John Scott

With more than 20 years of experience in consumer-focused supply chains and sustainability, John C. Scott serves as the Vice President of Global Quality & Sustainability at Subway, the world’s largest restaurant chain.

In his role, John oversees the global agenda for an integrated sustainability and social impact program in collaboration with Marketing, Retail Operations, Communications, Public Relations, Innovation, Menu Development and Procurement. John also has global accountability for Food Safety, Product Quality & Guest Care.

John joined Subway® in 2017. Prior to Subway®, John held global leadership roles at PepsiCo, The Chefs’ Warehouse and Nabisco. John has also served on the board of Sedex, a worldwide technology platform for sharing responsible sourcing data, and co-chaired the AIM-PROGRESS CPG initiative on responsible sourcing.

Allison Jennings

Allison Jennings is responsible for setting Amazon’s strategy for food safety, developing and implementing food safety policies, programs, and standards, and incorporating customer feedback to ensure outstanding product safety and quality in the food businesses, which include: foods sold on Amazon.com, Private Label Foods & Supplements, Amazon Fresh, Prime Now, Amazon Go, and Amazon Fresh Stores.  Allison holds a Master of Science in Food Service Systems Management from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a Bachelor of Dietetics/Nutrition from the University of California, Davis, and is a Registered Dietitian.  Prior to joining Amazon, she served as Senior Manager of Food Safety & Regulatory Compliance for the Kroger Company with corporate responsibilities for Retail Food Safety Programs, Recalls, Regulatory Compliance and Labeling.  Prior to her role at Kroger, Allison held positions in food manufacturing product development at C.H. Guenther & Son, Inc, and in the foodservice industry at the RK Group and the University of TN, Knoxville.  Allison also spent time serving in the US Peace Corps, in Kenya.

Heidi Saunders

Heidi Saunders is Head of North America Quality for Mondelēz International, a global company leading the future of snacking with 2019 net revenues of approximately $26 billion.

In her role, Heidi is responsible for leading all aspects of Quality and Food Safety for the North America region including many Power Brands such as OREO and belVita biscuits; Ritz and Triscuit crackers; Trident gum and Halls cough drops.

Heidi joined Mondelēz International in March 2020 following a diverse career within the food industry. Prior to joining the company, Heidi spent 15 years with the Kellogg Company where she held positions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, North America and globally in Supply Chain, Operations, Quality and Food Safety Roles. From 2012 to 2018, Heidi held the roles of Director NA Food Safety, Senior Director Global Food Safety and Auditing, Senior Director Quality Business Partner and Plant Director. Heidi has led several turnaround teams within North America and Globally. She was the architect of the successful emerging market Quality and Food Safety Strategy leading to business growth. Heidi has also led several acquisition and joint venture risk management projects.

Heidi holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) with Honors degree in Food Science and Technology from the Manchester Metropolitan University (UK).

Sherry Williamson

Sherry Williamson is currently the VP of Global Food Safety and Quality that oversees Food Safety, Sanitation, Quality Management Systems, Auditing, Supplier Quality Management, Supplier Certification, Premiums, Packaging Quality, Compliance to Design, Process Optimization, Regulatory and Co-manufacturer Quality for the Kellogg Company. Kellogg’s is the world’s leading cereal producing company and the world’s second largest producer of cookies, crackers and savory snacks. Kellogg’s is also a leading North American Frozen foods company producing products that include Eggo Brand Waffles and Morningstar Farms veggie products.

Sherry has over 20 years in the industry and joined Kellogg’s in 2012 as part of the Pringles acquisition from P&G. She has had numerous Supply Chain roles in the company ranging from Operations to Quality. Sherry was recently promoted to Vice President of Global Quality Food Safety and Regulatory in January of 2020.

Sherry is on the SSAFE board of directors and is affiliated with a number of other Industry associations.

Sherry holds a B.S. and MBA in Business Management from Stayer University.

Clive Newton

Clive Newton has a 30-year career history in the food industry that encompasses general management, supply chain, food safety and food innovation. Working predominantly in Asia Pacific and global roles, Clive’s focus has orientated towards formulation of organizational strategy and governance. As a former member of Yum!’s Compliance Oversight Committee, Clive was responsible for the definition and global deployment of Food Safety policy, standards and compliance programs across more than 130 countries with primary focus on new and developing markets.

Prior to joining Yum! Brands Inc. in 2007, he worked with H.J. Heinz Company in a variety of technical and commercial roles in the UK, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Clive earned his bachelors degree and doctorate in the UK before completing post-doctoral research at Stanford University.

Al Almanza

Alfred “Al” Almanza is the Global Head of Food Safety and Quality Assurance for JBS. Mr. Almanza leads the company’s global food safety and quality assurance efforts, ensuring that JBS facilities around the world adopt and implement food safety and quality control standards that exceed regulatory requirements and customer expectations. A globally recognized expert in international sanitary standards and food safety requirements that govern market access for meat and poultry products, Almanza plays a critical role in  maintaining and expanding the company’s access to global export markets.

Prior to joining JBS, Mr. Almanza spent nearly 40 years with the USDA, FSIS. He began his career with the USDA as a food safety inspector in a small plant in Dalhart, TX, eventually rising from this entry-level position to serve as Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety under Secretary of Agriculture Thomas J. Vilsack, from September 2014 to December 2016. For nearly a decade, he served as the Administrator of FSIS, leading the USDA’s science-based food safety modernization efforts, regulatory strategies and public health efforts to prevent foodborne illness.

Grace Varga

Grace Varga is the VP of QA/QC with Canopy Growth Corporation. She has spent 3 decades in Quality Assurance, working in Blood Manufacturing, a Pharmaceutical CRO, a CMO specializing in the production of food, nutraceuticals, and intermediates for medical devices, and finally in the Cannabis industry.

Her passion lies in change management – restructuring Quality practices to create efficient process flows to help the rest of the organization get on the ‘Quality Train’.

She has a Certificate in Quality Management from the University of Manitoba, has been certified by the American Society of Quality as a Quality Auditor, holds a certificate as a Clinical Trials co-ordinator, and started out as a Medical Laboratory Technologist. Her audit experience includes Health Canada, FDA, USDA, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, USDA, Halal, Kosher, GMP, GLP, ISO and countless client audits.

Marie Tanner

Marie joined Kerry in 2010, and currently leads the Global Food Safety & QHSE function, a role she was appointed to in 2013. During her career at Kerry, Marie has held executive compliance roles and served as the Vice President for QHSE for the Americas region. Prior to joining Kerry, Marie held various quality leadership roles for PepsiCo and Godiva (Ulker). Marie holds an M.S. in Food Science from Rutgers University and is currently on the board of SSAFE, a non-profit organisation that promotes the continuous improvement and global acceptance of internationally recognized food protection systems and standards. In the past, she served on the board of directors for the International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT).

Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson has spent the last 40 years in hospitality, crossing through the hotel business and restaurant since his first real job as a night line cook at a Hilton in his hometown of suburban Seattle. His role in the industry spans from corporate to independent, having led above-property teams in a Southern Cal ten-unit restaurant chain and the 7,000 property strong global hotel giant.

Chef Nelson joined Marriott in 1998 after having spent time with luxury operator Fairmont Hotels, the California desert’s La Quinta Resort and Club, and ITT Sheraton’s pacific division on the Big Island of Hawaii, among others. He likes to say that all of those experiences merely prepared him for his current role, leading the food and beverage culinary strategy for Marriott’s 30 brands worldwide.

In 2003 Chef Nelson was named VP Culinary. Over the last 16 years, Chef Nelson has led key priorities with his efforts on sustainable seafood, transfats elimination, animal welfare, food safety, and now plastics and food waste.

Overseeing 30 brands across luxury, premium, and select service segments, Chef Nelson leads a robust team, whose mandate is to constantly challenge food and beverage norms. Chef Nelson also uses his platform to give back, having raised over $ 5 million for the People with Disabilities charity foundation, Service Source Foundation, where Chef Nelson is a board trustee member.

Industry accolades include being named 2014 Silver Plate Foodservice Operator of the Year by the International Food Manufacturers Association; recipient of Food Arts Magazine November 2012 Silver Spoon; judging the NRA’S FABI innovation award. Chef Nelson is a regular at many industry events, having spoken at Cornell’s annual Ezra event, CIA Flavors conferences, and man.

A 1984 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and recipient of the Richard T. Keating Award, he is a member of the Seafood Watch Foodservice Roundtable, International Corporate Chefs Association, James Beard Foundation, and CIA Alumni.

Takashi Nakamura

Current Role Vice President Food Safety Del Monte Fresh

PhD – Engineering , Purdue University

MBA – University of North Florida

Sarah Blackmon

Sarah Blackmon serves as Senior Director of Supplier Quality and Safety (SQS) at Chick-fil-A. In this role, Sarah leads the team responsible for ensuring that all products delivered to Chick-fil-A Restaurants are safe and meet brand specifications. Under Sarah’s leadership, the SQS team has initiated a transformation journey to become a best-in-class function designed to protect Customers by combining data and technology with policies and processes. SQS focuses on 5 key areas: Risk Mitigation, Performance Management, Process and Production control, Issue response and Solutions and Innovation.

Since joining Chick-fil-A in 2013, Sarah has had the opportunity to hold a variety of roles across the business. Her most recent role was Manager of the Supply Chain Launch Team, where she led supply chain execution of all menu tests and rollouts. Prior to her Launch Team experience, Sarah served as Manager of Enterprise Social Responsibility, where she helped develop a holistic strategy for the brand’s environmental and social issues. Finally, Sarah began her time at Chick-fil-A in Sourcing, leading the procurement of all non-food items for the business.

Before joining Chick-fil-A, Sarah spent 12 years with Printpack, a large packaging converter, in various roles including Product Development, Sales and Marketing.

Sarah holds a Packaging Science degree from Clemson University. She and her husband, Matt, live near Atlanta, Georgia with their two daughters.

Peter Begg

Peter Begg is currently Vice President, Quality and Food Safety for Glanbia Nutritionals.  He oversees all aspects of quality and food safety across the company including risk management, regulatory and food safety conformity and product compliance for the business.  Glanbia Nutritionals provides nutritional and functional ingredient solutions for use in the food and beverage industry.

Prior to Glanbia, Peter was Sr. Director of Global Supply Chain Quality for Mondelēz International. His responsibilities included Auditing, Supplier Quality, Sanitation and Hygienic Design, Lean Six Sigma for Quality, Distribution and Warehouse Quality, Policy and Training, and Quality Systems.  Before that, Peter was the Director of Quality for Kraft Foods Europe from 2008-2011 and Director of Research, Development and Quality for the Kraft Foodservice (Away from Home) business in North America from 2005-2008.

Throughout his 26-year career, Peter has worked in a variety of business roles including Engineering, R&D and Quality.  Peter also represented Mondelēz International on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) board of directors from 2012-2017.  Peter completed his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1994.

Ana Fonseca

Ana is Head of Quality & Food Safety for Danone North America, one of the top 15 food & beverages companies and the world’s largest B Corp. Ana leads the Danone North America end to end Quality & Food Safety ambition and strategy with  focus in consumer trust & preference. Started with Danone in 1998  as Quality Director, in Portugal, in 2008,  she moved to Danone Brazil  as Quality & Regulatory Affairs Director and,  in 2014, to US,  as Vice  President  Quality & Food Safety  North  America for Danone Dairy  Division. Prior joining Danone,  Ana held various positions  related  with Quality & Food Safety.

Ana holds a Degree in Pharmaceuticals Sciences, a Specialization in Quality Engineering and a Master Degree in Animal Nutrition.

Ana is passionate for continuous improvement and  people  development by cultivating  a purpose – driven culture of quality towards a better world through the food revolution.

Tanya Peacock

Jeff Edelen

Ann Marie McNamara

Jonathan Fischer

Kelli Wilson

Lisa LaBean

Clive Newton

Clive Newton has a 30-year career history in the food industry that encompasses general management, supply chain, food safety and food innovation. Working predominantly in Asia Pacific and global roles, Clive’s focus has orientated towards formulation of organizational strategy and governance. As a former member of Yum!’s Compliance Oversight Committee, Clive was responsible for the definition and global deployment of Food Safety policy, standards and compliance programs across more than 130 countries with primary focus on new and developing markets.

Prior to joining Yum! Brands Inc. in 2007, he worked with H.J. Heinz Company in a variety of technical and commercial roles in the UK, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Clive earned his bachelors degree and doctorate in the UK before completing post-doctoral research at Stanford University.

Mary Tarver

Mary O. Tarver is Vice President, Quality, Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability of Coca‐Cola North America.

In her current role, she leads a team of Leaders with expertise in Quality, Safety, and Environment and sets strategic direction, leverage & establish global best practices, and continue developing a capable, high performing Quality, Safety and Environment teams; while ensuring strong stewardship for the Coca‐Cola North America system.

While in Global Quality of The Coca‐Cola Company, Mary built and lead networks of subject matter experts, partnered globally with key equipment suppliers, evaluated, validated new technologies for processing and filling equipment, and adopted over ten new technologies for The Coca‐Cola Company (TCCC). She enabled system capability by developing global associates through face to face trainings in areas such as: aseptic, hot‐fill, thermal and validation.

Mary has been with the Coca‐Cola system for 23 years.

During the course of the years, she held various positions such as Director, Quality Expertise & Networks for the Coca‐Cola Company, Manager Process Authority & Technology, Quality Assurance Manager and Quality Assurance Supervisor, in the Quality organization of the Coca‐ Cola system, Coca‐Cola Enterprises (CCE), Coca‐Cola North America (CCNA) and The Coca‐Cola Company.

Mary has been involved in some critical leadership developments such as, Catalyst Program with project recommendations accepted by the Chairman of The Company, Chief Administrative Office (CAO) People Development Forum with her recommendations accepted by the CAO Leadership and part of the recommendations implemented at TCCC in Q3 of 2015.

Prior to Coca‐Cola, Mary held the position of Staff Microbiologist at Lykes Meat Group Inc., Plant City, Florida, and in Germany, as a Food Technologist responsible for Technology and Management of Analytical Processes at Hengstenberg, a German food manufacturing company, in Esslingen Germany.

Mary holds a Postgraduate/M.S. Degree in Food Engineering with majors in Food Microbiology, Biotechnology and Food Technology at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart Germany and a B.S Degree in Food Technology at the University of Galati, Romania.

Jorge Hernandez

A company leader and brand ambassador responsible for the overall food safety and quality of the Wendy’s brand in all Wendy’s restaurants in 30 countries and with all Suppliers. Jorge provides leadership and oversight to all Quality Assurance programs, company and franchise operations. His responsibilities also include ensuring brand compliance with nutritional information, allergen information, menu labeling and any other local, state or federal regulatory requirements.

