Tom Dailly
Mayor
Village of Schaumburg
november 2, 2026
*JOIN US FOR THE PRE-EVENT HAPPY HOUR ON NOVEMBER 1, 2026 FROM 6:00 PM TO 7:00 PM
Sponsored by:
7:00 am – 8:00 am CST
Delegate Registration and Networking Breakfast
Sponsored by:
8:00 am – 8:10 am CST
Mayor's Welcome Address
8:10 am – 8:20 am CST
Chair's Welcome and Opening Remarks
Process Optimization
Marie Suzette Joachim
VP, Health and Safety
McCain Foods
Quality & Safety
Catherine Lively
VP, Food Safety and Sensory
Amy's Kitchen
Digital Transformation
Blair Tritt
VP, Data, AI and Venturing
Schreiber Foods
Supply Chain
Nicola Harvey
Director, Supply Chain, North America Food
Kerry
Talent
Jenny Gusba, Ph.D.
VP, R&D, Global Beverage Strategy and Technical Project Management
PepsiCo
8:20 am – 8:50 am CST
Keynote
Josh Chou
Chief Supply Chain Officer
McCormick & Company
Building a Resilient, Agile, and Growth-Enabled Supply Network
- Designing a regionally balanced, globally connected supply network that mitigates risk while protecting service and margin
- Strengthening agricultural and ingredient resilience through diversified sourcing and strategic partnerships
- Advancing intelligent planning, manufacturing, and logistics capabilities to accelerate responsiveness for customers
- Implementing digital transformation strategies to enable end-to-end transparency, better demand sensing, and data-driven decision-making
- Simplifying network complexity to eliminate non–value-added costs and unlock capacity for innovation and growth
- Embedding sustainability and responsible sourcing into core operations to meet evolving regulatory and customer expectations
- Developing future-ready supply chain talent that bridges operational excellence with commercial strategy to drive competitive advantage
8:50 am – 9:20 am CST
Plenary
Stephanie O'Brien
Chief Supply Chain Officer
Nestle
Transforming End-to-End Supply Chain Planning to Improve Service, Efficiency, and Performance
- Aligning demand, supply, and transportation planning to support complex food manufacturing networks
- Leveraging data-driven planning models to improve forecast accuracy and operational responsiveness
- Reducing working capital and waste through integrated planning and inventory optimization strategies
- Strengthening collaboration between sales, operations, and supply chain teams to improve service performance
- Driving organizational transformation by building high-performing planning teams and clear operational processes
- Balancing service, cost, and inventory objectives to support profitable and sustainable growth
9:20 am – 9:50 am CST
Plenary
Steve LeMoine
Chief Information Officer
Welch’s Food Company
John diFrisco
Senior Enterprise Account Manager
Infor
Building Digital Agility: How Welch’s Is Transforming Operations for the Next Stage of Growth
- Modernizing core business functions, including finance, HR, supply chain, and warehouse management, without disrupting ongoing operations
- Defining the criteria for a technology partner capable of supporting enterprise-wide transformation at scale
- Building a reliable data foundation with Infor’s ecosystem to enable faster, more confident decision-making
- Creating the operational efficiency and scalability needed to support long-term business growth
- Charting the path forward by exploring AI's role in Welch's digital transformation roadmap and identifying future priorities
9:55 am – 11:35 am CST
Refreshments, Networking, and Pre-Arranged 1-2-1 Meetings
Sponsored by:
11:40 am – 12:10 pm CST
stream sessions
Process optimization
Omar Thorpe
VP, Global Asset Management, Engineering and Projects
ADM
Driving Manufacturing Excellence Through Strategic Operational Leadership and Integrated Asset Reliability
- Institutionalizing an enterprise-wide asset management philosophy that spans the full lifecycle, from strategic capital planning to operational decommissioning
- Aligning global manufacturing strategies with capital investment and reinvestment decisions to drive long-term scalability and business growth
- Linking total plant performance and financial outcomes to maintenance actions through evolving, high-impact leadership KPIs
- Embedding predictive asset health analytics and digital intelligence into executive-level operational decision-making to minimize systemic risk
- Developing multi-year transformation roadmaps that balance short-term operational efficiency with long-term risk management and manufacturing resilience
Quality & Safety
Robin Elston
VP, Strategic Improvement
Cooper Farms
Turning Manufacturing Strategy Into Lasting Results on the Plant Floor
- Bringing leadership teams together to define clear improvement strategies, priorities, and goals.
