon from Procter & Gamble, where she spent two decades in various leadership roles. This included leading Global Supply Chain for the company’s Beauty Sector, as well as leading the supply chain sustainability agenda globally. Namrata also had supply chain leadership roles in Central Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, Western Europe, and Latin America. Before joining Procter & Gamble, Namrata held senior leadership roles at consumer companies including The Coca-Cola Company and WH Smith.  Namrata is also a Non-Executive Director of Oxford Biomedica, a leading gene and cell therapy group.

Livia Kandiyoti Konak is the Group Head of Planning & Logistics at Diageo.

Livia joined Diageo in 2020. Prior, she worked in Procter & Gamble for 28 years, where she ran plants, categories, regional supply chains and procurement roles in Europe/Middle East Africa, North America, Latin America and in Global Operations.

Livia has lived and worked in Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Panama and the US.

She holds a BSc degree in Chemical Engineering as well as a certificate from NW Kellogg on Digital Operations.

• Senior Fellow at Haslam School of Business, University of Tennessee
• Board Member for Two Companies
• Private Equity Senior Operating Executive for The Carlyle Group
• Retired EVP, Global Supply Chain, Mondelēz International
• Former EVP, Global Supply Chain, Kraft Foods
• Former Global VP, Product Supply, Procter & Gamble

Daniel Myers is currently a Senior Fellow at Haslam School of Business teaching as a guest lecturer for both graduate and under-graduate studies. He currently serves as a Senior Operating Executive for the Carlyle Group, one of the largest Global Private Equity firms and is on two company boards. He is the retired Executive Vice President of the Global Integrated Supply Chain of Mondelez International where he led the Procurement, Manufacturing, Engineering, and Customer Service & Logistics groups, which represent more than 70,000 of the company’s employees.  Daniel held the same position at Kraft Foods Inc., the predecessor to Mondelēz International, since he joined the company in September 2011.  The spin-off of the company’s North American grocery operations occurred in October of 2012.  Under his leadership, Mondelez funded a major reinvention of its worldwide supply chain delivering more than $3 billion in savings over 3 years. He has extensive experience in investor management including representing Mondelez in the investor presentations at CAGNY and Barclays.

Prior to Kraft Foods, Daniel worked for Procter & Gamble for 33 years, serving in roles across all areas of the Supply Chain. Most recently, he served as Vice President, Product Supply, where he led the supply chain function for P&G’s Global Hair Care business. He was also responsible for coordinating the company’s $28 Billion Beauty & Grooming business.  He had responsibility for P&G’s Customer Service and Logistics operations globally for four years and while in this role he led the integration of the operations of the Gillette company, a $56 Billion acquisition.

Daniel has strong experience launching new brands and building operations in emerging markets. He has over 25 years’ experience delivering winning innovation leading major global expansions. He has worked in 54 countries and lived outside the U.S. for more than 10 years. Daniel has mastery in the successful implementation of best practices including building High Performance Organizations and Lean Six Sigma. During his successful career, he has had responsibility for over 250 manufacturing plants and 400 warehouse and distribution centers.

Daniel received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and served on the Board of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee for over 10 years.

Daniel and Karen, his wife of 40 years, are Christians who have led music and youth groups for 5 churches in three different countries over a period of 25 years. They have been active in mission work helping support and build schools or orphanages in Venezuela, Romania, Nigeria, Kenya, India and Myanmar.

René Buck completed his study in Economic Geography and Planning (cum laude) at the Radboud University of Nijmegen in 1985. After his study he started the research and consultancy firm Buck Consultants International. Through more than 30 years of experience, René knows the backgrounds and concerns of many stakeholders and he speaks their ‘language’: from international to regional companies; from universities and to specialized research institutes; from broad interest groups to sectoral sector organizations; from (real estate) project developers to investors/investors; and, from municipalities and provinces to ministries and the European Commission.

René is a leading consultant in the areas where BCI Global is active and he is a prominent speaker at conferences throughout the world. He is seen by international news media as a leading expert.

Alexandre Turolla is an energetic, visionary and innovative leader. He is experienced in bringing senior management and key business stakeholders onboard the Procurement journey, partnering and challenging the status quo.

Turolla currently serves as the SVP, Chief Procurement Officer at IFF. He held previous roles in procurement at Mondelez and Unilever, spending over 12 years at each building his successful career.

Turolla is passionate for elevating Procurement to a truly business-partner function, balancing the corporate and function objectives with the outside-in insights. He has spent his career living and working on developed and emerging markets and has extensive experience in M&A and divestiture processes, rallying to make the outcome bigger than the sum of the parties and fast igniting a working-together spirit.

He is moved build winning teams, where collaboration drives enterprise success.