Previously, Jorge was the Chief Food Safety Officer at Wholesome International, a restaurant company with concepts and brands in the quick and fast casual foodservice markets in the US; the Senior Vice President for Food Safety and Quality Assurance at US FOODS, the second largest Distributor in the US; the Vice President of Food Safety and Risk Management at the National Restaurant Association; the Food Program Manager at the Illinois Department of Public Health and a Senior Sanitarian at the Winnebago County Health Department in Illinois.

Jorge has Degrees in Biology from Rockford University, Microbiology from the Centro de Estudios Medico-Biologicos in Mexico City Mexico and Languages and Literature from la Universite de la Sorbonne, Paris, France.
He has published a large number of articles including “The Myth of the Magic Bullet” for Food Management (1988); “Sanitation Standards and how to apply them” for National Frozen Dessert Retailer (2003); “Food Distribution: Maintaining the Cold Chain” for Food Safety Magazine (2005); “Caught in the Middle” for Meatinplace (2010); “Driving the Chain of Custody” for QA Magazine (2010); and many more.
Jorge belongs to several national and international organizations and boards such as the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a global industry network of QA professionals, based in Paris, France with a vision of “Safe food for consumers, everywhere”; STOP Foodborne Illness, an organization of people who have been seriously impacted by foodborne illnesses; The International Food Protection Institute (IFPTI), STOP the United States ANSI Accreditation Committee, QA Magazine, the Food Safety Summit and the Food Safety Consortium.

Craig Wilson

Craig Wilson is the Vice President, General Merchandising Manager of Quality Assurance/ Food Safety, Non-Foods Quality Assurance, Environmental Services/Haz Mat and Merchandise Services for Costco Wholesale Corporation. Costco Wholesale Corporation operates membership warehouses world-wide, that offer a selection of branded and private label products in a range of merchandise categories.

Costco is a global leader when it comes to food safety, and all suppliers must meet their strict compliance requirements. Costco’s food safety audit systems, STEC testing of fresh foods, x-ray product inspection, and unique positions on the Global Food Safety Initiative and the global regulatory environment, is well known industry wide.

Prior to joining Costco Wholesale, Craig worked as a Special Projects Director for Frigoscandia Equipment Food Safety Systems for over 24 years. During his time with Frigoscandia, Craig published numerous research papers in the areas of food safety and food processing and holds many patents, the most notable for steam pasteurization of food, and is the recipient of the Gia/Matek, Global Excellence in Food Safety Award.

He currently serves on the Global Food Safety Initiative Board, the Center for Produce Safety Board, the Center for Food Integrity Board, the STOP Food Borne Illness Board and the Steering Committee for the National Food Safety Consortium. Craig is also a member of the Board of Directors for Camp Korey.

Steve Lutes

Steve Lutes serves as Vice President, Global QA and Food Safety for Domino’s, the world’s largest Pizza company. Hired in March 2018 into this created global role, Lutes is responsible for leading the Quality Assurance team globally. Strategic initiatives he is leading include, driving culture change via the launch of the Store Food Safety assessment process, enhancing Supply Chain Center quality and food safety standards, and partnering with Franchisees to improve ingredient supplier quality and food safety.

Prior to that, Lutes spent 17 years in the Spirits industry working for Diageo and Beam Suntory in Manufacturing and Corporate QA roles. He was the VP, Technical Services for Beam Suntory, the world’s 3^rd largest Premium Spirits Company, since 2010, and Director of Quality Assurance for Diageo’s Americas’ region from 2006 – 2010. Lutes was a member of the Beam Suntory’s Corporate Responsibility Committee, Crisis Management Committee and Supply Chain’s Risk & Compliance Committee, while also serving on the Whisky Quality Council and Global Technical Steering Committee.

Lutes holds a Bachelor of Science, Chemical Engineering, from the University of Louisville and an MBA from Bellarmine University. He is a horse racing enthusiast, enjoys spending time with family, and an occasional round of golf. He also enjoys a healthy debate with open minded people, while sipping from a glass of his favorite wine or spirit.

Greg Pritchard

Greg Pritchard heads up the Quality and Food Safety team for Nestlé USA, a leading food and beverage company with a portfolio of well-known brands including CoffeeMate®, Dreyer’s®, Nesquik®, Nescafé® Taster’s Choice®, Stouffer’s®, Lean Cuisine®, DiGiorno® and Nestlé® Toll House®.

An Australian Food Technologist, Greg has a passion for food & beverage manufacturing which has taken him to operations located in every corner of the globe. Greg’s career with Nestlé spans more than 20 years and includes quality leadership roles in Confectionery, Dairy & Infant Formula manufacturing facilities in Australia , Research & Development facilities in Switzerland and corporate support roles in South East Asia, Oceania and USA. Prior to moving to the US in 2014, Greg was Head of Quality Management for Nestlé Oceania based in Sydney, Australia.

Greg is currently focused on driving simplicity in Quality and Food Safety systems via the application of pragmatism, risk awareness and capable autonomous teams.

Paul Kiecker

Paul Kiecker was named Administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in February 2020. From May 2018 through February 2020, Kiecker was the Agency’s Deputy Administrator.

Throughout his over 30 year career with FSIS, Kiecker has fostered his commitment to ensuring the Agency meets its food safety public health goals, including the current FSIS Strategic Goals: Prevent Foodborne Illness and Protect Public Health; Modernize Inspection Systems, Policies, and the Use of Scientific Approaches; and Achieve Operational Excellence.

In his current and past roles, Kiecker will continue his dedication to a robust public health vision that has guided him to overcome obstacles, identify opportunities for improvement, efficiently manage resources, and achieve food safety objectives to prevent foodborne illness.

In 1988, Kiecker joined FSIS as a food inspector and served as Deputy District Manager in Madison, Wisconsin; and District Manager in Madison, Wisconsin, and in Springdale, Arkansas. He also served as Executive Associate for Regulatory Operations and Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Field Operations in Washington, D.C. Kiecker’s FSIS experience also crossed program areas where he worked as a Compliance Investigator and a Supervisory Compliance Investigator with the Office of Investigation, Enforcement and Audit.

In his various positions with FSIS, Kiecker has played a critical role in leading external coordination with other federal, State and local governments, nonprofit and private sector organizations, international entities and law enforcement agencies. He has also had oversight responsibility for strategic planning, policy formulation and implementation, budget development and execution, human resource management, and day-to-day inspection operations.

Brian Perry

Brian Perry is an award-winning food safety and quality expert with over 21 years of experience in large, multinational food corporations. Currently, Brian is Senior Vice President of Food Safety and Quality and leads Food Safety and Quality at TreeHouse Foods, a leader in private label food and beverage focused on customer brands and custom products. His experience with creating and implementing food safety and regulatory compliance programs for a variety of product lines gives him a broad range of knowledge regarding current food safety and quality issues. Brian holds a BS degree in Animal Science from Auburn University.

Darryl Riley

Darryl Riley is the SVP Quality/ Food Safety and R&D for Hostess Brands, LLC and serves on the senior leadership team. He directs the strategic plan and risk management for food safety and quality including policy, practices, and procedures. He also directs the R&D team with headcount and budget approvals, innovation, NPD, and quality improvements.

Darryl previously spent 15+ years at Kraft Foods in R&D and Supply Chain, in roles based in U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, and the U.K. directing technical functions. He also spent 9+ years at the Kellogg Company, as VP, Snacks RQT followed the VP, Global Quality and Technical Operations where he led the strategic transformation of Quality Operations to a scientific risk-based global team.

Amy Wilcox

In her role as Director, U.S. Quality Systems, Amy Wilcox works to promote the highest standards of food safety and quality within McDonald’s Supply Chain and across the system. Amy leads a time that manages FDA products such as Produce/Fruit, Potatoes & Oil, Bakery/Baked Goods, Beverages and Liquids Products, and she is the direct McDonald’s U.S. quality lead for Logistics and U.S. Food Evolution (link to Scale for Good Commitment to Families). Amy and her team establish supply chain requirements, manage performance and build strategies for continuous quality and food safety improvement.

Amy has worked in the quality assurance field over 20 years. Prior to joining McDonald’s, Amy served in multiple corporate Quality Assurance positions for companies such as Custom Industries (now Kerry Ingredients), a maker of confectionery products, and before that, with Aurora Foods, Inc., a retail food manufacturing company covering multiple food product categories.

Amy earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin. She has completed a number of professional training and certification programs, including Hazard and Critical Control Point (HACCP), Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC), Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), Allergen Awareness, Food Security Implementation and Regulatory Compliance.

Amy is also a recipient of the prestigious McDonald’s President’s Award, an award that recognizes the outstanding achievements of the top 1% of global McDonald’s staff employees in addition to several Circle of Excellence and other individual and team awards.

Barbara Masters

Barb Masters is the Vice-President for Regulatory Policy, Food and Agriculture at Tyson Foods. She will provide regulatory vision and support across the business enterprise at Tyson Foods.

She came to Tyson from Keystone Foods where she served as the Global Vice President for Food Safety and Quality. Barb is a lead instructor for the Human Preventive Controls Rule.

Prior to joining Keystone Foods, she was a Senior Policy Advisor OFW Law. Before joining the firm, Dr. Masters spent 17 years at the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Dr. Masters held a variety of positions throughout the Agency, both in the field and at headquarters – including serving as an in-plant inspector and the Administrator for the Agency.

Dr. Masters graduated from Mississippi State University with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, and served in a Food Animal Internship at Kansas State University. She continued to further her education by taking advanced coursework in biotechnology at Texas A&M University.

Vijay Krishna

Vijay Krishna is the VP of Food Safety and Quality at Sargento Foods Inc. He is responsible for the strategic leadership and management of the Food Safety and Quality function and leads the organization in the areas of risk management related to food safety, quality systems, and regulatory compliance. Prior to joining Sargento, Vijay most recently held the position of Quality Director at Kerry Group, where he provided strategic and tactical support for continuous improvement of multi-site manufacturing facilities. He brings more than 20 years of experience in Food Safety and Quality Systems and has previously held leadership roles at Kahiki Foods, Gourmet Kitchens and IMI Cornelius. Vijay earned his Bachelors of Dairy Technology from Gujarat Agricultural University, India and a Masters in Food Science and Technology from The Ohio State University, OH.

Jim Rogers

James. E. Rogers, Ph.D. is the Director of Food Safety Research and Testing at Consumer Reports. He is responsible for leading the food safety and sustainability operations of the organization, including food testing, data analysis, and risk and safety assessments for various foods. Prior to joining Consumer Reports, Dr. Rogers held various positions at the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service. This includes serving as the Designated Federal Official for the National Advisory Committee for the Microbiological Criteria for Foods, the Director for Baseline Studies and as Senior Advisory for Food Safety and Nutrition for the USDA Office of the Chief Scientist.

Dr. Rogers received his Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology from Ohio University in 1981, his Masters in Microbiology from Miami (Ohio) University in 1983, and his Doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Michigan in 1993.

John Budin

John Budin is the Vice President of Product Safety and Quality at FONA International.  John obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Minnesota.  He started his career in 1996 on the faculty in the Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Enology at Fresno State University.  In 1998, he began work with Quest International in their flavor division at Hoffman Estates, IL and later became the Manager of Analytical Sciences.  In 1996 Quest was acquired by Givaudan where he his role was as Technical Manager.  In May 2009, John joined Merieux NutriSciences (Silliker) as their Corporate Director of Chemistry, where he was responsible for the technical integrity of chemistry testing in North and South America.  In October 2014 John joined FONA International.  Over the past 20 plus years John has performed the chemical and instrumental analyses of food from a wide variety of matrixes.

John is currently the Past-Chair of the Technical Division of Reference Materials of the AOAC.  He has served as a member of the Executive Advisory Board to the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota and on the organizing committee of the North American Chemical Residue Workshop.  He has served as a lecturer for short courses and workshops offered at the University of Minnesota, IFT and AOAC.  Currently John is a food chemistry, food analysis and food quality lecturer for IFT’s Certified Food Science Prep Short Course.  He has received training from the Food Safety Preventative Control Alliance in their curriculum “Preventative Controls for Human Food”.

John is currently serving as the treasurer of the Chicago Section IFT and the Chicagoland Food Science Foundation.  He has also served on Chicago Section IFT as: Chairman, Hospitality Committee, Supplier’s Day Committee, Chair of Minute Man Committee, Chair of Tanner Lecture Committee and Chair of the Scholarship Committee.

Spir Marinakis

Spir is currently serving as Vice President, Food Safety, Quality and Technical Services for processed meats, further processed poultry, fresh poultry, fresh pork at Maple Leaf Foods (MLF).  As overall leader of this function Spir is accountable for the strategic direction to deliver on MLF’s Food Safety & Quality (FS&Q) strategy, Food Safety Promise, Quality Vision, day-to-day operations of the FS&Q Management Systems and Microbiology and Chemistry labs that service all MLF’s plants.

Spir began her professional career at Unilever Canada, one of the world’s largest CPG company. She progressed through various roles that included food scientist, sales representative, brand manager, innovation manager, R&D/QA manager, Canada and customer activation manager, North America. During this time, Spir achieved two prestigious Global Innovation Awards for innovative concepts and successful execution. Throughout this time her efforts on the commercial side of the business enhanced her appreciation of the importance of innovation, and customer-centric focus.

In 2004, Spir joined Maple Leaf Foods as Director FS&Q for the poultry division. During this time, Spir was awarded the President’s Award. In 2007, she moved into Six Sigma. During her tenure in Six Sigma, she was responsible for critical projects within marketing and food safety. In 2013, Spir moved into the Director, FS&Q systems role where she  took over leadership and execution of  the company’s quality strategy, performance metrics, FS&Q Pillar of the Operational Excellence System, complaint management, and control of the FS&Q Management System.

R.M. Karr

RM Karr engages in prevention and collaboration as the Director of Food Safety & Quality Assurance at Clif Bar & Company. In partnership with operations, he led a step-change advancement with how food safety risk is measured, monitored, and mitigated within the supply chain at Clif. After 20 years in the food industry, RM recognizes real prevention comes from keeping the big picture visible and aligning goals among stakeholders.

In addition to an MBA from Santa Clara University, RM is a certified Master Brewer from the Institute of Brewing and holds a BS in Fermentation Science from the University of California at Davis. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two kids.

Hugo Gutierrez

Hugo Andres Gutierrez is the Global Food Safety and Quality Officer for Kerry.  In this position, Gutierrez is responsible for developing and executing  a long-term strategy to transform quality, food safety, and employee safety systems into world class.   In his previous position as Vice President of Quality and Regulatory at Hershey Corporation, he provide leadership to Hershey’s global Food Quality, Regulatory and Food Safety programs in addition to implementing 6 Sigma programs and a Supply Chain Learning and Development team for the Company.

Gutierrez has 25 years of experience in leading global, virtual and multi-cultural quality, food safety and regulatory teams.