- Creating genuine leadership commitment before bringing improvement initiatives to the plant floor.
- Engaging frontline employees in identifying opportunities and helping bring improvements to life.
- Building improvement teams that give employees greater ownership of manufacturing performance.
- Strengthening relationships between frontline employees, supervisors, and managers through shared improvement goals.
- Using regular reviews and leadership engagement to maintain momentum and keep improvement plans moving throughout the year.
Digital Transformation
Sriraj Kantamneni
EVP and Chief Innovation and Digital Officer
Schreiber Foods
Building Digital Growth Engines Inside Traditional Enterprises
- Launching startup-style digital ventures within large global organizations
- Investing in emerging technologies (AI, computer vision, IoT) to unlock new revenue streams
- Scaling cross-functional teams from concept to global deployment
- Standardizing ERP and supply chain systems for enterprise efficiency
- Driving cost optimization through process and technology harmonization
Supply Chain
Emir Hernández Correa
Senior Director, Global Supply Chain Excellence
Mondelēz International
Executing End-to-End Supply Chain Transformation to Drive Scalable Enterprise Growth
- Transforming complex supply chain networks into strategic drivers of business growth and operational excellence
- Strengthening multi-plant manufacturing operations through effective leadership, talent development, and organizational alignment
- Integrating brand production assets to unlock operational synergies and strengthen enterprise-wide capabilities
- Advancing digital planning platforms and cloud ERP solutions to enhance supply chain visibility and collaboration
- Optimizing direct-store delivery networks to improve efficiency, service excellence, and retail market reach
- Aligning operational excellence initiatives with long-term network strategies to support sustainable business expansion
Talent
Jenny Gusba, Ph.D.
VP, R&D, Global Beverage Strategy and Technical Project Management
PepsiCo
Building a Culture of Innovation: Empowering Teams to Think Bigger, Take Calculated Risks, and Turn Ideas into Reality
- Encouraging expansive thinking and calculated risk-taking to unlock new opportunities for innovation.
- Leveraging proof of concepts, governance, and project management to reduce risk and accelerate decision-making.
- Building an organizational culture where teams can experiment, learn from setbacks, and move quickly beyond ideas that aren't working.
- Developing leadership capabilities that empower scientists, engineers, and cross-functional teams to innovate with confidence.
- Identifying the skills, behaviours, and collaborative mindsets needed to recruit, develop, and retain innovative talent.
- Translating ambitious ideas into actionable innovation through the right balance of creativity, structure, and organizational support.
12:15 pm – 12:45 pm CST
Workshops
ROOM 1
Ruth Lestina
Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, Canada
Inecta
Navigating Complexity: Scaling Food Operations with Purpose-Built Cloud ERP
- Why food operations outgrow generic ERP: catch weight, lots, yield, traceability
- One system of record across plants, brands, co-manufacturers and channels
- Closing faster and seeing margin at time of sale, with customer examples
- How to design food operations that scale without adding systems
- Why AI on the plant floor depends on the transactions underneath it
- A self-assessment: five questions to ask about your current systems
ROOM 2
Sara Jane Bellocchi
Networked Ingredients Functional Consultant
TraceGains
AI Won't Replace Food Professionals, but It Will Make the Best Ones Even Better
- Applying AI to streamline supplier compliance and accelerate document reviews
- Integrating regulatory intelligence into everyday workflows while maintaining essential human oversight
- Using AI-assisted formulation to move product concepts toward scalable production faster
- Reducing costly rework through better information sharing and earlier decisions
- Identifying responsible adoption strategies across food safety, R&D, and regulatory teams
- Strengthening expert judgment with practical AI tools rather than replacing professionals
ROOM 3
Carter Lloyds
Chief Marketing Officer
Indeavor
Your Plant Measures Everything But Labor. Here's the Fix.
- Running the four-number smoke test that shows in one morning whether your labor is under control or only looks that way from upstairs
- Understanding why labor became the last uninstrumented input in the plant, and why its true cost never shows up as a single line item
- Breaking the loop nobody sees as a loop, the one that quietly puts a cap on your OEE and your margins
- Recognizing why "we already have scheduling" is true at every plant and solved at almost none, and why a faster version of today's process is not the fix
- Learning what plants that succeed do differently: the leadership, process, and scheduling changes that put labor back under control
- Case Study: a Wisconsin dairy processor cuts monthly overtime hours 52% and overtime spend by $56K per month
ROOM 4
Kyle Jenson
VP Growth & Innovation
BIOIONIX
What If Less Water and Fewer Chemicals Meant More Production and Lower Costs?
