Dole Asia Holdings has announced the appointment of Barbara Guerpillon as head of Dole Ventures across both packaged foods and its fresh businesses.
Guerpillonwill be based in Singapore in a role designed to enable profitable business growth through start-up led innovations and the creation of entrepreneurial networks worldwide.
Christian Wiegele, president of Dole Asia Fresh, said Guerpillon’s talent and experience would bring a significant boost to Dole's drive to transform its business.
'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,” Wiegele said.
“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.
'Barbara, in her role, will also work very closely withJohann Albano, who we recently promoted as innovation lead for ourAsia Freshbusiness.'
Guerpillon comes to Dole from Unilever Foundry, which connectedcorporate innovation, entrepreneurship and technology to accelerate innovation and effectively pilot new technologies and product innovations.
During her tenure she delivered 120 projects with start-ups resulting in 25 pilots including nine product innovations, three retail Innovations and four direct-to-consumer pilots.
Guerpillon said Dole is open for innovation, clearly signalled by its plannedSunshine for All Investment Fund, an example of Dole's willingness to work with innovators, start-ups and progressive partners to help deliver on The Dole Promise.
'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,” Guerpillon said.
“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.”