Gutierrez has also served as Director of International Quality and Regulatory Operations (QRO) for General Mills.  In this position, he was responsible for working with regional and international functional leaders to enhance Food Safety Culture, quality systems, and Food Safety programs.  Gutierrez worked to strengthen the quality organization by developing leaders that could support the technical area while connecting with the business side of the company around the world.  His career with General Mills also included positions of Director, QRO for the Yoplait Division and Technical Development Director for Latin America and South Africa.

Prior to General Mills, Gutierrez held QA-related positions with Cadbury Schweppes USA, Pfizer in Canada and Adams (Warner Lambert) in Colombia.

Gutierrez holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Javeriana University and an MBA from Icesi University, both in his home country of Colombia.  He speaks fluent Spanish, French, English and basic Portuguese.

Gutierrez and his family currently reside in Fontana, Wisconsin.

Sharon Lindan Mayl, J.D.

Sharon Lindan Mayl has been with FDA for more than 25 years and currently serves as Senior Advisor for Policy in the Office of Food Policy and Response.  In this position, she oversees and manages significant policy initiatives in the foods area.  Among other issues, Ms. Mayl is the implementation lead for FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative.  She also represents the foods program on issues related to cannabis and co-chairs the Marijuana Working Group at FDA.  Previously, she co-led the team that developed and implemented the FSMA import rules and guidance documents, including those related to the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, Voluntary Qualified Import Program, and Accredited Third-Party Certification Program.  Ms. Mayl is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School.

Ray Kosmicki III

Raymond has been at Prinova USA for 4 years and he has been in the food industry for a total of 11 years. He is responsible for the roles of Quality Assurance and Food Safety in North America, Quality Control – Flavors (Sensory), Regulatory Compliance and Leads a Global Quality Council. Prior to Prinova USA, he worked at Flavor Focus, LLC where he developed flavors and managed QA, QC, food safety and regulatory for the manufacturing of flavors. He currently holds certificates for HACCP, PCQI, Advanced SQF Practitioner and Yellow Belt for continuous improvement. He earned his Bachelor Degree of Science at Aurora University. He is currently earning a EMBA from Loyola University – Chicago.

Taylor Harlin

Taylor Harlin is the Learning and Development Change Coach for Johnsonville Sausage. In this role, he and his team lead technical training for operations. With 10 years at the organization in roles ranging from Operations to Organizational Development and Learning, Taylor has a unique understanding of the role documentation plays in food production. Documentation is a critical part of most training programs, but it hasn’t been built for success, Taylor and his team have taken a different approach. By combining change management and documentation practices, Taylor’s team delivers meaningful training results across all areas of Johnsonville’s operations.

Catherine A. Davidson

In her role as Senior Director of Quality Systems with oversight to quality programs and quality control laboratory operations, Catherine Davidson and team are working to transform the Food Safety and Quality programs within the largest dairy cooperative in North America (NA). Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) has a diversified portfolio of dairy processing platforms, from aseptic systems and bulk fluid shipments to specialized dairy powders and ingredients. Owned and operated by over 13,000 farm families, DFA operates over 50 manufacturing facilities and multiple offices across the country and supplies dairy ingredients to the global markets.

Catherine has worked in food industry, food safety and quality for more than 20 years, and prior to joining DFA served as the Regional Director of Food Safety and Quality Control for Kerry NA. Subsequent to her work at Kerry, Catherine has held several positions in quality assurance and laboratory management with Bel-Kaukauna Cheese (now BelBrands), Balchem, Michael Foods, and Merieux NutriSciences.

Catherine received a Master of Science in Animal Science food microbiology and holds two bachelor’s degrees in Animal Science Biotechnology and Animal Science Food Science from Oklahoma State University (OSU). While completing her thesis work, she joined the Oklahoma Food & Agricultural Products Research and Technology Center at OSU, working in foodborne pathogen research focusing on Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes interventions.

Catherine is a passionate servant leader, whose success has been grounded in the development of others; building solutions to support manufacturing quality and operations, she has led the implementation of a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) solution for over 50 manufacturing laboratories in NA, partnered with RD&A to develop a Food Safety Flow Chart to support Food Safety By Design, developed an award-winning global e-learning module on environmental monitoring swabbing technique and designed a risk-based pathogen monitoring assessment tool.

Gina Cullerton

Gina came to the food industry approximately 15 years ago holding various Food Safety and Quality Roles from Corporate Microbiologist to Quality Management roles. Her educational background in Food Microbiology/ Genetics and Forensic Microbiology gives her numerous tools to help her succeed in the career path that she has chosen. Gina also brings a rather unique skill set to her position as a former Criminologist/ Profiler. Gina also has extensive background in Food Defense and some consider her a sanitation specialist. Gina is a Six-Sigma/ LEAN Green Belt, and is currently working towards a black belt.

Wendy Maduff

Wendy Maduff is the Vice President of Corporate Food Safety and Quality at The Wonderful Company, a position she has held since October 2016; she is responsible for food safety and quality systems, corporate incident management team, and centralizing functions of the four separate business units. While at Subway for almost three years, she oversaw all food safety, regulatory, food traceability and quality assurance of the food products throughout Subway’s nearly 44,900 stores in 112 countries. From 2009 through 2012, Dr. Maduff was a Principal Microbiologist with ConAgra Foods. In her earlier career, Dr. Maduff was the Director of Technical Services and Manager of Technical Services for Food Safety Net Services from. She received a Bachelors degree in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a Masters degree from Clemson University and a Doctorate degree from the University of California, Davis.

Paul Damaren

Paul Damaren joined Perry Johnson Registrars Food Safety Inc. “PJRFSI” in January 2020. Paul Damaren has over 35 years’ experience in the hospitality, service and retail agri-food sectors.

Prior to joining PJRFSI, Damaren worked for 16 years in the certification industry working with clients for their food safety, supply chain, health & wellness, brand protection, quality, environmental, health & safety, GMP, automotive, aerospace, medical and information technology requirements.

Before working in the Certification industry, Damaren was a professional Chef/consultant for 20+ years working in major hotel chains, restaurants, private golf courses and food service organizations such as Aramark. Further, Damaren was a member of the National Canadian Federation of Chefs and Cooks (C.F.C.C.) for 14 years, member of the Region of Waterloo Culinary Association (R.W.C.A.) for 14 years, President of R.W.C.A. (Region of Waterloo Culinary Association) for 3 years, special Events chairman – R.W.C.A. – 1998 – 2000 and National Culinary Ambassador to Russia for 5 years.

The Food Safety & Supply Chain team at PJRFSI are responsible for the commercial channels in North America and continuing to build and develop the PJRFSI brand through our multiple service offerings. Damaren and his team, work with global food processors, retailers, manufacturers, restaurant chains and hospitality groups who have a corporate head office in the Americas or wish to be managed from the Americas.

Primarily the team works with clients who require or are mandated to comply with Global Food Safety standards including 3rd party accredited GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative), 2nd party audit programs such as GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), GDP (Good Distribution Practices) or HACCP assessments and our full suite of training and services. The team also works with many clients on their own specific 1st Party audit schemes.

Jim Hardeman

As Chief Product Officer and Director of Marketing at CMX, Jim directs and oversees strategy for all software products. His responsibilities include driving product direction, positioning, and marketing. Jim’s 20+ years experience in working with and solving the business needs of many of the world’s leading food, consumer, retail, and financial services organizations, allows him to bring valuable insight in the user-centric design, architecture, construction, and delivery of CMX’s solutions.

Peter Jardine

In his career, Peter has focused on differentiating brands, creating new products and services.  He has launched over 20 new products and services in numerous market segments including B2C and B2B. Peter gained pest management experience when he joined Orkin Pest Control as the Sr. Director of Strategy and Innovation and has been with Bayer since 2011.   Leveraging his passion and experience, Peter is one of the cofounders of the digital pest management business at Bayer.  The team launched the Bayer Rodent Monitoring System in 2017.

Mel Whitson

Central Life Sciences, whose founders invented insect growth regulator (IGR) technology more than 30 years ago, has Mel Whitson on the company’s technical services team.

As a graduate of the University of Florida (Gainesville) Urban Entomology Program, Whitson has a long history in the professional pest control industry. He joined Central Life Sciences from the pest control industry where he held various positions that ranged from service technician to technical manager and general manager of sales and service.

In October 2002, Mel joined the Zoecon sales team as the regional manager serving Florida and the Caribbean. His track record of achieving sales targets earned him the distinguished “Salesperson of the Year Award” on three different occasions during his sales tenure. He is the groups only three-time award winner.

In 2014, Mel took a new position as the Senior Field Technical Services Manager for Central Life Sciences’ vector, professional pest management and wastewater treatment markets.

Mel has played a key role in developing and implementing key strategies for the PCO market and worked with Zoëcon Professional Products Division management in the development, field testing, and marketing of new products for the vector control and pest control markets for the past 17 years.

Denise Webster

Supports development and implementation of client’s food safety programs, training, and regulatory compliance.

Over 20 years of experience in the food industry, working within manufacturing, CPG brands, and retail. Her background in Food Science and professional skills allowed her to become a lead trainer and consultant for FSMA and GFSI schemes.

She is valued for providing best practices and real-world examples to each training session and consulting project she undertakes to exceed client’s expectations.

Her passion is to improve the food & beverage industry using a combined approach of risk-based management techniques and technical knowledge.

Craig Wilson

Craig Wilson is the Vice President, General Merchandising Manager of Quality Assurance/ Food Safety, Non-Foods Quality Assurance, Environmental Services/Haz Mat and Merchandise Services for Costco Wholesale Corporation. Costco Wholesale Corporation operates membership warehouses world-wide, that offer a selection of branded and private label products in a range of merchandise categories.

Costco is a global leader when it comes to food safety, and all suppliers must meet their strict compliance requirements. Costco’s food safety audit systems, STEC testing of fresh foods, x-ray product inspection, and unique positions on the Global Food Safety Initiative and the global regulatory environment, is well known industry wide.

Prior to joining Costco Wholesale, Craig worked as a Special Projects Director for Frigoscandia Equipment Food Safety Systems for over 24 years.  During his time with Frigoscandia, Craig published numerous research papers in the areas of food safety and food processing and holds many patents, the most notable for steam pasteurization of food, and is the recipient of the Gia/Matek, Global Excellence in Food Safety Award.

He currently serves on the Global Food Safety Initiative Board, the Center for Produce Safety Board, the Center for Food Integrity Board, the STOP Food Borne Illness Board and the Steering Committee for the National Food Safety Consortium.  Craig is also a member of the Board of Directors for Camp Korey.

Clive Newton

Clive Newton has a 30-year career history in the food industry that encompasses general management, supply chain, food safety and food innovation. Working predominantly in Asia Pacific and global roles, Clive’s focus has orientated towards formulation of organizational strategy and governance. As a member of Yum!’s Compliance Oversight Committee, Clive is responsible for the definition and global deployment of Food Safety policy, standards and compliance programs across more than 130 countries with primary focus on new and developing markets.

Prior to joining Yum! Brands Inc. in 2007, he worked with H.J. Heinz Company in a variety of technical and commercial roles in the UK, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Clive earned his bachelors degree and doctorate in the UK before completing post-doctoral research at Stanford University.

Frank Sabella

Mr. Frank J. Sabella is Vice President of Quality, Food Safety, Scientific & Regulatory Affairs for Mondelēz International, a position he has held since September 2013.   He is responsible for providing strategic leadership for the combined Food Safety, SARA and Quality function for Mondelēz International, delivering integrated strategies and plans needed for growth while driving excellence in consumer-inspired quality.  Prior to this he was the Vice President of Research, Development, Quality and Innovation for the Kraft Foods Group – Beverages, a position he has held since 2004.  He was responsible for all product and packaging development, food safety and quality matters for Kraft Beverages in North America.  He was also responsible for the development of the Enabling Technology agenda for Kraft’s Global Refreshment Beverage Category.

Mr. Sabella draws upon over 33 years of R&D, Quality and project management experience in the food industry.  He has developed and commercialized new process technologies, ingredient and product innovations and has successful track record of managing tactical and strategic research programs on a local and global basis.  He joined Kraft in 1985 as a research engineer in Maxwell House Coffee, working primarily to develop products and processes for decaffeinated and specialty coffees.  He holds a U.S. patent for his work.  Mr. Sabella received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York.  He was a Certified Food Scientist and Certified Quality Engineer.   Mr. Sabella is located at the East Hanover, NJ Campus for Mondelēz International.   Mr. Sabella has also been a member of the ILSI NA (International Life Sciences Institute) Board of Trustees for over 10 years and is currently serving as ILSI NA President.

Dr. Hany Sidrak

Dr. Hany Sidrak was appointed Deputy Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) Office of Field Operations (OFO) in May 2018. He has 27 years of FSIS experience, and throughout that time, Dr. Sidrak has been committed to ensuring the Agency’s Strategic Goals – 1: Prevent Foodborne Illness and Protect Public Health; 2: Modernize Inspection Systems, Policies, and the Use of Scientific Approaches; and 3: Achieve Operational Excellence – have been successfully implemented.

Some of Dr. Sidrak’s duties consist of developing and leading modernization efforts, including the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point-based Inspection Models Project (HIMP). He plays a critical role in guiding OFO District Offices that oversee more than 6,000 geographically dispersed plants to ensure that meat, poultry and processed egg products are inspected for wholesomeness, safety, and truthful labeling. In addition to domestic and exported products, Dr. Sidrak leads the inspection of imported products to ensure that public health is protected at home and abroad.

Dr. Sidrak joined FSIS in November 1991 as an in-plant veterinarian covering large volume poultry producing establishments in the Delmarva and Shenandoah areas. Moving to FSIS headquarters in March 1997, he has served as a Staff Officer with the Office of Policy and Program Development, Director of the Recall Management Staff, and Program Manager for field operations. Dr. Sidrak served as an Executive Associate for Regulatory Operations from April 2012 to May 2018, where he provided leadership to five of the 10 district offices and field personnel to protect the public’s health.

Dr. Sidrak is a 1984 graduate of Cairo University, College of Veterinary Medicine.

Mary Lou Valdez

Mary Lou Valdez joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as Associate Commissioner for International Programs in 2009. She leads and manages OIP staff around the world, catalyzing FDA global engagement in collaboration with international health and regulatory partners, ministries of health and agriculture, other U.S. Government Agencies, industry, academia, multilateral organizations, and related stakeholders.

Mary Lou Valdez came to the FDA after serving 18 years as Deputy Director of the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, where she was extensively involved in international health diplomacy.