- Reducing sanitation downtime and getting production lines back online faster
- Using less water by extending process-water life and enabling greater reuse
- Reducing reliance on traditional chemicals with on-site disinfection technology
- Improving microbial control while supporting product quality and shelf life
- Lowering operating costs associated with water, chemicals, wastewater, and sanitation
- Making measurable progress toward sustainability goals without sacrificing food safety or productivity
- Less Water. Fewer Chemicals. More Production
ROOM 5
Lachlan Stokes
Digital Services Sales Executive, CPG
Rockwell AutomationMaria Araujo
Principal, Consumer Packaged Goods
Rockwell Automation
Digital Transformation Under Pressure: Turning Digital Investments into Margin Improvement
- Leading global industrial automation transformations to make complex manufacturing operations more productive and sustainable
- Leveraging advanced software-defined automation to bring the full vision of the Connected Enterprise to life
- Optimizing factory floor operations by deploying industrial AI, smart logistics, and predictive technical support systems
- Integrating comprehensive lifecycle information networks to maximize asset performance and long-term enterprise value
- Fostering next-generation technical talent pools through specialized industrial training and workforce development pathways
- Navigating complex operational transitions by engineering scalable, trusted hardware and digital automation architectures
12:50 pm – 1:50 pm CST
Lunch & Learn Roundtable Discussions and Open Seating Lunch
Benefit from additional learning by joining a moderated roundtable discussion on pressing issues in the industry. Registration is required, and attendance for moderated roundtables on Day 1 is limited to attendees and speakers. Choose from:
Andrew Jebasingh
Founder, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer
SiteVue AI
Eliminating Invisible Floor Waste To Add Three Percent Gross Profit
Jake Sherman
TAM Manager, Enterprise
Tractian
Reducing Operational Risk in Food Manufacturing Through Unified Asset Health
Paul Delaney
President
AMEND
Driving Strategic Advantage Through AI, Operations, and Data-Driven Transformation
Korrin Doyle
Director, Business Development, Food Industry SME
GDI
Brand Protection Starts with Sanitation Control
Robert De La Garza
Customer Care Manager
I-Care Reliability
Zero Unplanned Downtime: Is Predictive Maintenance Delivering Real ROI?
Jeff Botsch
Sr. Principal Value Strategy & Solutions Consulting
Infor
Where AI Actually Pays Off: Margins, Waste, and Speed to Market
Danielle Messina
Enterprise Account Executive
Uncountable
Accelerating R&D Innovation Using AI-Driven Data Management and Collaborative Experimentation Platforms
Marin Smith
Product Marketing Manager
TraceGainsSara Jane Bellocchi
Networked Ingredients Functional Consultant
TraceGains
AI in Practice: Experiences, Challenges, and Opportunities
D.J. Reesman
Enterprise Solutions Director
AssetWatch
Preventing Unplanned Downtime Through Predictive Maintenance and Real-Time Machine Health Monitoring
Alex Mendoza
Global Account Director
Redzone
Empowering Frontline Teams Through AI-Driven Connectivity, Real-Time Insights, and Operational Excellence
Dru Guy
National Account Manager
Guy Roofing
Protecting Manufacturing Assets Through Proactive Roofing Solutions and Facility Infrastructure Management
Alex Cowan
Key Account Manager, USA
Worximity Technology
Multi-Site Visibility: Closing the Gap Between Head Office and the Shop Floor
Rick Shipley
Chief Executive Officer
Nutrition 101
Upcycling food waste and byproducts through integrated recovery, logistics, and end-market solutions
Fred Polenz
Senior Vice President, Sales and Origination
PurposeEnergy
Transforming Food Waste Into Renewable Energy, Water, and Operational Value Through Industrial Anaerobic Digestion Technology
Hailey Fernandez
Chief Administrative Officer
Effex Management Solutions
Securing Production Uptime By Eliminating Local Staffing Competition And Volatility
Ruth Lestina
Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, Canada
Inecta
Eliminating Shop Floor Food Waste With Specialized Real-Time Predictive Analytics
Sudhir Arni
SVP, Business Outcomes
Sight Machine
Turning Unstructured Plant Data Into Real Time Decisions That Streamline Production
Ravi Subramanyan
Senior Director, Industry Solutions
SymphonyAI
Deploying Pre Built Vertical AI To Predict Failures And Reduce Downtime
Steve Palmgren
Industry Director, Food & Beverage
Vertech
Conveying The Truth Of Plant Data Through Modern Industrial Automation
Steve Monroe
Executive Vice President, Global Sales
Intellect
Unifying Frontline Work Execution With Digital Quality Management To Eliminate Defects
Steve Tucker
Co-Founder and CEO
Kodiact
