European Excellence in Sustainability sharing sessions: Sustainable Food & Nutrition

Pascal DE PETRINI, Senior Vice President Chairman Asia, Danone

Pascal De Petrini has been Senior Vice President Chairman Asia at Danone since October 2017.

He has been working in senior management positions in the food and beverage industry for more than 35 years.

Pascal joined Danone in 1984 and worked in France until 1998 when he became the General Manager of Danone’s Biscuits division in China. From 2002 until 2011, he had general management responsibilities at a country level and regional level in Waters and Early Life Nutrition categories. After a period as Chief Executive Officer of Food & Beverage at Fraser and Neave Ltd, he joined Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd as Managing Director Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa in October 2013. In 2015, Pascal returned to Danone as Executive Vice President of Strategic Resource Cycles until moving to his current role.

He has a wealth of experience in Boards of listed (Asia Pacific Brewery, Vinamilk, Yakult Honsha, Mengniu Dairy..) and non-listed companies in Asia. From 2015 until 2017 he was Chairman of Danone Ecosystem Fund and on the Board of Livelihood Fund for Family Farming, two important social innovation funds created by Danone.

He graduated from École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy in France with a Master of Science in Engineering degree in 1981 and obtained a Master of Science in Management degree from ESSEC Business School in France in 1983.

Roshith RAJAN, Director, Corporate Responsibility, Asia Pacific, SODEXO

Based in Singapore since 2014, Roshith RAJAN is the Director, Corporate Responsibility, Asia Pacific for SODEXO, a world leader in quality of life services, serving 100 million customers daily in the areas of food services, facilities management, and benefits/rewards. Roshith is responsible for the strategy development and execution of the ‘Better Tomorrow 2025’, Sodexo’s Corporate Responsibility roadmap, for the region of Asia Pacific with a particular focus on responsible and sustainable food, food waste, small and local businesses inclusion, food insecurity and women empowerment in communities, single-use plastics.  He influences internal and external stakeholders of the business value of Corporate Responsibility and integrating it into business strategy and everyday operations in the 14+ APAC countries of more than 70,000 employees through initiatives, standard practices, and policies.

He currently also program leads the Sodexo food waste prevention initiative at the global level with planned deployment in more than 3000 locations by 2020. He has championed Ideathons, Hackathons, and led internal Digital & Innovation challenge raising 500+ ideas for execution. Under his leadership, Sodexo won the Champions of Good Award for 2017 and 2018, the ACES Award for Asia’s Most Socially Responsible Company of the Year (2018), Sustainable Business Award Singapore, and also recognized for #1 in the industry by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index(DJSI) for 14 years in a row. He also heads ‘Stop Hunger’ for Asia Pacific, a philanthropic program that is a leading force in the fight against hunger and malnutrition with a target to impact 100 million beneficiaries by 2025. He strongly believes in the human aspects to address social and environmental challenges and opportunities. More recently, on the everyday business side, he is also project leading the APAC business planning project for Sodexo sites’ Return to Work plan owing to the COVID-19 situation.

Prior to Singapore, he worked with the Sodexo Group HQ in Paris for 5 years developing the Corporate Responsibility strategy, projects, and governance. He has also worked with leading technology companies in new product development such as SAP Labs and NTT Data in India. He has an MBA (Finance) from HEC-Paris, France; and a Bachelor of Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani, India.

Petra DEKKER, Corporate Manager Nutrition & Health, FrieslandCampina

Petra joined FrieslandCampina in 2001 and worked at Riedel, a former division of FrieslandCampina that produces juices and fruit-based drinks.  Since 2003, the portfolio expanded to include dairy products and until 2008 she led a nutritional group, within the marketing department responsible for nutrition and health claims substantiation in research, on pack and in communication. In 2006, she was one of the leaders in the development of a nutrition logo, the My Choice logo, in the Netherlands and later in Europe.

In 2008, she started to work at the Corporate Level as Manager, Nutrition & Health, for the company. In that function, she is responsible for the FrieslandCampina Nutrition policy and the handling of nutritional issues worldwide.

Her work is integrated with the sustainability agenda of FrieslandCampina. It is her passion to combine Nutrition and Environment into a Sustainable Diet for the future. She is one of the leaders of the Nutrition Community within FrieslandCampina. In her work, she has regular contact with NGOs, branch- organisations and governments in the Netherlands and Europe.

Next to her work she holds a position as chair of the Nutrition and Health committee in the Dutch Dairy Association and she is an advisor for the Choices International Foundation.

She graduated at the Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands with a Master of Science in Nutrition and Health in 1992.

Melanie LEVINE, Associate, Global Agribusiness Alliance (GAA), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)

Melanie Levine is an Associate with the Global Agribusiness Alliance at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, based in the Asia-Pacific office in Singapore. In this capacity, she works with supply-side agribusiness companies around the world on sustainability programs focused on landscapes, farmer livelihoods, water stewardship, and tackling food loss and waste. Melanie previously worked with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Cambodia, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Cocoa Foundation, and a US government contractor, Dexis Consulting Group, in Washington, DC. She holds a master’s degree in public affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in government and sociology from the College of William and Mary.

Bettina HUDRY-GEREZ, Business Development Director, Alcimed

Bettina Hudry-Gerez is leading the agri-food activities in Asia for ALCIMED, a consulting company in innovation and development of new businesses.

Bettina works daily with innovative players all along the food value chain: agribusiness companies, ingredient suppliers & B2C manufacturers on challenges related to agriculture & sustainability as well as nutrition & health. She is helping them define the best approach to explore their uncharted territories and accelerate their development into new businesses.

She has joined ALCIMED in 2010 in the agri-food BU at Alcimed headquarter in France. She has a double background graduated from the French engineering school of chemistry in Rennes and an MBA in business & entrepreneurship.

Arijit CHATTERJEE, Associate Professor of Strategy, ESSEC Business School

Arijit Chatterjee is an Associate Professor of Strategy at ESSEC Business School. He teaches strategy, entrepreneurship, and epistemology in the MBA, MSc, PhD, and executive programs at ESSEC.  

His current research and case-writing explores how inequality within and outside of firms is addressed  through institutional mechanisms and social movements,  how small organizations scale up and contribute to large-scale institutional change, and how businesses can pursue economic, social, and environmental goals simultaneously.

In 2020, Professor Chatterjee will launch a new course for the Global MBA on Responsible Leadership and Sustainability. His research on strategic decision-making has appeared in the Academy of Management Review and Administrative Science Quarterly, and has been covered by The Economist, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Financial Times, Forbes, MSNBC, and Le Monde. Several of his case studies have been published through The Case Centre.