Mary Lou Valdez has a Master of Science in Management from the University of Maryland University College, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Lyzette Lamondin

Lyzette Lamondin is the Executive Director of Food Safety and Consumer Protection with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. She has held various positions within the Agency, including Executive Director of the Food Import, Export and Consumer Protection Division and Director of Agri-food Programs and was Chair of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling in 2015 and 2017.  Lyzette led the initial consultations and drafting of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations from 2012 to 2015.  Prior to joining the CFIA she worked in intergovernmental and regulatory affairs in the Departments of Fisheries Oceans, and in community-based programs at Health Canada.

Sharon Lindan Mayl, J.D.

Sharon serves as the Senior Advisor for Policy, Office of Food Policy and Response.  In this position, she oversees and manages significant policy initiatives related to food safety.  She currently focuses on implementation of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  Ms. Mayl co-leads the team responsible for the FSMA import rules and guidance documents, including those related to the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, Voluntary Qualified Import Program, and Accredited Third-Party Certification Program as well as the team responsible for operationalizing these programs, including the oversight of the development and implementation of regulator training, compliance strategies, inspections and work planning, and outreach and education.  Ms. Mayl is also the lead for the foods program on issues related to cannabis.  Ms. Mayl is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School.  Prior to joining the agency, she worked first in private practice and then for a public interest advocacy group on foods issues.

Mark Fryling

Mark has worked for 24 years in a variety of leadership roles across Innovation Technology and Quality (ITQ) at General Mills. In his current role, Mark is accountable for Food Safety and Quality compliance for all General Mills operations around the world. The Food Safety and Quality organization at General Mills is a team of roughly 500 quality professionals accountable to provide global business support for all GMI products from design to consumption. Key accountabilities of the Food Safety and Quality team include assuring food safety and quality by design, specifications and labeling, regulatory compliance, raw material vendor approval and maintenance, and manufacturing verification and support.

Prior to his current position, Mark has held a variety of roles in ITQ including food safety and quality leadership roles in six US manufacturing plants, and corporate roles supporting US operating units. In addition to his work on US-based businesses, Mark has also had several roles focused on businesses outside of North America including four years based in Switzerland leading Innovation Technology and Quality for General Mills’ businesses in Europe and Australasia.

Mark holds an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Dayton, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Ohio State University.

Maria Wedel

Maria Wedel currently holds the position of VP, Quality & Regulatory (FSQR) for Cargill Animal Nutrition.  Maria joined Cargill in August of 2000 in Cargill Kitchen Solutions (aka Sunny Fresh Foods) and worked in a variety of roles within the business prior to moving to Cargill Turkey & Cooked Meats.  Throughout her time with Cargill she had a variety of roles spanning the multiple functions of FSQR, Operations and General Management.  In 2014, she left Cargill and worked for a small baking company, Legendary Baking, as the business FSQR Lead and also with SunOpta as Director of FSQR & Global Supply QA, prior to rejoining Cargill in November of 2018.  She holds a B.S. in Cellular Biology.

Phil McMillan

Phil McMillan is the Director of Operations Quality for Land O’ Lakes. Based in Arden Hills, Minnesota, Land O’Lakes does business in more than 60 countries, is the second largest agricultural cooperative in the country, and operates some of the most respected brands in agribusiness and food production: LAND O LAKES® Dairy Foods, Purina Animal Nutrition and WinField United. Phil’s responsibilities include product quality and product safety within the Animal Nutrition, and Winfield United divisions. Joining Land O’ Lakes in 2017, he previously led quality for ACH Food Companies, and held several corporate and plant roles in the areas of quality, food safety, and operations for ConAgra Brands, and Wells’ Dairy Enterprises. Phil’s experience in developing and implementing programs in a variety of industries gives him a broad range of knowledge and experience in the areas of quality and product safety. Phil earned a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from South Dakota State University, and an MBA from Wayne State College.

Cloeann Durham

Cloeann is currently employed by Coca Cola Consolidated in Charlotte NC as a Vice President of Quality.  Cloeann holds a Bachelor degree in Biology and minor in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Cloeann has over 24 years’ experience in the Beverage Industry.  Her career started immediately after college in Great Britain in Quality Assurance for a major beverage manufacturer.  Since that time she has worked throughout the US supporting beverage manufactures in Waste Water and Water Treatment facilities, Dairy, Concentrate and Carbonated Beverages and also working with an FDA lab as a Pathogen Specialist.  Cloeann has served as a member of the IFT (International Food Technologist),  GFSI (Global Food Safety Institute), the Dairy Manufacturers Council, Food Safety Board and the ISBT ( International Society of Beverage Technologies). Currently Cloeann serves as the Former President of the ISBT (International Society of Beverage Technologies) and has also been a special presenter for the ISBT general assembly technical sessions, the IFT, Food Safety Symposium, and Keynote Speaker for Food Safety Summit.

Melanie Neumann

Melanie Neumann, J.D., M.S. is the founder of Neumann Risk Services, LLC, (NRS) and is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Matrix Sciences. Matrix Sciences is a growing, multi-disciplinary group of experts focusing on contract laboratory testing, sensory testing, data analytics and food safety advisory services including recall and crisis management planning and response.

Melanie provides regulatory, operational and brand reputation risk mitigation consulting services to the food and beverage industry, helping companies manage these various risks in today’s ever-changing risk landscape. She focuses on risk management in each step of the supply chain, from supplier risk assessments, manufacturing facility risk assessments, FSMA compliance, food fraud and intentional adulteration risk, and risks involved in the transportation, storage, and co-manufacturing of food. Melanie also interacts with regulators in response to investigations, enforcement actions and recalls in the wake of threatened and actual crises and works with companies proactively to identify strategies to prevent or reduce risks before they arise.

Melanie is a graduate of Mitchell-Hamline Law School in St. Paul, MN for her juris doctorate degree, and Michigan State University for her M.S. in Food Safety. She has worked for major multi-national food companies, private law firms focusing on food law and intellectual property law, was instrumental in launching national food safety risk management practices for one of the “Big 4” tax and auditing firms as well as playing pivotal roles in other well-known consulting firms.

She is an Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University and serves on advisory panels and boards of notable organizations.  Melanie is a frequent speaker on food regulations including FSMA. Outside of her profession, Melanie is an avid triathlete, to date completing 28 marathons and seven Ironman triathlons.

Stacey Popham

Stacey Popham serves as the Vice President, Quality, Food Safety, and Regulatory, Americas for Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading chocolate and cocoa company. She leads a 140-person team which develops and executes the Quality strategy for the region, which includes 16 company-owned plants in five countries that manufacture 550,000 tons of chocolate and cocoa products a year.

Previously Stacey was Vice President, Quality Systems for TreeHouse Foods, where she shaped and implemented strategy and teams for all systems pertaining to Global Supplier and Co-manufacturer Quality; developed integrated company-wide Food Safety and Quality Policy, Consumer Affairs and led the Customer-facing Quality teams.

Prior to TreeHouse Foods, Stacey was the Head of Research and Development for the $4 Billion Beverage and Snacking Business Unit at Kraft Heinz. In this role, she was responsible for the innovation, renovation and cost management for iconic brands such as Capri-Sun, Kool Aid, Maxwell House and Planters.

Throughout her 20+ year, Stacey has developed cross-functional expertise in Engineering, Research and Development and Quality. Stacey earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1999.

Peter Begg

Peter Begg is currently Vice President, Quality and Food Safety for Glanbia Nutritionals. He oversees all aspects of quality and food safety across the company including risk management, regulatory and food safety conformity and product compliance for the business. Glanbia Nutritionals provides nutritional and functional ingredient solutions for use in the food and beverage industry.

Prior to Glanbia, Peter was Sr. Director of Global Supply Chain Quality for Mondelēz International. His responsibilities included Auditing, Supplier Quality, Sanitation and Hygienic Design, Lean Six Sigma for Quality, Distribution and Warehouse Quality, Policy and Training, and Quality Systems. Before that, Peter was the Director of Quality for Kraft Foods Europe from 2008-2011 and Director of Research, Development and Quality for the Kraft Foodservice (Away from Home) business in North America from 2005-2008.

Throughout his 23-year career, Peter has worked in a variety of business roles including Engineering, R&D and Quality. Peter also represented Mondelēz International on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) board of directors from 2012-2017. Peter completed his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1994.

Donna Garren

Dr. Donna Garren is currently Executive Vice President of Science and Policy for the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI). She leads the Scientific and Regulatory Affairs and Legislative Affairs programs for AFFI. Her extensive background and expertise in food safety, food science, nutrition, and regulatory affairs are instrumental in building and enhancing strong and effective regulatory programs for the food and beverage industry.

Prior to joining AFFI, Dr. Garren held positions with NSF Agriculture, a business unit of NSF International, the Consumer Goods Forum, the National Restaurant Association, United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association and Boskovich Farms, Inc. Dr. Garren graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in food science and nutrition, with a minor in microbiology. She earned her doctorate degree in food science and technology with an emphasis in food microbiology from the University of Georgia.

Mario Leduc

Manage a team of 53 subject matter experts developing best practices, establishing standardization, building capabilities, providing technical support and assuring compliance of 5 manufacturing sites, 5 distilleries and 12 sales offices.

Responsibilities: Environment, Health & Safety, Quality, Food Safety, Customer Care, Risk, Regulatory, Custom & Trade, Security & Manufacturing Excellence for Diageo North America

Acquired a solid manufacturing experience and expertise in Safety excellence, lean manufacturing, total quality and Continuous improvement with large organizations in the various aspects of a total supply chain.

Previous roles: Project engineer, maintenance manager, safety chair, packaging & brewing operation management, plant operation and corporate governance.

Joined Diageo on September 2007. Previously worked 20 years in the beer industry for Labatt Brewing Company and Latrobe Brewing Company in various locations in Canada and the US.

Electrical Engineer from Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal & Brewmaster from Scandinavian Brewing School in Denmark.

Fluent: English & French

Member of the OIQ and the Institute of Brewing

Other interest: Back country hiking, fly fishing and Hockey

For more details: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mario-leduc-219b012a

R.M. Karr

RM Karr engages in prevention and collaboration as the Director of Food Safety & Quality Assurance at Clif Bar & Company.  In partnership with operations, he led a step-change advancement with how food safety risk is measured, monitored, and mitigated within the supply chain at Clif.  After 20 years in the food industry, RM recognizes real prevention comes from keeping the big picture visible and aligning goals among stakeholders.

In addition to an MBA from Santa Clara University, RM is a certified Master Brewer from the Institute of Brewing and holds a BS in Fermentation Science from the University of California at Davis.  He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two kids.

Dwayne Eymard

Dwayne is the Director of Quality Assurance-PLK and frozen soups, sauces, and gravies; seasoning blends and wheat flour mixes for quick service restaurants.  Dwayne has led the food safety team for DFS in his 29 year tenure that included development of HACCP programs, Standard Operating Procedures in food and occupational safety, and the initial GFSI/BRC compliant food safety program.  He is concentrated in quality assure for DFS’ customer, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen ® assuring consistent, safe, and high quality product is purchased and produced to expectations.  He is also responsible in regulatory affairs of FDA, USDA, OSHA, EPA, and local governmental agencies.

Melody Bennett

Melody Bennett is currently the Senior Director of Quality and Commercialization at Diversified Foods & Seasonings, L.L.C. She has been with Diversified for over 10 years with the roles in Research & Development, Commercialization, and now Quality Assurance.

Melody earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology with a Minor in Chemistry from Louisiana State University.  Melody is a Certified Food Scientist.

John Budin

John Budin is the Vice President of Product Safety and Quality at FONA International.  John obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Minnesota.  He started his career in 1996 on the faculty in the Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Enology at Fresno State University.  In 1998, he began work with Quest International in their flavor division at Hoffman Estates, IL and later became the Manager of Analytical Sciences.  In 1996 Quest was acquired by Givaudan where he his role was as Technical Manager.  In May 2009, John joined Merieux NutriSciences (Silliker) as their Corporate Director of Chemistry, where he was responsible for the technical integrity of chemistry testing in North and South America.  In October 2014 John joined FONA International.  Over the past 20 plus years John has performed the chemical and instrumental analyses of food from a wide variety of matrixes.

John is currently the Past-Chair of the Technical Division of Reference Materials of the AOAC.  He has served as a member of the Executive Advisory Board to the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota and on the organizing committee of the North American Chemical Residue Workshop.  He has served as a lecturer for short courses and workshops offered at the University of Minnesota, IFT and AOAC.  Currently John is a food chemistry, food analysis and food quality lecturer for IFT’s Certified Food Science Prep Short Course.  He has received training from the Food Safety Preventative Control Alliance in their curriculum “Preventative Controls for Human Food”.

John is currently serving as the treasurer of the Chicago Section IFT and the Chicagoland Food Science Foundation.  He has also served on Chicago Section IFT as: Chairman, Hospitality Committee, Supplier’s Day Committee, Chair of Minute Man Committee, Chair of Tanner Lecture Committee and Chair of the Scholarship Committee.

Spir Marinakis

Spir is currently serving as Vice President, Food Safety, Quality and Technical Services for processed meats, further processed poultry, fresh poultry, fresh pork at Maple Leaf Foods (MLF).  As overall leader of this function Spir is accountable for the strategic direction to deliver on MLF’s Food Safety & Quality (FS&Q) strategy, Food Safety Promise, Quality Vision, day-to-day operations of the FS&Q Management Systems and Microbiology and Chemistry labs that service all MLF’s plants.

Spir began her professional career at Unilever Canada, one of the world’s largest CPG company. She progressed through various roles that included food scientist, sales representative, brand manager, innovation manager, R&D/QA manager, Canada and customer activation manager, North America. During this time, Spir achieved two prestigious Global Innovation Awards for innovative concepts and successful execution. Throughout this time her efforts on the commercial side of the business enhanced her appreciation of the importance of innovation, and customer-centric focus.

In 2004, Spir joined Maple Leaf Foods as Director FS&Q for the poultry division. During this time, Spir was awarded the President’s Award. In 2007, she moved into Six Sigma. During her tenure in Six Sigma, she was responsible for critical projects within marketing and food safety. In 2013, Spir moved into the Director, FS&Q systems role where she  took over leadership and execution of  the company’s quality strategy, performance metrics, FS&Q Pillar of the Operational Excellence System, complaint management, and control of the FS&Q Management System.

Shannon McCoy

Shannon McCoy is currently the Director of Food Safety and Quality at Maple Leaf Foods.  Her focus in on the development and implementation of the Food Safety and Quality programs to support the strategic direction of Maple Leaf Foods and advance the companies maturity in Food Safety and Quality both in corporate direction and on the shop floor.

Previously at Maple Leaf Foods, Shannon had direct oversight of the implementation and execution of Food Safety and Quality programs at 9 further processed meat facilities across Canada.