Optimizing Direct Material Procurement Through Intelligent Simulation in Category Management
Kevin Price
Global Head, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
IFS
Moving From Reactive Maintenance To Performance Driven Operations With Intelligent EAM
Tom Phelps
Enterprise Account Executive
Parsec Automation
Shop Floor Execution to Reduce Downtime and Optimize Yield
1:55 pm – 2:25 pm CST
Sessions
Process Optimization
Davide Mussutto
VP, Operations, Strategic Business Unit - Global
Nestle Purina Petcare
Accelerating Global Operational Excellence through TPM, Digital Integration, and Human-Centered Leadership
- Advancing TPM maturity to create globally aligned systems while empowering local teams to drive performance
- Leveraging digital twins, AI, and predictive analytics to enhance reliability without adding operational complexity
- Balancing performance, cost, and sustainability trade-offs in fast-moving, high-demand manufacturing environments
- Embedding human-centered leadership to strengthen frontline ownership, engagement, and continuous improvement culture
- Scaling best practices across global sites through standardized metrics, real-time visibility, and connected data ecosystems
- Integrating engineering, operations, and digital capabilities to build hybrid, future-ready teams
Quality & Safety
Uche Jumbo
VP, Food Safety, Quality, and Regulatory
Barry Callebaut
When Quality Goes Right: Measuring the Business Value Beyond Compliance
- Rethinking Quality beyond risk management and compliance to enable business growth and value creation
- Protecting customer trust while enabling innovation, commercial opportunities, and speed to market
- Identifying business value unlocked through strong Quality and Food Safety capabilities
- Measuring the impact of Quality investments, corrective actions, and workforce development
- Making Quality's contribution visible through practical metrics, executive reporting, and stronger business decisions
Digital Transformation
Fernando Garcia Vidal
VP, Engineering
Monogram Foods
Scaling Manufacturing Innovation Through Engineering System and Technology Integration
- Aligning manufacturing platform investments with new product introduction requirements and long-term operational scalability
- Integrating sustainability and efficiency considerations into facility design, automation strategy, and infrastructure modernization initiatives
- Strengthening engineering and technical talent capabilities to support advanced manufacturing technologies and continuous improvement culture
- Coordinating engineering, operations, and supply chain teams to accelerate commercialization and reduce time from concept to production
- Embedding execution discipline and accountability frameworks to ensure innovation initiatives deliver measurable operational impact
Supply Chain
Ryan Seckinger
Chief Supply Chain Officer
Stateside Brands
Scaling End to End Beverage Supply Chains for Growth and Operational Excellence
- Aligning procurement, planning, and operations to support rapid nationwide beverage brand expansion
- Improving supply chain agility through cross functional collaboration and streamlined operational execution
- Enhancing inventory management practices to strengthen product availability and reduce operational disruptions
- Developing supplier partnerships that improve responsiveness, innovation, and long term business continuity
- Leveraging data driven decision making to optimize forecasting, sourcing, and supply chain performance
Talent
Mohamad Sadek
Head, Operations Excellence, Natural Ingredients
Givaudan
George Ninikas
SVP, Sales & Accounts
Ortec
FIRESIDE CHAT: SCALING CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT ACROSS GLOBAL FOOD MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS
- Building a continuous improvement framework that can be applied consistently across different manufacturing environments
- Using Lean and Six Sigma principles to identify opportunities for greater productivity, efficiency and operational performance
- Creating daily management systems that give manufacturing teams greater visibility into performance and improvement opportunities
- Engaging frontline employees and plant leaders in identifying and implementing improvements
- Using standardization and best practice sharing to extend successful improvements across multiple operations
- Building the capabilities and leadership needed to make continuous improvement part of everyday manufacturing
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm CST
Workshops
ROOM 1
Mike Burica
Chief Commercial Officer
WorkforgeLaura Dunn Nelson
VP, Product Management, Food Safety and Strategic Alliances
WorkForge
Turning Workforce Potential Into Business Performance Through Effective Training And AI