Sheena Behn is an established global leader in the Pharmaceutical Industry with significant supply chain, manufacturing and development experience and expertise. She has worked at AstraZeneca for 25 years.

Sheena is currently VP Vaccine and Immune Therapies Supply Chain and VP for Oncology Supply, based in Cambridge, UK.

She was previously based in Gothenburg as VP R&D Supply Chain (2012-2014) running the global group for Clinical Supply at AZ; and before that VP for Wuxi Manufacturing site for 3 years, based in China (2010-2012).

Sheena is a Pharmacist who started her career working in London hospitals, before working in pharmaceutical development with GSK and then AZ before joining Operations in 2007.

Erika joined H&M in 2022 as the Global Head Supply Chain Strategy & Design and most recently as VP Global Supply Planning after 25 years at Procter & Gamble. Throughout her career in supply chain, Erika has held roles spanning across the globe, including Mexico, Central America, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden and from retail logistics, supply planning, to global strategy and innovation. She has a proven record in leading cross-functional transformations and leveraging technology to drive cost, sales, cash improvement and environmental impact.  Erika is a creative leader with a multicultural toolkit to empower teams and organization to deliver sustainable and innovative performance.

Ena Ryan is the Director for Quality EHS & Sourcing EMEA at Munters Ireland Ltd and has worked for Munters for 9 years. With over two decades of experience in procurement, Ena is a seasoned leader known for driving efficiency, savings, and strategic transformation across global organizations.

Previously, Ena held the position of Global Sourcing Director for Non-Product Related (NPR) services and goods at Munters. In this capacity, she managed a global portfolio of categories and a global team that spanned America, EMEA, and AsiaPac, covering categories such as Logistics, Professional Services, IT, HR, Facility Related Costs, Marketing and more.

Before joining Munters, Ena was a Senior Consultant at Progorex, a strategic procurement services company, where she specialized in category management, negotiation, project management, and procurement training. Ena also brings experience from BT Ireland, where she served as Head of Procurement, and from Diageo, where she worked as a Procurement Manager.

Supply Chain & Commercial executive with experience in consumer products and pharma companies  such as Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Sanofi in a variety of areas: Demand Planning and  initiatives management, infrastructure planning, network design, benchmarking, Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), forecasting, customer logistics (High Frequency Stores), 3PL (Contract Manufacturing), distribution and warehousing, negotiation and business allocation, Collaborative Planning Forecasting & Replenishment (CPFR,) manufacturing operations (quality, safety and environment) as well as Mergers & Acquisition (Due-diligence and integration.) Accountable for leading projects to optimize inventories, GMROII improvement, out-of stock reduction, fill-rate improvement, and logistics cost reduction as well as order-to-cash management.

Effective, aim-oriented Supply Chain and Production Planning Director. MBA. With vast experience in management of strategies and purchase projects in various categories of manufacturing products and correlating it with the production plan. Responsible for optimizing and resolving the production issues to minimize delays in production, taking care about minimizing the stock level at the same time. Very good people management and communication skills, adaptable, well organized, fast learning, strong interpersonal skills, ability to work well under stress and pressure.

Speaking 3 languages: English, French and Russian.

With a background in food science and business Sinéad has spent most of her career in procurement. She joined Cloetta AB in 2022 to lead and transform their procurement function. Prior to that she spent 22 years at KraftHeinz in various procurement roles including leading Global Ingredients and 3^rd party manufacturing teams. She has 25 years experience in food & beverage FMCG and is a champion of Diversity & Inclusion. Sinéad is also a board member of the Ireland Netherlands Business Association

Nóra Oláh serves as an Executive Mgmt. Consultant, Ambassador at 3rdGEN The Management Consulting Company, where she plays a key role in fostering relationships and promoting innovative management strategies. With a background in highly visible leadership positions as supply chain and procurement executive with multinational corporations, Nóra is dedicated to driving organizational growth and transformation. Beside her functional roles and leadership experience, she is passionate about and actively supporting diversity initiatives, especially career development of female and next generation talents.

Nevena joined JTI in 2005, gaining wide experience in different departments. For the past 10 years, focusing primarily on processes vs. systems activities, including major implementation and integration projects. Currently responsible of leading systems and digitalisation function for global supply chain organization, shaping and driving the overall strategy, building the roadmap in close collaboration with key stakeholders within and beyond supply chain.

Roland Lechner serves as Managing Director of International Supply Chain Management at the ALDI SOUTH Group since 2018. In his role he is responsible for the optimisation of the end-to-end supply chain, leading a huge technology transformation programme to develop a future-proof global network. Roland and his team also focus on the ALDI SOUTH Group emission reduction targets and work towards a net-zero supply chain, while maintaining the strong discount retailer profile and low-cost promise to customers.