Shannon has previously held roles in national business management as the Canadian Business Manager for Diagnostics with DuPont where she led the support of diagnostic technologies for rapid pathogen detection including collaboration with Health Canada, CFIA, Standards Council of Canada and USDA for method approvals.  Prior to her role in Diagnostics, Shannon achieved Six Sigma Black Belt status and was a founding member of the Food Safety Risk Assessment consulting business at DuPont Canada providing consultation and collaboration with industry in North America and Europe including the development of microbial mapping techniques for environmental monitoring.  She successfully brought these techniques out of the plant and onto the farm to support Salmonella reduction strategies in poultry grow out operations globally and improve animal welfare in pork farm operations in Quebec and the Netherlands.

Shannon has been married for 16 years to her husband Bill and has 2 children.  Her son Liam, aged 22, is in his fourth year of study at Brock University majoring in Kinesiology.  Her daughter Lauren, aged 16, is in grade 11 at Donald A. Wilson secondary school with a passion for science (astrophysics in particular) and music.  Shannon holds a BSc from the University of Toronto in Cell and Molecular Biology.  She has worked at Maple Leaf Foods since 2011.

Andrea Maio

Andrea Maio is currently the Quality Director for the Americas Taste division at IFF. She has +20 years of experience developing and directing strategic quality initiatives and policies key to the growth of CPG and B2B companies in the food industry field. She oversees all the continuous improvement processes across the Americas, including developing an organization that meets local and global goals for product safety, regulatory, product quality, productivity and customer service requirements. Across her career, Andrea assumed positions of increasing quality and food safety management authority based upon her knowledge of production quality, vendor quality and product design quality process. As a Diversity and Inclusion fan, on her personal time Andrea sits as a Board member of GiGi’s Playhouse in NJ, a non-profit organization which mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome.

Joan Menke-Schaenzer

Joan Menke-Schaenzer is Chief Quality Officer at Van Drunen Farms and FutureCeuticals.

In this role, she is responsible for quality and food safety of Van Drunen Farms vegetable and herb (organic and conventional) growing and processing businesses. As well as, the nutraceutical business which supplies ingredients to the functional food, cosmetics and dietary supplements industries.

Joan is a passionate champion of safety and compliance across the entire food system. She has led quality and food safety organizations across manufacturing, food service and retail. Previously, Joan led McDonald’s global supply chain, safety and compliance organization; ConAgra Foods, food safety and quality organization; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. global food safety and security organization, and Kraft Foods quality organization.

Joan served on the FDA Food Advisory Committee. As well as, the CDC Board of Scientific Counselors FSMA Implementation working group.

Joan earned her Bachelor of Science in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

David Abney

David is currently Vice President of Food Safety Quality Assurance for Sonic Drive-in based in Oklahoma City. In this position, David is responsible for creating and managing strategic initiatives that drive food safety and quality across the Sonic supply chain. David joined Sonic in 2007 as Sr. Director of Food Safety and was responsible retail/supply chain food safety, and product commercialization.

Prior to joining Sonic, David spent 10 years with NSF International holding the positions of VP of Quality Assurance International, Director of Food Safety for NSF Cook and Thurber, and Director of NSF Retail Food Safety.

Prior to NSF International, David gained international experience as a Regional Food Safety Manager with Continental Airlines.

David holds a B.S. from Texas Tech University in Biological Sciences.

Hsing-Yi Hsieh

Hsing-Yi currently serves as the Director of Food Protection and Regulatory Affairs for Skogen’s Festival Foods, a privately owned chain of grocery stores in Wisconsin.  In this role, she is responsible for leading the execution of the company’s food safety and quality programs as well as all regulatory compliance efforts across 32 retail locations. She holds a M.S. degree in Food Microbiology from Iowa State University and has over 15 years of food safety experience in both public and private sector.

Hsing-Yi is passionate about food safety culture and food safety training; she is also active in the industry and serves as a member of the Wisconsin Food Safety Advisory committee, Wisconsin Produce Safety Council and the FMI Food Protection Committee.

Natalie Hadley

A dynamic and seasoned quality and product safety professional with experience developing, influencing and managing quality, product safety, regulatory and sustainability programs for products in all phases from concept to commercialization in diverse food manufacturing, consumer products and food service platforms. Strong strategic management skills with a solid history of process improvement and innovative problem solving aimed at finding cost-effective quality solutions. A “hands-on” leader with the ability to communicate across all levels of an organization with a passion for exploring and applying the art of leadership to develop talent and help drive positive business results.

Jean Deamond

Jean Deamond is currently the Global Direct of Vendor Quality at IFF. She has 30+ years of experience with IFF with a primary focus on the implementation of quality strategies, developing testing networks and implementation of global programs. Jean has built on her operational quality experience and devoted the last 10 years to vendor management and development in today’s complex and extensive global supply chain environment. Her global team reaches into many of areas of vendor management including on-site auditing, setting global quality parameters for all raw materials, managing material monitoring programs and global testing laboratories.

Don Jones

Don Jones is responsible for Quality, Food Safety and Regulatory compliance for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. based in Denver, Colorado. Responsibilities include oversight of quality and food safety systems at co-manufacturers, regulatory/labeling, consumer affairs and the company call center.

Joining Atkins in 2012, he previously worked with ConAgra Foods for 25 years. He has held Food Safety, Quality and R&D positions supporting both retail and food service businesses at plant and corporate levels domestically and internationally with experiences across food categories that include: raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry slaughter/processing, RTE seafood, dairy, snack foods, jarred sauces/preserves, frozen, canned and dehydrated foods, aseptic and near aseptic products, edible oils/margarine, flour milling, and animal feed production facilities.

Ray Kosmicki

Raymond has been at Prinova USA for 3 years and he has been in the food industry for a total of 11 years. He is responsible for the roles of Quality Assurance and Food Safety in North America, Quality Control – Flavors (Sensory), Regulatory Compliance and Leads a Global Quality Council. Prior to Prinova USA, he worked at Flavor Focus, LLC where he developed flavors and managed QA, QC, food safety and regulatory for the manufacturing of flavors. He currently holds certificates for HACCP, PCQI, Advanced SQF Practitioner and Yellow Belt for continuous improvement. He earned his Bachelor Degree of Science at Aurora University. He is looking to receive his Green Belt in 2019 and start a MBA program in 2020.

Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson has been an associate of Wawa Inc. for fourteen years.  She is the Director of Quality Assurance, Risk Management and Safety.  Nancy has had this role since May 2011.  Prior to this, Nancy served for six years in different management positions within Risk Management.  The last two of those six years, Nancy acquired responsibility for all of Risk Management as well as Safety across the Company. Nancy has also served in different roles throughout Human Resources.  In addition to her role today, Nancy also sits on many internal committees to support Wawa’s strategic plan and vision; act as a Servant Leader within the Company and provide guidance and direction in her areas of expertise.

Prior to Wawa, Nancy worked for Mercer Human Resource Consulting.  Nancy’s career started in Finance with six years of experience in financial analysis and project management working for Lockheed Martin and GlaxoSmithKline.  Nancy received her bachelor’s degree from Drexel University with a dual concentration in Finance and Marketing.  Nancy lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Wawa Inc. is a privately held multi billion dollar convenience store and gas station chain located across 6 states (NJ, DE, PA, MD, VA and FL).  Wawa employees over 33,000 associates. Wawa offers a large fresh food selection including made to order hoagies, award winning coffee, fresh express items and Wawa manufactured products such as milk, juices and teas.  Wawa has recently added a full line of specialty coffees and smoothies made to order and fresh baked rolls in the stores.  Wawa is most known for their fast and friendly service, quality products and dedication to the communities where they serve.

Scott Wright

Scott has had the privilege of fulfilling leadership roles over the last 30 years in Agriculture Canada as both a scientist and manager of science programs, the Alberta Government, Saskatchewan Agriculture and the University of Saskatchewan, and for the last 5 years with the Star Group as SVP – Food Safety, & Government Relations.  Scott leads the Food Safety strategy and implementation for the Star Group of Companies produce warehouses, greenhouse and fresh cut facilities.

Scott has diverse interests both in and outside of the workplace that span science and business to people, and personal development.   His ‘outside’ activities include Ground Search and Rescue, Search and Rescue Training and Search Management, and delivering Executive Coaching and Leadership Development blended with personal development work in Emotional Intelligence.

Rajesh Shah

30 years of US Quality experience serving auto, electronics, plastic and molding. Past 10 years engaged with food, dietary supplement and in-flight catering industries serving as quality head under FDA and USDA jurisdictions.

Performed business and supplier site risk assessments in countries like China, Brazil, S Korea, Vietnam, India, Peru, Mexico, Canada and US. Expertise QMS, developing mitigation plans & providing solutions, training and business processes continuous improvement.

B.SC. in Mechanical engineering, MS in Ops from Stony Brook Uni; NY and MBA from LI Uni, NY.

HACCP, FSMA, FSVP, PCQI, FDA 21 CFR cGMP and USDA compliant.

Catherine Templeton

Brian McEvoy

Brian McEvoy is currently the Director of Operations for start up meal prep company, Gobble based out of San Francisco CA.  With over 15 years in the food industry from brick and mortar retail to direct to consumer online businesses and ranging from highly established companies to emerging innovative startups, Brian McEvoy has focused on building operational teams from a food safety and quality perspective.  As a leader in navigating the uncharted waters of the meal kit industry, Brian has built extensive food safety programs through rigorous testing of methods, routines and delivery options to ensure the best quality while maintaining cutting edge safety standards.

Brian received his degree from the University of California, Davis and is certified Six Sigma Green belt and Preventative Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) under FSMA, HACCP and SQF.  As a passionate driver of community stewardship, Brian works with the City of Stockton, CA to build a community based operation that provides growth and development opportunities for hundreds and helps shape a more responsible business environment that extends to Gobble’s national operations.

Nihan Chiquinquira

Nihan Chiquinquira is a Quality Excellence leader who works with the Nature’s Bounty Company to optimize and streamline of standards across the Supply Chain network focused on continuous improvement and excellence while ensuring compliance. Nihan has worked on various quality systems that improved not only compliance but also delivered over $10M cost savings to company P&L.  Prior to her time in the Nature’s Bounty Company, Nihan has spent first seven years of her career in food industry in various roles including  Quality, R&D, Continuous Improvement, and Process Engineering. Nihan holds a Bachelor degree in Food Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey.

Sean Leighton

Sean Leighton is currently VP Food Safety, Quality, and Regulatory Affairs for Cargill based in Wayzata, Minnesota.  Prior to joining Cargill, Sean worked for over 13 years at The Coca-Cola Company in various roles across Quality, Food Safety and Environmental Sustainability, working in the US, Canada and Europe.  Sean has a BS in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MS in Food Science from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Emory University.

Sean sits on the advisory board of many organizations including, but not limited to, IAFP’s Journal of Food Protection, The Center for Food Safety (UGA), GMA’s Science & Education Foundation and the Food Fraud Think Tank (MSU).  In his spare time, Sean enjoys running, lifting weights, and spending time with his wife, Kelly, his 3-year old son Connor, and his 9-month old daughter, Parker.

Steven Graham

Steven Graham was appointed Vice President, Food Safety and Quality – Starbucks in November 2015.

Steve is responsible for leading the development of comprehensive food safety and quality strategies in support of the Starbucks business growth plans. His portfolio covers all products manufactured within the US and sourced from overseas for the Americas, including coffee roasting plant quality and all food and beverage ingredient suppliers. Steve also leads quality related to packaging, merchandise and furniture for all stores,

Prior to joining Starbucks, Steve worked at Campbell Soup Co in various roles throughout the global organization.  After assignments at their World Headquarters and Campbell Canada, he and his family moved to Sydney, Australia where he was Vice President R&D/Quality for Asia Pacific. Immediately prior to Starbucks he led R&D and Quality for Pepperidge Farm based in Connecticut.

Steve’s proven strategic leadership and superior collaboration skills has enabled greater integration across a broad range of teams – driving superior results. His commitment to excellence is reflected in his focus to develop robust teams and valued individuals, resulting in strong employee engagement.

He earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Food Science from the University of Guelph Ontario Canada.

Anthony Auffray

Anthony Auffray is a food safety industry leader, his experience spanning nearly two decades. He studied food production, process and trade at the engineering school École Supérieure d’Agriculture in France. The start of his career brought him to Hong Kong where he held roles at Bureau Veritas, Food Pacific and SGS. In 2002, he joined Starbucks Coffee Asia Pacific, as regional QA manager and was promoted to a global role based in Seattle in 2007. Since 2013, Anthony has lead food safety and compliance globally across Amazon and recently has begun leading product safety globally as well. Amazon food safety programs support all Amazon Food Businesses, including Amazon Fresh, Prime Now, Amazon Go And Treasure Truck, from supplier approval to customer feedback monitoring.

Joann Givens

Ms. Joann M. Givens serves as Office of Regulatory Affairs’ Human and Animal Food Program Director; HAF-West.  In this leadership position, Joann oversees the human and animal food program work plan, accomplishments, implementation strategies of FSMA, program alignment advancement and collaborates with the Center of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and Center of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), ORA components and external stakeholders.  Prior to serving in this position, Joann served as the Acting Regional Director of the Central Region for several years, Deputy Regional Director in the Central Region and District Director in Detroit District.  Joann is a graduate of Berkeley College, Little Falls, NJ and also majored in biology at Kean University, Union, NJ.  She is the recipient of numerous awards and a member of numerous professional organizations.

Carmen Rottenberg

Carmen Rottenberg was appointed Acting Deputy Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office for Food Safety in August 2017. In this position, Ms. Rottenberg oversees development, implementation and enforcement of all of FSIS’ regulations, policies and programs. This appointment follows nearly six years in leadership roles in the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS’) Office of the Administrator, including serving as the Chief of Staff, the Chief Operating Officer and, most recently, the Deputy Administrator.

In those leadership roles, Ms. Rottenberg executed a budget of over $1 billion, prioritizing resources and resolving disputes, advancing the Agency’s vision and goals, and leading innovative solutions to challenges in FSIS. She has spearheaded strategic planning at FSIS and implemented numerous initiatives to strategically move the agency forward. She implemented two major reorganizations leading to a more streamlined, efficient Agency better positioned to carry out its food safety mission. Through her leadership and oversight, an early governance process matured into an established systematic approach to agency decision-making, resulting in more deliberative, science-based decisions that consider enterprise-wide risks and benefits. Ms. Rottenberg’s vision led to the very successful i-Impact initiative which has increased the awareness of and engagement in FSIS’ public health mission by the more than 9,000 employees throughout the Agency.

Ms. Rottenberg joined FSIS as an Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist in 2007, and went on to become the Deputy Director of the Civil Rights Staff. Conducting training and working with FSIS employees from every program area and location while in those positions provided Ms. Rottenberg with a broad Agency perspective.