- Identifying effective frontline training strategies that go beyond basic completion metrics
- Building workforce competency through consistent, repeatable practices across shifts and supervisors
- Leveraging AI to transform existing SOPs into practical frontline training programs
- Using AI-powered translation and localization to support diverse, multilingual manufacturing workforces
- Connecting training effectiveness to measurable improvements in quality, safety, and retention
- Aligning workforce development and digitalization with operational efficiency, productivity, and throughput
ROOM 2
Chester Boyt
Chief Revenue Officer
Amerisan
Tangible Strategies for Improving Food Safety Culture
- How implementing 5S visual management techniques can help identify hazards and drive continuous improvements
- Discovering how leaders can create a compelling vision and communicate effectively to cultivate a robust food safety culture
- Exploring methods to build employee engagement through targeted training, standardization, and recognition programs
- Case studies: Showcasing successful implementations and strategies to overcome common challenges in food safety
ROOM 3
Tony Haddad
Founder and Chairman of the Board
Technica
Increasing Manufacturing Efficiency and Reducing Costs Through Automation and Digital Solutions
- Improving OEE, production efficiency, and throughput through industrial automation and robotics
- Optimizing high-speed food manufacturing operations through innovative automation solutions
- Integrating industrial IoT and digital technologies to enhance production performance visibility
- Leveraging real-time equipment data to reduce downtime and improve operational reliability
ROOM 4
Andrew Jebasingh
Founder, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer
SiteVue AI
Uncovering Invisible Plant Floor Blind Spots To Maximize Operational Productivity
- Eliminating hidden bottlenecks through infrastructure free video based cycle time benchmarking software
- Recovering lost shift minutes by replacing rounded manual employee time clocks
- Replicating top performer habits to scale tribal knowledge and reduce rework
- Driving faster safety investigations with video footage captured before and after incidents
- Deploying multi site performance monitoring tools within days without any IT integration
- Rewarding frontline workers based on objective output data rather than manager perception
3:05 pm – 4:25 pm CST
Happy Hour, Networking and Pre-Arranged 1-2-1 Meetings
Sponsored by:
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm CST
Plenary
Michael O’Laughlin
CEO
Vanguard RenewablesKip Buckley
VP, Organic Solutions
Vanguard Renewables
How (and Why) Waste Management Is Growing Up: The Case for Scale
- Matching the infrastructure and maturity that modern food and beverage has already developed
- Managing organic waste that's messy, geographically scattered, often unpredictable, and hard to standardize
- Solving for that variety while adding the capacity, reliability and data the industry needs
- Seeing what scale looks like: Vanguard Renewables' recent growth and combination with Generate Upcycle, creating North America's largest food waste-to-RNG platform
5:00 pm – 5:45 pm CST
Panel Discussion
Fernando Garcia Vidal
VP, Engineering
Monogram Foods
Daniel Crandall
Director, Capital Engineering and Center of Excellence
The Hershey Company
Jeff Miller
VP, Engineering
Aspire BakeriesMohamad Sadek
Head, Operations Excellence, Natural Ingredients
GivaudanEmir Hernández Correa
Senior Director, Global Supply Chain Excellence
Mondelēz International
Shaun Malik
Director, Food and Beverage Manufacturing
Virginia Economic Development Partnership
Scaling Manufacturing Excellence in a Rapidly Evolving Production Environment
- Implementing automation and modernization while maintaining stable uninterrupted production
- Prioritizing capital investments that enable sustainable long-term manufacturing growth
- Leveraging operational data to drive smarter faster strategic decisions
- Improving asset reliability to reduce downtime and operational risk
- Embedding continuous improvement cultures across expanding multi-site manufacturing networks
5:45 pm – 5:55 pm CST
Chair's closing remarks
Process Optimization
Marie Suzette Joachim
VP, Health and Safety
McCain Foods
Quality & Safety
Catherine Lively
VP, Food Safety and Sensory
Amy's Kitchen
Digital Transformation
Blair Tritt
VP, Data, AI and Venturing
Schreiber Foods
Supply Chain
Nicola Harvey
Director, Supply Chain, North America Food
Kerry
Talent
Jenny Gusba, Ph.D.
VP, R&D, Global Beverage Strategy and Technical Project Management
PepsiCo
5:55 pm – 6:55 pm CST
Networking drinks reception
Sponsored by:
Unlock Exclusive Summit Details
Exclusive summit content is reserved for qualified participants—request access today or enter your password.
