New Food Leadership Program Expands Industry Advisors Across Disciplines

The Integrated Food Systems Leadership program aims to equip professionals with skills needed to foster collaboration and innovation across the food system. 

St. Paul, Minn., The Integrated Food Systems Leadership (IFSL) program, a new graduate-level certification program through the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, is advancing efforts to help develop next-gen leaders take on the growing challenges of the global food system. Industry experts from highly regarded companies in the food and beverage industry continue to be added as advisors to the program to provide guidance, insights and support for both the program curriculum and student experience.

Industry experts from top food and beverage companies involved in the IFSL program include:

• Dan Belina, Senior Manager Product Safety & Microbiology, Land O’ Lakes
• Courtney Bidney, Director in Global Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, General Mills
• Gabe Gusmini, Director Executive Crop Improvement, PepsiCo R&D
• Joe Scimeca, Vice President of Global Regulatory and Scientific Affairs, Cargill
• Matt Surdick, Safety Manager, CHS, Inc.

The program advisory group also includes executives across food system disciplines including:

• Ruth Petran, Vice President Food Safety and Public Health, Ecolab
• Tamara Nelsen, Executive Director, AgriGrowth
• Rolando Gonzalez, Vice President of Public Health, The Acheson Group
• Nicole Neeser, Division Director Dairy and Meat Inspection, Minnesota Department of Agriculture
• Steve Olson, Executive Director, Minnesota Turkey Growers Association
• Melanie Neumann, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Matrix Sciences.

The IFSL program is designed to develop leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of the increasingly interconnected food system in order to address daunting tasks ahead, including feeding the 9.5 billion people predicted to be on the planet by 2050.

“To truly exercise leadership in food systems, it is important to be able to think critically and oriented towards solutions in a global context, get buy-in from stakeholders by developing and maintaining strong relationships, and foster an inclusive and diverse culture,” says Rolando Gonzalez of The Acheson Group and newest IFSL program advisor. “I am delighted to see that the IFSL program will help participants build these skill sets and bridge these gaps.”

Cross-disciplinary advisors as well as professors from three of the University of Minnesota’s colleges – the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, the School of Public Health, and the College of Veterinary Medicine – have collaborated to form this unique program, providing a multifaceted and robust learning opportunity for its participants.

“At a time when industry veterans are retiring and institutional knowledge in some instances is not being effectively transferred, technical experts are being promoted to fill key vacancies without necessarily being exposed to strategic approaches to managing the totality of risk that impacts their company,” says Melanie Neumann, J.D., M.S., EVP Matrix Sciences; founder Neumann Risk Services and new addition to the IFSL program advisory group. “I applaud the University of Minnesota for developing an innovative and comprehensive curriculum that focuses on total food system management from a cross-disciplinary, enterprise risk management perspective.”

The IFSL graduate-level certificate program is designed to accommodate working professionals by conducting the majority of its comprehensive and interactive courses online over 13-months. In addition to providing networking and mentorship opportunities, leadership courses will be held at the beginning and end of the program on-site at the University of Minnesota’s campus. Applications are now being accepted for September 2019 admissions.

For IFSL program inquiries, contact Jennifer van de Ligt at 612-624-2567 or [email protected].

For more information about the University of Minnesota’s IFSL Program, visit https://ifsl.umn.edu. IFSL Program applications are accepted on a rolling basis for the next class. Schedule a consultation call for more information.