Ms. Rottenberg began her federal government career in the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of General Counsel, and prior to joining FSIS, Ms. Rottenberg was a law clerk at a small law firm in Fairfax, VA. Ms. Rottenberg holds a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Hope College in Holland, MI and a JD degree from American University’s Washington College of Law.

Cloeann Durham

Cloeann is currently employed by Coca Cola Consolidated in Charlotte NC as a Vice President of Quality.  Cloeann holds a Bachelor degree in Biology and minor in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Cloeann has over 24 years’ experience in the Beverage Industry.  Her career started immediately after college in Great Britain in Quality Assurance for a major beverage manufacturer.  Since that time she has worked throughout the US supporting beverage manufactures in Waste Water and Water Treatment facilities, Dairy, Concentrate and Carbonated Beverages and also working with an FDA lab as a Pathogen Specialist.  Cloeann has served as a member of the IFT (International Food Technologist),  GFSI (Global Food Safety Institute), the Dairy Manufacturers Council, Food Safety Board and the ISBT ( International Society of Beverage Technologies). Currently Cloeann serves as the Former President of the ISBT (International Society of Beverage Technologies) and has also been a special presenter for the ISBT general assembly technical sessions, the IFT, Food Safety Symposium, and Keynote Speaker for Food Safety Summit.

Sharon K. K. Beals

Sharon is the VP of Food Safety and Quality Assurance for US Foods.  In this role, she is responsible for leading the food safety and quality efforts across the manufacturing facilities (12 federal establishments operating under the Stock Yards brand, a seafood operation operating under the Save-On-Seafood brand and a produce facility operating under the Freshway brand), several produce redistribution centers and, the supplier base for all of US Foods manufacturers of our Exclusive Brands.  Actively engaged in the industry, Sharon is on the 2017 BIFSCo Executive Committee, the 2017 Food Safety Summit Planning Committee and an AMSA Board Member, serving as the 2017 Chair of the Reciprocal Meat Conference.

Sharon joined US Foods in January of 2016 bringing nearly 40 years of food safety, quality, regulatory compliance and technical services experience with Maple Leaf Foods, Smithfield Foods, Tyson/IBP, Orval Kent, Arby’s Inc. and Land O’Frost.

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition/Foods from Cornell University and is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Wisconsin’s Food Safety and Meat Microbiology School summer short course.

Cindy Jiang

Cindy Jiang is a Senior Director of Food and Packaging Safety, Global Supply Chain and Sustainability at McDonald’s. She leads a global food safety function from farm to the restaurant.  Cindy is responsible for developing the global food safety strategic plan, establishing science and risk based standards & procedures, and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to ensure effective food safety practices along the supply chain.

Cindy serves as a board of director for Global Food Safety Initiatives (GFSI), GFSI is an industry-driven global organization to advance food safety.  She is also a board member of SSAFE and a member of the advisory board for Bor S. Luh Food Safety Research Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. She has a great passion for Food Safety, Food Science, and Quality.

Cindy holds a Master of Science Degree in Food Science and Nutrition from University of Wisconsin.  She is a senior member of the American Society for Quality, a member of Institute of Food Technologist and International Association of Food Protection.

Tammy Switucha

Tammy Switucha is the Senior Director, Domestic Food Safety Planning and Requirements with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.  She has worked in the Canadian Federal Government for over 25 years and has been with the CFIA for the past 11 years.  She has held various executive positions at the CFIA, including Director of both International Relations and Strategic Policy.  She is currently leading the Agency’s efforts to modernize its regulatory framework for food safety – the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations – which have been under development since 2013.  This work also involves the development of guidance material for industry stakeholders to assist with readiness for compliance with the regulations.

Peter Begg

Peter Begg is currently Vice President, Quality and Food Safety for Glanbia Nutritionals.  He oversees all aspects of quality and food safety across the company including risk management, regulatory and food safety conformity and product compliance for the business.  Glanbia Nutritionals provides nutritional and functional ingredient solutions for use in the food and beverage industry.

Prior to Glanbia, Peter was Sr. Director of Global Supply Chain Quality for Mondelēz International. His responsibilities included Auditing, Supplier Quality, Sanitation and Hygienic Design, Lean Six Sigma for Quality, Distribution and Warehouse Quality, Policy and Training, and Quality Systems.  Before that, Peter was the Director of Quality for Kraft Foods Europe from 2008-2011 and Director of Research, Development and Quality for the Kraft Foodservice (Away from Home) business in North America from 2005-2008.

Throughout his 23-year career, Peter has worked in a variety of business roles including Engineering, R&D and Quality.  Peter also represented Mondelēz International on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) board of directors from 2012-2017.  Peter completed his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1994.

Stacey Popham

Stacey Popham is currently Vice President, Quality Systems for TreeHouse Foods. She is responsible for shaping and implementing strategy and teams for all systems pertaining to Global Supplier and Co-manufacturer Quality, development of TreeHouse-wide Food Safety and Quality Policy, Consumer Affairs and leadership of Customer facing Quality teams. TreeHouse Foods provides private label food and beverage offerings to retail grocery and food away from home customers.

Prior to TreeHouse Foods, Stacey was the Head of Research and Development for the Beverage and Snacking Business Unit at Kraft Heinz. In this role she was responsible for the innovation, renovation and cost management for iconic brands such as Capri- Sun, Kool Aid, Maxwell House and Planters.

Throughout her 19-year career, Stacey has worked in a variety of business roles including Engineering, Research and Development and Quality. Stacey completed her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1999.

Arthur Liang

Arthur P. Liang, MD MPH is currently the Senior Advisor for Food Safety, Division of Foodborne Waterborne & Environmental Diseases, and CDC.  He is the former Director of the CDC Food Safety Office.  He has been a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and the Chief of the Communicable Disease Division, Hawaii Department of Health.  He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. He is also serves on the Center for Produce Safety Board of Directors and the Food Safety Summit Education Advisory Board, and is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.  He is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health.  He has a BA from Oberlin College, an MPH in International Health and Epidemiology from the University of Hawaii; and MD from the University of Maryland.

Hugo Andres Gutierrez

Hugo Andres Gutierrez is Vice President, Quality, Food Safety, and Regulatory Affairs for The Hershey Company.  In this position, Gutierrez provides leadership to Hershey’s global food quality, food safety, and regulatory programs in addition to implementation of 6 sigma programs across the company. Recently, he has been given the challenge of building a Supply Chain Learning and Development team for the Company.

Gutierrez has 20 years of experience in leading global, virtual and multi-cultural quality, food safety and regulatory teams.

Prior to joining Hershey, Gutierrez served as Director of International Quality and Regulatory Operations (QRO) for General Mills. In this position, he was responsible for working with regional and international functional leaders to enhance food safety culture, quality systems, and food safety programs. Gutierrez also worked to strengthen the Quality organization by developing leaders that could support the technical area while connecting with the business side of the company around the world.

His career with General Mills also included positions of Director, QRO for the Yoplait Division and Technical Development Director for Latin America and South Africa.

Prior to General Mills, Gutierrez held QA-related positions with Cadbury Schweppes USA, Pfizer in Canada and Chicle Adams (Warner Lambert) in Colombia.

Gutierrez holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Javeriana University and an MBA from Icesi University, both in his native Colombia. He speaks fluent Spanish, French, English and basic Portuguese.

Gutierrez and his family reside in Palmyra, Pa.

Cinda Stricklen

Cinda is the Commercial Director of Supplier Quality for Mars Petcare North America.  In this role, she leads the Supplier Quality and Food Safety team in the development and execution of material quality management while supporting 21 production sites and over 600 supplier sites.

Prior to joining Mars, Cinda was Senior Director of Quality for Sam’s Club in Bentonville, AR where she was responsible for developing and implementing a new Quality system for Sam’s Club Private Brand suppliers and developing and maintaining a Quality program for branded and imported suppliers of items sold exclusively by Sam’s Club. Before that, she was the Corporate Quality and Food Safety Manager for ConAgra Brands. She was responsible for ensuring all ConAgra Brands items complied with each retailer’s Quality and Food Safety programs. Prior to joining ConAgra Brands, Cinda held multiple positions with Allen Canning Company including Quality Manager, Assistant Plant Manager, Thermal Process Authority, Director of Product Development, and Director of Customer Quality.

Cinda holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree from the University of Arkansas in Food Science.

Mario Leduc

Manage a team of 53 subject matter experts developing best practices, establishing standardization, building capabilities, providing technical support and assuring compliance of 5 manufacturing sites, 5 distilleries and 12 sales offices.

Responsibilities: Environment, Health & Safety, Quality, Food Safety, Customer Care, Risk, Regulatory, Custom & Trade, Security & Manufacturing Excellence for Diageo North America

Acquired a solid manufacturing experience and expertise in Safety excellence, lean manufacturing, total quality and Continuous improvement with large organizations in the various aspects of a total supply chain.

Previous roles:  Project engineer, maintenance manager, safety chair, packaging & brewing operation management, plant operation and corporate governance.

Joined Diageo on September 2007.  Previously worked 20 years in the beer industry for Labatt Brewing Company and Latrobe Brewing Company in various locations in Canada and the US.

Electrical Engineer from Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal & Brewmaster from Scandinavian Brewing School in Denmark.

Fluent: English & French

Member of the OIQ and the Institute of Brewing

Other interest: Back country hiking, fly fishing and Hockey

For more details: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mario-leduc-219b012a

Darryl Riley

Darryl Riley is the SVP Quality/ Food Safety and R&D for Hostess Brands, LLC and serves on the senior leadership team. He directs the strategic plan and risk management for food safety and quality including policy, practices, and procedures. He also directs the R&D team with headcount and budget approvals, innovation, NPD, and quality improvements.

Darryl previously spent 15+ years at Kraft Foods in R&D and Supply Chain, in roles based in U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, and the U.K. directing technical functions. He also spent 9+ years at the Kellogg Company, as VP, Snacks RQT followed the VP, Global Quality and Technical Operations where he led the strategic transformation of Quality Operations to a scientific risk-based global team.

Gary Swanson

Gary Swanson is responsible for the corporate and regional Quality Assurance teams, as well as the Quality Control operations at Herbalife Innovation and Manufacturing facilities in Lake Forest, CA; Winston-Salem, NC; and Suzhou, China. Gary also has responsibility for the Quality Center of Excellence in the United States and Changsha, China. With over 30 years’ experience in nutritional and pharmaceutical quality and operations roles, Gary has been with Herbalife since 2009. Since that time, Gary has assembled a world-class Quality team that has completely transformed the Quality Assurance and Quality Control functions worldwide. Under Gary’s leadership, Herbalife has established a gold standard for the industry in Product Quality for foods, dietary supplements, botanicals and acidified foods by acquiring and developing the appropriate testing capabilities. Herbalife has made a significant investment in this key area and the Quality team has been instrumental in using Herbalife’s efforts to create the very best nutrition products. Gary began his career as a chemist for a Canadian manufacturer of nutritional and pharmaceutical soft gels and eventually oversaw worldwide operations for Banner Pharmacaps. Gary has focused a substantial part of his career on designing new facilities and helping various companies to improve product and process quality.

Lisa Thorsten

Lisa is Director of Global Regulatory Affairs at Campbell Soup Company.  She coordinates a network of regulatory leaders around the world who manage labeling, ingredient reviews and finished product regulatory compliance for consumer-loved brands such as Campbell, Prego, Swanson, Pace, Pepperidge Farm, Plum Organics, Bolthouse Farms and Arnott’s.  In addition to her work in Regulatory, Lisa has had experience managing other R&D and Quality functions at Campbell including Sensory, Product Development, Nutrition Labeling and Global Quality.

Prior to Campbell, Lisa was a Senior Food Technologist at Best Foods, now part of Unilever, and a member of the global team that brought the first Knorr manufacturing facility to the US.  In her first food industry position, Lisa was a Food Technologist at Estee Foods formulating a wide range of foods, including confections, for consumers on medically-restricted diets.

Lisa holds a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Penn State University and a Master of Science degree in Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs from Temple University’s School of Pharmacy.

Lisa is active in several nutrition and regulatory-related committees within industry including the American Bakers Association, Institute of Food Technologists, the Organic Trade Association and the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association.   Lisa is also active in her community as a Troop Committee Chair for the Boy Scouts of America and a Supporting Member of the Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Foodshed Alliance.

Peter Poteres

Peter Poteres Global Vice President of Glanbia Performance Nutrition (GPN): GPN is the world leader in manufacturing nutritional foods and dietary supplements that are distributed globally.  I have been with GPN for 9 years and have a total of +38 years of Quality Assurance experience in the food, infant nutrition and dietary supplement industry.  Additional work experience includes Dove Candies & Ice Cream, Labatt’s Beverages, Coca-Cola, Nabisco/Kraft and Nestle.

John Budin

John Budin is the Vice President of Product Safety and Quality at FONA International.  John obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Minnesota.  He started his career in 1996 on the faculty in the Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Enology at Fresno State University.  In 1998, he began work with Quest International in their flavor division at Hoffman Estates, IL and later became the Manager of Analytical Sciences.  In 1996 Quest was acquired by Givaudan where he his role was as Technical Manager.  In May 2009, John joined Merieux NutriSciences (Silliker) as their Corporate Director of Chemistry, where he was responsible for the technical integrity of chemistry testing in North and South America.  In October 2014 John joined FONA International.  Over the past 20 plus years John has performed the chemical and instrumental analyses of food from a wide variety of matrixes.

John is currently the Past-Chair of the Technical Division of Reference Materials of the AOAC.  He has served as a member of the Executive Advisory Board to the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota and on the organizing committee of the North American Chemical Residue Workshop.  He has served as a lecturer for short courses and workshops offered at the University of Minnesota, IFT and AOAC.  Currently John is a food chemistry, food analysis and food quality lecturer for IFT’s Certified Food Science Prep Short Course.  He has received training from the Food Safety Preventative Control Alliance in their curriculum “Preventative Controls for Human Food”.

John is currently serving as the treasurer of the Chicago Section IFT and the Chicagoland Food Science Foundation.  He has also served on Chicago Section IFT as: Chairman, Hospitality Committee, Supplier’s Day Committee, Chair of Minute Man Committee, Chair of Tanner Lecture Committee and Chair of the Scholarship Committee.

David Abney

David is currently Vice President of Food Safety Quality Assurance for Sonic Drive-in based in Oklahoma City. In this position, David is responsible for creating and managing strategic initiatives that drive food safety and quality across the Sonic supply chain. David joined Sonic in 2007 as Sr. Director of Food Safety and was responsible retail/supply chain food safety, and product commercialization.

Prior to joining Sonic, David spent 10 years with NSF International holding the positions of VP of Quality Assurance International, Director of Food Safety for NSF Cook and Thurber, and Director of NSF Retail Food Safety.

Prior to NSF International, David gained international experience as a Regional Food Safety Manager with Continental Airlines.

David holds a B.S. from Texas Tech University in Biological Sciences.

