My journey
Bridgestone Americas
Executive Director of Mobility Solutions
Nashville, TN from 2018 to 2021
Bridgestone Mobility Solutions is a business unit designed to leverage technology to make it easier to move people and goods between two points. I was responsible for identifying and bringing to market all non-tire new growth innovation for Bridgestone Americas to address the B2B market.
- Managed the Mileage Sales business unit with over 150 hourly and salaried employees in operations and sales across the US and Canada to maintain a 36% gross margin on a $55M P&L.
- Developed strategic partnership & investment with reach24.net to digitize the dispatching process for emergency and planned events resulting in improved downtime from 2hr 40min to under 2hr in emergencies.
- Outsourced emergency response organization resulting in a single staffing model, a 15% improvement in operating budget, and reduction of 30 headcount.
- Deployed iTrack II, a mining telematics solution, across the US and Canada to close a completive gap in Bridgestone’s portfolio leading to the full acquisition of the company.
- Launched Bridgestone Intellitire Tire Pressure System to improve fleet uptime by up 46% through preemptive pressure loss detection and through linkage into reach24.net for emergency detection and service dispatching through a direct salesforce and reseller network.
- Partnered with Amazon AWS digital innovation group to launch myuptimeauto.com, a freemium fleet maintenance service, to solve a small business owner (SBO) need around vehicle maintenance to improve SBO uptime and revenue for Bridgestone.
Director & Operating Vice President for Bridgestone-Bandag
Nashville, TN from 2015 to 2018
P&L responsibility for the Bandag retread business representing $580M in revenue, field operations for franchise technical group, and emergency response operations.
- Led field technical operations team in the US and Canada to improve franchise operations at dealer locations resulting in a 9% year over year improvement in audit results.
- Developed Commercial tire distribution Strategy based on dealer segmentation to address consolidating marketplace trends and long-term declining share. Implementation resulted in creation of a six-dealer alliance and majority divestment of COO with an impact of $120M.
- Developed turnaround strategy for Emergency Road Service group to address service degradation and turnover. Implementation of strategy delivered simplified billing, improved turnover from 100% to 40% while reducing headcount by 18 and added $2M in incremental operating profit.
- Launched Global Retread Management platform to be the global governing body for the Bandag brand resulting in global coordination on three initiatives: product innovation strategy, retread value proposition, and retread perception.
- Focused resources and development efforts on new product 3D siping technology resulting in 30% increased wear performance vs. competition.
Mars Incorporated
Senior Business Operations Team Leader
Nashville, TN from 2014 to 2015
As a member of the Leadership team for Mars Petcare US' private label business, I also managed team of purchasing managers for all global dry ingredients for Mars Petcare ($1B annual spend). Additionally had responsibility for Supplier Quality and audit programs for the Nutro Company, a division of Mars Inc.
- Led purchasing operational integration for Mars Petcare Pet Specialty, Petcare P&G, and Mars Petcare US divisions into Mars Petcare NA after Petcare P&G acquisition. Final organization design provided access to 55 associates vs. a prior of 11 for the Pet Specialty division and no disruption to business operations.
- Developed and Launched a 6 step Supply Chain Operations Strategy for Mars Inc to standardize supplier operations and inbound material management. Result was a consistently repeatable process to maintain material supply to Mars manufacturing locations that gave clear visibility to leadership on the health of inbound operations.
- Implemented new procure to pay procedure and supplier owned inventory to address a business cash challenge. Results for Australian sourced Lamb drove a positive cash impact of $4M.
Sr. Category Insights Manager
Nashville, TN from 2012 to 2014
As a category insights researcher, I had complete responsibility for the Dry Dog category path to purchase, representing $2B in sales for Mars Petcare US. I designed and built a state of the art research facility to enhance my research and create aisle redesigns that were deployed to all of the customer account teams for execution.
- Created Seaboard Lane Insights Center, an 18,000 sqft research facility, to address a speed to insights generation need at Mars Petcare NA in 6 months from concept to opening. Results enabled insights generation improvement from 18 to 6 months, research savings of $1.2M, and increased earnings of $12.2M.
