Dole Appoints Barbara Guerpillon As Head of Dole Ventures
SINGAPORE - The excitement of new leaders across the produce industry never seems to fade, this time the joy comes from the announcement by Dole Asia Holdings that Barbara Guerpillon has been appointed Head of Dole Ventures across both its packaged foods and fresh business. In her new role, Guerpillon will help to enable profitable business growth through start-up innovations and the creation of new entrepreneurial networks around the globe.
ITOCHU Corporation owns and operates the production and sales networks of the Asian fresh produce business and the worldwide packaged foods business of the Dole brand. Dole Packaged Foods and its affiliations differ from Dole Food Company, including Dole fresh products in North America, Latin/South America, Europe, and Africa.
"Our message is simple. We believe in the power of partnerships and we are seriously in the place of working with start-ups to live up to our promise. I agree the goals are ambitious, but I have yet to meet leaders who lacked ambition,” said Guerpillon. “We bring decades of experience in food production, nutritional science, packaging, supply chain logistics, and fast-moving consumer goods, so our ability to fund, run and evaluate pilots will, I believe, be very attractive to the rising generations of smart thinkers. We want to hear from both investors and start-ups around the world.”
Bringing to Dole skills acquired through years of dedicated experience, most recently Guerpillon held positions at the Unilever Foundry where she created a strong track record for leading corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology to pilot new product innovations.
According to a press release, during her time at Unilever Foundry, Guerillon delivered over 120 projects resulting in 25 pilots and nine new product innovations.
“This is an important appointment across both our Fresh and Packaged businesses, reflecting our ambition to partner with innovators, and to open up opportunities for immense evolution as we find significant ways to continue to make our business a force for good. One of the venture spaces I am personally excited about is Agri-tech, which I believe can significantly contribute to The Dole Promise we made earlier this year,” explained Christian Wiegele, President of Dole Asia Fresh. "Barbara, in her role, will also work very closely with Johann Albano, who we recently promoted as Innovation Lead for our Asia Fresh business."
Guerillon will continue in the work of the company to support The Dole Promise with its ambitious goals in nutrition, sustainability, and the creation of shared value.
With programs like its Sunshine for All Investment Fund, Dole is opening the door for innovators, start-ups, and progressive partners to help deliver on the company’s promise.
“We have given ourselves five years to deliver on our ambitious goals. These include providing sustainable nutrition for a billion people, the elimination of processed sugar from our products, zero fruit loss from our farms, zero emissions, and zero fossil-based packaging,” said Pier Luigi Sigismondi, President of Dole Packaged Foods. “Each of those goals is heroic, but we believe each is possible, as long as we keep our eyes, ears, and doors open to people with the smart ideas and innovations that can move us quickly forward. Barbara has a real talent for moving great ideas and entrepreneurs through a disciplined innovation pipeline and we are very excited to have her on our team at the helm of Ventures.”
As Barbara prepares to step into her new role and lead innovation at Dole Asia Holdings, we here at ANUK congratulate her and look forward to seeing what the future holds.