Roland has 18 years of leadership experience in different international and national leadership roles across a variety of functions, like Supply Chain Management & Logistics, Procurement, IT and Business Coordination, Property Development, and Retail Operations. Roland is extremely enthusiastic about technology and strives for diverse global teams, currently leading a department of ~150 people from ~40 nations.

ALDI SOUTH operates more than 7.400 stores in 11 countries across 4 continents with more than 200.000 employees and achieved sales of EUR 83 billion last year.

Multilingual Chemical Engineer (MSc equivalent) with over 16 years experience in E2E Supply Chain across different departments in multinational company.

Flavia is leading Operations Planning globally for Kenvue (former Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health) since October 2021. She is an Italo-Brazilian born and raised in Brazil, has a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineer and one in International Relations. Flavia has more than 25 years of international professional experience in relevant Supply Chain leadership positions, having worked for Unilever, DHL and Mondelez prior joining Johnson & Johnson. She has managed several Supply Chain processes, dealing with local, regional and global scopes and with full P&L accountability. She resides in Switzerland with her family since 2021.

Nadine Dürr is currently responsible for the Global Procurement of wide-bandgap materials at InfineonTechnologies such as Silicon Carbide wafers. Together with her diverse team of engineers and business people, she creates value for Infineon through sourcing the most comprehensive solutions, managing suppliers holistically and acting green and social.

As VP of Product Management at Infor Nexus, Heidi Benko is responsible for the Visibility and Orchestration solutions. Heidi has over 20 years of experience in supply chain product management, solutions strategy and marketing, delivering innovative supply chain solutions to companies across industries that help them transform their supply chain operations.

Gerald van den Eijnden brings nearly 30 years of extensive experience in logistics and supply chain management to his role at Molex. Originally embarking on a career in accountancy, Gerald’s path took an unexpected turn towards logistics, where he developed a passion for managing the intricate world of boxes and pallets. Gerald started his professional journey in the Netherlands and has since relocated to France, where he currently resides while being closely connected to the Molex Distribution Center in Germany. On a personal note, Gerald is a proud father of two daughters and an enthusiast of vintage Italian race bicycles from the 1980s. With his rich background and dedication, Gerald continues to contribute significantly to the efficiency and success of Molex’s logistics and supply chain operations.

Darren O’Connor has worked for Milliken & Company for 20+ years in diverse roles ranging from Product/Process Improvement Leadership, Site Leadership, Global Performance/Operational Excellence Leadership, Global Leadership in Six Sigma, Health & Safety and additionally, supporting Lean Logistics Implementations.

Since joining Performance Solutions in 2013, Darren has supported global and pan-European clients across several countries/languages/cultures in the automotive, textile, food and paper / packaging industries. Darren partners with organisations at all levels in the strategic and tactical implementation of Leadership, Health & Safety, Supply Chain and Performance Excellence.

Darren holds a BSc (Hons) Degree in Safety, Health & Environmental Management, from the University of Manchester as well as earning Industrial Engineering and Management Diplomas from the University of Central Lancashire. Darren is NEBOSH Diploma qualified Health & Safety Professional with a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma.

Adam is director of sales for EMEA & APAC for TMC, a division of C.H. Robinson. Prior to this role, he was based in Shanghai as the regional director of TMC’s Control Towers in APAC where he oversaw all business functions in the region, including account management, operations, employee development and business development. Adam completed his undergraduate degree in economics and history at the University of Virginia, and received a joint graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University.

30 years of supply chain experience, both as a practitioner as well as in advisory capacity. Specializes in consumer packaged goods and automotive sectors with deep supply chain domain expertse.

Jerome Froment-Curtil is the Regional Vice President for Europe at Aera Technology, a role he has held since 2022. He leads the company’s field operations and growth across Europe, drawing on his extensive experience in technology and enterprise solutions.

Previously, Jerome was the Global Head of Partner Solutions at Workday and Managing Director for France, where he built strategic partnerships worldwide.

He also served as Managing Director for Southern Europe at Unit4 and held senior roles at SAP, managing key global clients.

Jerome started his career as a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, gaining expertise in digital transformation, cloud technology, and strategic growth across the European market.

With over a decade of experience in software and data consulting, including numerous AI projects, Noam co-founded Pecan in 2018. Pecan is a platform designed to empower teams to harness the transformative power of AI. Backed by investors including Google Ventures, Insight Partners, and Dell Capital, Pecan serves a global client base, partners with industry leaders such as Microsoft, AWS, and Databricks, and holds full ISO 27001 and SOC2 Type II certifications.

Noam also holds a PhD in Computational Neuroscience.