Joseph Darden

Joseph R. Darden works as Vice President, Food Safety & Quality for Mastronardi Produce.  In addition to overseeing corporate food safety and quality programs, he also oversees microbiology, post-harvest, organics, import permits, social responsibility and environmental affairs.  Joseph serves as a liaison to Mastronardi Produce for government & regulatory affairs.  He also is a member of the Executive Management Team.  Joseph championed Mastronardi’s achievement of the 2010 Food Quality Award. Prior to working for Mastronardi Produce, Joseph worked in the pork manufacturing, chicken manufacturing, and animal breeding industries.  Joseph achieved PhD and Master of Science degrees from The University of Georgia-Athens, and a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University-Raleigh.

Rosalind Zils

Rosalind Zils- Director, External Supply Chain Quality, Land O Lakes Product Safety, Quality and Regulatory Affairs

Rosalind Zils has global responsibility for Land O Lake’s External Supply Chain Quality, covering Human and Animal Food Ingredients, Packaging, Co-Manufacturers, Warehouses and Seed Quality. Land O Lakes is made up of three divisions, Dairy Foods, Animal Feed and Crop Services. An alumnus of Iowa State University with a bachelor’s of Animal Science, Rosalind has 25 plus years food industry experience through various positions within Land O Lakes and Cargill. Her career encompasses experiences in Sales, Operations, Quality Assurance, Supply Chain Management and Corporate Quality. Rosalind is responsible for leading a team of quality professionals who manage the activities with external partners that ensure compliance with Land O Lakes requirements.

Rosalind represents Land O Lakes on working groups with Global Food Safety Initiative, Grocery Manufacturers Association, and others. Her past industry contributions include the leadership committee for the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply Laying Hen Housing Research Project. She is a past Minnesota State Quality Award Examiner, a four-time Business Excellence Examiner, and past president of the Wright County Area United Way of Minnesota. She is actively involved in Land O Lake’s ISU relationship. Rosalind is a past ASQ certified quality auditor and mentors many others to achieve that certification. She has been married 27 years to Robert Zils and has one son, Jacob, who is 13.

Anuj Mehta

Anuj Mehta is  Group Director for Quality, Food Safety & Regulatory for Clearwater Seafoods, based out of Halifax, Canada. He is responsible for defining and driving the Quality strategy for Clearwater and also for managing their entire Quality organization in North & South America, Europe and in Asia. Prior to that he spent 19 years with Group Danone in a  variety of roles in Quality and in related areas like R&D, Product Development, Crisis Management and Regulatory affairs in several countries in Asia & in North America. Originally from India, Anuj has been a global citizen for the last 25 plus years with education in 4 different countries including an MS in Food Science from University of Minnesota & a management degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, direct work experience in 6 countries and has worked with over 20 different nationalities in his career so far. Over the years he has managed Quality in its entire scope and over the entire value chain from suppliers to end consumers and is particularly passionate about Quality culture and growing people and teams.

Kris DeMoss

Kris DeMoss is the Director of Quality Assurance for WILD Flavors North America, part of the newly formed Archer Daniels Midland Nutrition Division.  He is responsible for ensuring compliance to a wide range of FDA, USDA, and CFIA food safety programs, customer satisfaction, and colleague development.  A part of an aggressive and growing business unit, Kris assess and aligns quality systems for new mergers and acquisitions.

Kris has dedicated his career to flavor quality, with responsibilities ranging from Quality Control, Microbiology, Auditing, Quality Management, and Food Safety over his 16 year.  He is currently a member of the ADM Nutrition Global Operations Leadership Team.  Kris completed his B.S. in Cellular/Physiology Biology from the University of Louisville in 2001.

Julia Ferrell

Julia L. Ferrell is the Director of Food Security & Regulatory Compliance with Bay State Milling Company headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts.  Ms. Ferrell is a leader within her organization with Food Safety including BRC Certification, Export Regulations, FSMA Compliance, and State & Federal Regulatory expectations.  Much of her work focuses on helping the plant management teams prepare proactive policies, procedures, training and education to prevent food safety incidents and increase the behavioral based food safety culture.  Ms. Ferrell graduated from University of Green Bay Wisconsin with her undergraduate in Nutritional Science, minor Chemistry in 1996, and Associates in Culinary Arts in 1993, and received her Masters of Project Management through Keller Graduate School in 2013. Ms. Ferrell in her spare time enjoys gardening and cooking.

Sigita Baniulis Gudeika

Sigita B. Gudeika is the Senior Quality Assurance Manager for Specialty divisions of Bay State Milling Company headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts. Mrs. Gudeika is a leader within her organization with Food Safety including GFSI Certification, Organic and Gluten Free Regulations, and FSMA Compliance. Much of her work focuses on helping the plant management teams prepare proactive policies, procedures, training and education to prevent food safety incidents and increase the behavioral based food safety culture. Mrs. Gudeika graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology and received her Master’s in Food Safety and Technology in 2008.

Jessica Hinkle

Jessica Hinkle has 20 years of experience working in QA/QC, material qualification, method development, product development and product validation in the pharmaceutical, medical device and dietary supplement industries. She has extensive experience in performing internal audits as well as auditing external laboratories to the GLP standard. In her current role, as the QC Lab Manager at NOW Foods, she oversees the quality control, method development and stability aspects of new vendor/material qualification, new product development and production/packaging of dietary supplements, foods, sports nutrition and personal care products. Additionally, she leads several lean manufacturing initiatives.

Natalie Dyenson

Based at the Dole Nutrition Institute Campus in Kannapolis, NC, Ms. Dyenson has responsibility for food safety and quality programs globally.  Before joining Dole, she spent eight years at Walmart, Inc., most recently leading food safety across 6500 retail stores, 48 company owned manufacturing facilities and 220 fresh distribution centers in 26 countries for Walmart’s international division.  Prior to Walmart, Ms. Dyenson spent eight years with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, where she held various roles in food safety and public health supporting Walt Disney World, Disney Regional Entertainment, Disney Cruise Line and the Parks and Resorts business globally.  Ms. Dyenson holds a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Iowa and a M.P.H. in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of South Florida.

Wendy Maduff

Wendy Maduff is the Vice President of Corporate Food Safety and Quality at The Wonderful Company, a position she has held since October 2016; she is responsible for food safety and quality systems, corporate incident management team, and centralizing functions of the four separate business units. While at Subway for almost three years, she oversaw all food safety, regulatory, food traceability and quality assurance of the food products throughout Subway’s nearly 44,900 stores in 112 countries. From 2009 through 2012, Dr. Maduff was a Principal Microbiologist with ConAgra Foods. In her earlier career, Dr. Maduff was the Director of Technical Services and Manager of Technical Services for Food Safety Net Services from. She received a Bachelors degree in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a Masters degree from Clemson University and a Doctorate degree from the University of California, Davis.

Paul Thibodeau

Paul has 15 years of experience working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. For the last 24 years he has worked at Loblaw Companies Limited, the largest Canadian Food Retailer where Paul worked in the private label quality assurance and product development teams.  This led to his current role as the National Food Safety Sr. Director overseeing Retail and Supply Chain.

Craig Wilson

Craig Wilson is the Vice President, General Merchandising Manager of Quality Assurance/ Food Safety, Non-Foods Quality Assurance, Environmental Services/Haz Mat and Merchandise Services for Costco Wholesale Corporation. Costco Wholesale Corporation operates membership warehouses world-wide, that offer a selection of branded and private label products in a range of merchandise categories.

Costco is a global leader when it comes to food safety, and all suppliers must meet their strict compliance requirements. Costco’s food safety audit systems, STEC testing of fresh foods, x-ray product inspection, and unique positions on the Global Food Safety Initiative and the global regulatory environment, is well known industry wide.

Prior to joining Costco Wholesale, Craig worked as a Special Projects Director for Frigoscandia Equipment Food Safety Systems for over 24 years. During his time with Frigoscandia, Craig published numerous research papers in the areas of food safety and food processing and holds many patents, the most notable for steam pasteurization of food. Craig is the recipient of the Gia/Matek, Global Excellence in Food Safety Award and serves on the Steering Committee for the National Food Safety Consortium as well as the Technical Committee of the Global Food Safety Initiative.

Diego Beamonte

Diego Beamonte is the vice president global quality for Burger King Corporation (BKC). In this role, Beamonte heads the company’s global food safety, quality assurance and regulatory function, and is in charge of global policies and strategies on those areas.

Prior to this role, Beamonte served as senior director, supply and quality for Europe, Middle East and Africa where he was responsible for the quality assurance, food safety, and supply chain management in the region.

Before joining the company in 2007, Beamonte served different positions in Yum Brands, in the food innovation department, including chief food innovation officer for Long John Silver’s and A&W brands, and Senior Director of QA international.

Beamonte holds a PhD and bachelor’s degree on molecular biology and biochemistry from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, in Spain, and an executive MBA from the Instituto de Empresa, also in Madrid, Spain.

Theodora Morille-Hinds

Theo Morille-Hinds joined The Kellogg Company as a Sr. Director of Global Food Safety and Sanitation in July of 2011 and was promoted to Vice President of Global Quality Food Safety in November of 2013.  In this role, Theo provides leadership for multiple global functions including; Food Safety, Quality Compliance to Design, Quality Innovation, Supplier for Ingredients, Packaging and Premiums, Auditing and Quality Management Systems.  Prior to joining Kellogg’s, Theo was employed by Kraft in Tarrytown, New York.

Theo is on the Food Safety Advisory Board of University of Georgia and Tuskegee University.  She is also President of the Board of SSAFE and affiliated with a number of Industry associations. Theo holds a B.S from York College City University of New York and an M.S in Food Microbiology from Long Island University, City University of New York.

Sean Leighton

Sean Leighton is currently Vice President of Food Safety & Quality for Cargill based in Wayzata, Minnesota.  Prior to joining Cargill, Sean worked for over 13 years at The Coca-Cola Company in various roles across Quality, Food Safety and Environmental Sustainability, working in the US, Canada and Europe.  Sean has a BS in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MS in Food Science from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Emory University.

Sean sits on the advisory board of many organizations including, but not limited to, IAFP’s Journal of Food Protection, The Center for Food Safety (UGA), GMA’s Science & Education Foundation and the Food Fraud Think Tank (MSU).  In his spare time, Sean enjoys running, lifting weights, and spending time with his wife, Kelly, his 4-year old son Connor, and his 1-year-old old daughter, Parker.

Joann Givens

Ms. Joann M. Givens serves as Office of Regulatory Affairs’ Human and Animal Food Program Director; HAF-West.  In this leadership position, Joann oversees the human and animal food program work plan, accomplishments, implementation strategies of FSMA, program alignment advancement and collaborates with the Center of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and Center of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), ORA components and external stakeholders.  Prior to serving in this position, Joann served as the Acting Regional Director of the Central Region for several years, Deputy Regional Director in the Central Region and District Director in Detroit District.  Joann is a graduate of Berkeley College, Little Falls, NJ and also majored in biology at Kean University, Union, NJ.  She is the recipient of numerous awards and a member of numerous professional organizations.

Al Almanza

Alfred V. Almanza was appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack in September 2014, after having served as Administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) since June 2007.  Mr. Almanza will simultaneously serve as Acting Administrator, continuing to lead nearly 10,000 employees in the agency’s mission to protect public health.

In 1978, Mr. Almanza began his FSIS career as a food inspector in a small slaughter plant in Dalhart, Texas.  During his 36-year career with FSIS, Mr. Almanza moved up quickly from that entry level position – serving as Labor Management specialist, District Manager of the Agency’s Dallas District Office, and ultimately Administrator of FSIS.  His experiences in the field and headquarters have made him extraordinarily qualified to lead the agency.

During his tenure as Administrator, Mr. Almanza focused on modernizing inspection and identifying ways to make the Agency more efficient and effective.  He spearheaded the development of the New Poultry Inspection System which redirects FSIS inspection to a more balanced and efficient approach while simultaneously reducing pathogen levels in young poultry slaughter establishments.  It is anticipated that the new approach will prevent thousands of illnesses from Salmonella and Campylobacter.  In addition, Mr. Almanza’s regulatory strategies against potentially deadly E. coli O157:H7 have significantly reduced illnesses from this pathogen.  Under his leadership, FSIS implemented a zero-tolerance policy for six additional strains of E. coli that are responsible for human illness.  He also led the development of new Campylobacter and Salmonella performance standards, which hold slaughter establishments accountable for reducing these pathogens in young chickens and turkeys.  In 2006 the positive Salmonella testing rate was 16%; today it is less than 7%.  In 2013, FSIS released the Salmonella Action Plan, which outlines the agency’s key steps towards reducing the incidence of Salmonellacontamination.

Under Mr. Almanza’s leadership, FSIS launched the Public Health Information System (PHIS), a modern repository for all data about public health trends and food safety violations at the more than 6,000 FSIS-regulated plants across the country.  Since 2011, PHIS has streamlined data collection and access for the agency.

As part of USDA’s Blueprint for Stronger Service, Almanza determined that FSIS could streamline resources by reducing the number of district offices from 15 to 10.  The district consolidation helped to improve efficiency, consistency, and integration by more evenly distributing the circuits, establishments, and FSIS employees that each district office oversees.  Furthermore, Mr. Almanza reorganized headquarters offices and staff to improve organizational efficiency and the ability to better target existing resources.

Mr. Almanza led the development of the FSIS FY 2011-2016 Strategic Plan, which includes results-oriented performance measures.  The plan includes 30 distinct, quantifiable performance measures that support eight larger goals.  In 2012, he led the development of the internal Annual Performance Plan, which included specific outcomes linked to the Strategic Plan.   The plan bridges the FSIS Strategic Plan with Senior Executive Service individual performance standards, and presents three ‘key results’ to be achieved by each Program Area.  The transparency provided by this integration of plans makes it possible for each employee to clearly see how his or her work relates to the FSIS mission.

Mr. Almanza is mindful of the more than 7,000 FSIS field employees in his day-to-day tasks.  Recognizing that FSIS employees are the agency’s greatest asset, Mr. Almanza works diligently to foster productive relationships. In the most recent FSIS employee survey, top ten results indicate employees like their work, understand how it relates to the agency’s goals, have a sense of accomplishment, and believe in being held accountable.