- Developed Wet Dog and Dog C&T aisle redesigns based on shopper insights and deployed to 9 priority accounts. Store test at Meijer achieved a 16% lift in category dollar sales, 34% lift on Cesar, and reversed decline of Pedigree vs. control stores.
- Led IRI to Nielsen transition, coding, and training for Mars Petcare US Sales that delivered store level data and visibility to all categories and delivered $300k dollar savings.
- Collaborated with Mars Petcare Canada to apply Shopper Based Design (SBD) approach for a total department redesign at Sobeys. Sobeys accepted concepts and MPC Canada now utilizes SBD.
Trade Strategy Manager (Graduate Leadership Development Program)
Nashville, TN - 2011
In the Sales Operations team I had responsibility for implementing a new Price Card as well as refreshing the customer segmentation based on measurable criteria to properly allocate trade dollars across retailers.
- Developed a new Trade allocation framework to deploy $255M in customer trade dollars to strategic accounts. Strategic accounts went from a 102 index of trade dollars to a 110 index, simplified the accrual process by 96% and improved start of year allocation from 65% to 93%.
- Constructed new Price Card and deployed in Jan 2012 to address process gaps and align with internal strategies. Results were $2.3M in savings driven by truck weight increase of 3000 lbs, 7% improvement in Case Pick and increased collaboration with customers through a proactive process.
Logistics Manager (Graduate Leadership Development Program)
Nashville, TN - 2010
My first role out of Business School centered around the complete redesign and execution of the outbound distribution footprint for Mars Petcare US. I also had responsibility for all inbound transportation with totals exceeding $100M annual spend.
- Developed inbound materials hub and spoke model. Study projected to improve inventory on essentials and slow-moving packaging by 18% and reduced miles by 14% for $1.8M in savings.
- Executed a $15M emergency bid for a warehouse transition at West Jefferson, OH to address a financially unstable 3PL that resulted in $1.2M cash generation and maintained CSL.
- Negotiated a build to suit lease for a $47M 1.3M SQFT RDC in Columbus, OH to consolidate two existing distribution centers. Project resulted in $17M savings and reduced supply chain risk.
Ford Motor Company
Global Launch Strategy Engineer
Detroit, MI from 2006 to 2010
After completion of the Ford College Graduate Program, I entered New Model Programs, a department that takes new model vehicles from the Virtual Prototype phase all the way through launch and into post-production. My role focused around global alignment of launch methods and regular monitoring of each new vehicle line in the launch process.
- Designed and launched a global product reporting system in Europe, South America, and Asia-Pacific regions. This system standardized weekly status reports to the CEO on product launches for all countries and reduced workload redundancies by 75%.
- Led a team of seven engineers to improve the Global Launch Quality Operating System and launched globally. Results were a more robust Quality Operating System and the implementation of a global solution that provides all product launch deliverables to associates.
- Developed launch validation strategies to maintain quality and reduce risk with resourcing of three supplier plants impacting eight vehicle lines. Results were zero downtime for all final assembly plants and no quality degradation.
Ford College Graduate Developmental Program
Detroit, MI from 2003 to 2006
The Ford College Graduate Program is a multi-year rotational program designed to expose new engineers to all areas of the company from engineering, manufacturing, to finance.
- Managed Piston & Rod sub assembly line at Romeo Engine Plant and developed process flow improvement with UAW that resulted in an efficiency increase of 8% and a labor reduction of 17%.
- Analyzed and designed the resolution of exhaust body interaction on the 2007 SVT Mustang. Associated design resolution led to 100% improvement of the sound quality issue.
- Developed Facilities, Tooling, and Labor cost study for the 2007 Lincoln Town Car Limousine. Interfaced with product development and manufacturing to identify cost study improvements that resulted in a budget of $2.4M vs. target of $3.5M.
Univeristy of Michigan - Ross School of Business
Master of Business Administration - Strategy
Ann Arbor, MI from 2007 to 2009
- President of the DTE Clean Energy Prize Competition
Michigan Technological University
Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering
Houghton, MI from 1999 to 2003
- Resident Assistant: 2001-2003