Gary Swanson

Gary Swanson is responsible for the corporate and regional Quality Assurance teams, as well as the Quality Control operations at Herbalife Innovation and Manufacturing facilities in Lake Forest, CA; Winston-Salem, NC; and Suzhou, China. Gary also has responsibility for the Quality Center of Excellence in the United States and Changsha, China. With over 30 years’ experience in nutritional and pharmaceutical quality and operations roles, Gary has been with Herbalife since 2009. Since that time, Gary has assembled a world-class Quality team that has completely transformed the Quality Assurance and Quality Control functions worldwide. Under Gary’s leadership, Herbalife has established a gold standard for the industry in Product Quality for foods, dietary supplements, botanicals and acidified foods by acquiring and developing the appropriate testing capabilities. Herbalife has made a significant investment in this key area and the Quality team has been instrumental in using Herbalife’s efforts to create the very best nutrition products. Gary began his career as a chemist for a Canadian manufacturer of nutritional and pharmaceutical soft gels and eventually oversaw worldwide operations for Banner Pharmacaps. Gary has focused a substantial part of his career on designing new facilities and helping various companies to improve product and process quality.

Richard Carlson

Richard A. Carlson is vice president of quality management for Hormel Foods and is responsible for overseeing company quality, plant regulatory and food safety activities.

In 1990, Carlson began his career with Hormel Foods as quality and process control engineer at the Austin Plant. He has held quality assurance and production management positions at the Stockton (Calif.) Plant, Owatonna (Minn.) facility and at Jennie-O Turkey Store Willmar, Minn. In 2000, he was named director of quality assurance at Jennie-O Turkey Store and assumed the position of vice president of quality management at Jennie-O Turkey Store in 2010. He moved to the Corporate Office in Austin, Minn., and became vice president of quality management at Hormel Foods in 2014.

Carlson graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Food Science and is active with his church and local theater and arts and lives in Austin, Minn.

Carlson has been very involved in the meat and poultry industry. From 1998-2002, he was the Chairman of the Willmar Area Quality Council. He has been a member of the Technical and Regulatory Committee for the National Turkey Federation and served as the committee chairman from 2003-2004. In 2003, Carlson was named a Meat Processing Magazine “Rising Star.” Carlson is a two-time recipient of the Chairman’s Inner Circle award for Hormel Foods.

Carlson currently lives in Austin, MN with his wife Laura and two daughters, Emily and Elizabeth.

Martin Slayne

Martin Slayne has broad experience working across sectors and geographies, leading in scientific, regulatory and food safety roles. Martin joined The Hershey Company in 2014 to head up the Company’s new Global Scientific & Regulatory Affairs organization, based in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Martin was born in Wales, UK. He started his career in scientific research, moved to UK government sector in London, and then to the European Commission in Brussels. In 2005, he moved to the food industry sector in the US, responsible for global regulatory, food safety and nutrition leadership in Fortune 500 food companies. Martin was previously with Kraft Foods through the company split into Mondelez International, where as Chief Food Safety Officer he established and led the Global Food Safety and Scientific & Regulatory Affairs organization. His original move to the US was to join PepsiCo, at the Frito-Lay HQ near Dallas, where he led PepsiCo’s global cross-functional community on scientific & regulatory affairs, food safety and nutrition. Before moving to the US, Martin was responsible for establishing legislation on chemical food safety at the European Commission in Brussels, including EU representation at Codex Alimentarius, and inter-governmental collaboration. Prior to Brussels, Martin built his responsibilities across food, animal feed, veterinary and agricultural science and policy at the UK Food Standards Agency and Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in London. Martin has a PhD in medical microbiology research.

Marie Tanner

Marie joined Kerry in 2010, and currently leads the Global Food Safety & QHSE function, a role she was appointed to in 2013. During her career at Kerry, Marie has held executive compliance roles and served as the Vice President for QHSE for the Americas region. Prior to joining Kerry, Marie held various quality leadership roles for PepsiCo and Godiva (Ulker). Marie holds an M.S. in Food Science from Rutgers University and is currently on the board of SSAFE, a non-profit organisation that promotes the continuous improvement and global acceptance of internationally recognized food protection systems and standards. In the past, she served on the board of directors for the International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT).

Richard Arsenault

Dr. Richard Arsenault is the executive director of the Domestic Food Safety Systems Directorate at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Dr. Arsenault began his food safety career as a veterinary meat inspector in 1989. He has been an auditor, a manager, and the Director of the meat hygiene program, and was involved in many significant Canadian food safety events over the past 25 years.

Dr. Arsenault leads the CFIA team that is finalizing the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations and its coming-into-force strategy. His team also works on modernizing Canada’s meat inspection and on-farm food safety programs.

Dr. Arsenault has worked throughout his career to improve food safety in Canada and facilitate the international trade of food products under Codex Alimentarius principles.   He is currently the representative for North America on the Codex alimentarius Executive Committee and the representative for Canada at the Codex Commission.

Dan Kastor

Mr. Kastor serves as Senior Director Global Regulatory for McCormick & Company, Inc. He also serves on McCormick’s Global Quality Leadership Council. Prior to his current assignment, he held positions as Director, Global Food Safety and Quality Systems, Director, Quality Assurance for McCormick Asia-Pacific and Director, Quality Assurance for the U.S. Industrial Group.

Mr. Kastor came to McCormick following seventeen years of factory and corporate headquarters experience with Nestle S.A. He is the past Secretary of the Maryland China Business Council and is active in the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), American Society for Quality (ASQ) and the International Food Information Council (IFIC).

Leonard Heflich

Len recently retired after 42 years in the food industry from Grupo Bimbo in Mexico City, where he was VP of Food Safety, Quality and Crisis Management with responsibility for 150 bakeries in 23 countries.  He recently authored a chapter on Risk Management in the 7^th Edition of the Juran Quality Handbook.

He has been Chair of the Food Technical and Regulatory Affairs Committee of the American Bakers Association since 2001 and is President of the Board at the Center for Food Integrity.

Len has a BS in Chemistry from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an MSc. in Management Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Mario Leduc

Manage a team of 53 subject matter experts developing best practices, establishing standardization, building capabilities, providing technical support and assuring compliance of 5 manufacturing sites, 5 distilleries and 12 sales offices.

Responsibilities: Environment, Health & Safety, Quality, Food Safety, Customer Care, Risk, Regulatory, Custom & Trade, Security & Manufacturing Excellence for Diageo North America

Acquired a solid manufacturing experience and expertise in Safety excellence, lean manufacturing, total quality and Continuous improvement with large organizations in the various aspects of a total supply chain.

Previous roles:  Project engineer, maintenance manager, safety chair, packaging & brewing operation management, plant operation and corporate governance.

Joined Diageo on September 2007.  Previously worked 20 years in the beer industry for Labatt Brewing Company and Latrobe Brewing Company in various locations in Canada and the US.

Electrical Engineer from Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal & Brewmaster from Scandinavian Brewing School in Denmark.

Fluent: English & French

Member of the OIQ and the Institute of Brewing

Other interest: Back country hiking, fly fishing and Hockey

For more details: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mario-leduc-219b012a

Bill Scopa

Mr. Scopa is the Acting Director of the Interagency Collaboration Division, the Office of Trade (OT), Customs and Border Protection (CBP).  He is the liaison with other federal government agencies that have border authorities or interests and coordinates their activities with CBP field operations. He has been in this Division since 2012. His permanent status is as the Chief of the Partner Government Agencies Branch.

He has over 30 years CBP experience. 15 years were spent at the CBP Ports of Los Angeles and Boston, the remainder at CBP headquarters, where he has held varied positions, such as manager of CBP’s vessel operations, revenue policy, anti-dumping and countervailing Duty (ADCVD) Division, and commercial targeting and enforcement.

Education: Juris Doctorate

Lee Perry

Lee Perry is the Vice President, Quality Management and Food Safety, WILD Flavors & Specialty Ingredients, a division of Archer Daniels Midland Company.  Lee is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the safety and quality systems, and supporting the commercial and customer base by monitoring and providing guidance on quality trends and issues.  He also ensures alignment with companywide quality and regulatory standards.

Lee joined WILD Flavors in 2011 as Associate Director Quality Management and Food Safety and was responsible for the overall execution of the Quality Management System throughout WILD North America.  He supported the launch of a Global Quality Council, the establishment of scorecard processes, and partnered with the CFO on a global continuous improvement process.   In 2014, Lee was asked to lead the Human Resources function for WILD Flavors followed by the WFSI North America division of ADM which he held until August, 2016.  During his time in HR, Lee was a business partner to the WFSI leaders and supported a commercial global commercial talent assessment, developed two ADM-wide sales training programs and supported the human resource integration and cost synergies efforts for WFSI.

Lee holds a B.S. from Idaho State University in Biological Sciences.  Lee has over 20 years of experience in quality management gained in his previous roles at ConAgra, Ken’s Foods, Davisco Foods, Leprino Foods, and Nestle USA.

Don Jones

Don Jones is responsible for Quality, Food Safety and Regulatory compliance for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. based in Denver, Colorado. Responsibilities include oversight of quality and food safety systems at co-manufacturers, regulatory/labeling, consumer affairs and the company call center.

Joining Atkins in 2012, he previously worked with ConAgra Foods for 25 years. He has held Food Safety, Quality and R&D positions supporting both retail and food service businesses at plant and corporate levels domestically and internationally with experiences across food categories that include: raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry slaughter/processing, RTE seafood, dairy, snack foods, jarred sauces/preserves, frozen, canned and dehydrated foods, aseptic and near aseptic products, edible oils/margarine, flour milling, and animal feed production facilities.

Heather Ashlock

Heather Ashlock oversees the quality and food safety of all food and disposable goods received by Raising Cane’s Chicken Finger Restaurants. Raising Cane’s, founded by Todd Graves in 1996, operates over 300 Restaurants in 23 states and two countries.

Heather has over twenty years’ experience managing and implementing quality and food safety systems in both manufacturing and foodservice.  She began her career with Tyson Foods and went on to hold progressing roles at Dean Foods and Don Miguel Mexican Foods before making the leap to foodservice.  In her current role as Director of Total Quality for Raising Cane’s, she has had the opportunity to develop a quality team and all quality systems from inception to implementation.

John Budin

John Budin is the Director of Product Safety and Quality at FONA International.  John obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Minnesota.  He started his career in 1996 on the faculty in the Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Enology at Fresno State University.  In 1998, he began work with Quest International in their flavor division at Hoffman Estates, IL and later became the Manager of Analytical Sciences.  In 1996 Quest was acquired by Givaudan where he his role was as Technical Manager.  In May 2009, John joined Merieux NutriSciences (Silliker) as their Corporate Director of Chemistry, where he was responsible for the technical integrity of chemistry testing in North and South America.  In October 2014 John joined FONA International.  Over the past 20 plus years John has performed the chemical and instrumental analyses of food from a wide variety of matrixes.

John is currently the Chair of the Technical Division of Reference Materials of the AOAC.  He has served as a member of the Executive Advisory Board to the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota and on the organizing committee of the North American Chemical Residue Workshop.  He has served as a lecturer for short courses and workshops offered at the University of Minnesota, IFT and AOAC.  Currently John is a food chemistry and food analysis lecturer for IFT’s Certified Food Science Prep Short Course.  He has received training from the Food Safety Preventative Control Alliance in their curriculum “Preventative Controls for Human Food”.

John is currently serving as the treasurer of the Chicago Section IFT.  He has also served on Chicago Section IFT as: Chairman, Hospitality Committee, Supplier’s Day Committee, Chair of Minute Man Committee, Chair of Tanner Lecture Committee and Chair of the Scholarship Committee.

Al Baroudi

Dr. Ata (Al) Baroudi joined The Cheesecake Factory in 2008 with broad experience in the food industry as a quality assurance executive. He is an agricultural engineer with a MS degree in Food Science and Technology / Microbiology from the University of California at Davis, CA. He received his Ph.D. in Food Processing and Technology / Regulatory Affairs from The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. He served as the head of QA and Food Safety (Snacks and Dairy) for Borden Foods Company in Columbus, OH, before moving to the west coast as Vice President, Corporate QA/Food Safety and Regulatory/Environmental Affairs for the Vons/Safeway Supermarkets, Arcadia, CA.  Dr. Baroudi then served as Vice President of QA and Technical Services, Harry & David Corporation, Medford, OR., before becoming the Chief Scientific, Health and Regulatory Affairs Officer at Yum! Brands in Louisville, KY.  He later founded and served as President of the Food Safety Institute, International (FSI).  Dr. Baroudi has lectured around the globe in conferences as keynote speaker, conducted workshops on Food Safety, introduced HACCP program to developing countries on behalf of the US government, published White Papers on HACCP and authored many food safety articles in different food magazines.  He appeared on several TV and radio talk shows as a food safety expert.  His specialization has also given him the opportunity to train food safety auditors and inspectors in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and many federal, state and local health agencies.  He served on the E. coli O157:H7 Blue Ribbon Task Force Committee during the Jack-In-The-Box meat outbreak and then on the Board of Directors of the International HACCP Alliance representing The Food Marketing Institute (FMI).  Dr. Baroudi also served on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Food Safety (CFS) at the University of Georgia.  Dr. Baroudi is a “Certified Food Scientist” CFS, he was elected and served as the Chairman, of the Food Safety Advisory Board in LA County (CA) and he is a member of the Educational Advisory Board (EAB) of the Food Safety Summit Group, Washington, DC.  He is the Vice President of QA & Food Safety at The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated headquartered in Calabasas Hills, CA.

Mike Davis

Michael Davis, Director of Quality Assurance, Compliance & Regulatory Services for Baldwin Richardson Foods, co.  Servant leader with a focus on increasing consumer satisfaction.  For nearly 20 years I’ve been determined to add value and get results.

My varied experience spanning from pet nutrition to dietary supplements and most recently foods such as syrups, sauces and ice cream toppings (my personal favorite) has allowed me to gain a unique perspective of risk based Quality systems.  A scientist at heart, with a B.S. degree in Biology and focus in Chemistry, I’ve applied the “Scientific Method” to many challenges that I’ve faced and have succeeded in gaining an in depth understanding of the science of business.  As an example; after struggling to understand the culture and relationship between Quality and Operations throughout the early years of my career, I’ve finally been able to bridge the gap with a simple handshake and an understanding of what that symbolizes; partnership.

Being a family man who was born to fish but is forced to work, we currently reside in beautiful Upstate NY, where you can frequently find me standing knee deep in the crystal clear and freezing cold waters of the many streams and rivers there.  If you happen to be in the area give me a call. I’d be happy to show you some of my favorite fishing spots (well, maybe my 2^nd favorite).

Evan Rosen

Prior to joining PacMoore, Evan worked with Kari-Out Company, AIB International, and SAI Global with over 15 years of Quality Assurance experience across a broad range of food manufacturing sectors. He holds both a BA in Geography and Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). He is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) certified HACCP and Quality auditor as well as a BRC Approved Training Provider.

Sigita Baniulis Gudeika

Sigita Baniulis Gudeika has held positions of increasing seniority within Bay State Milling Company’s Quality division for the last six years. Before that she worked as a food scientist at TJ Harkins and as a laboratory technician at H B Taylor Co. She has a Master, Food Safety and Technology from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and holds PCQI and SQF Practitioner certifications.