Kraft Heinz Promotes Alan Kleinerman to VP, Global Head of Innovation
The Kraft Heinz Company is furthering its commitment to enterprise-wide innovation, promoting Alan Kleinerman to a new, global role.
Kleinerman was named vice president of global head of innovation, taking on a more wide-scale approach to innovation after serving as the company’s VP of disruption and head of North America innovation and ventures.
According to Kleinerman’s LinkedIn post announcing the promotion, he will be leading disruptive innovation globally and overseeing an innovation Center of Excellence across the enterprise.
“The challenge of leading the future of food as the world's most innovative food company is incredibly energizing,” said Kleinerman. “I am incredibly proud of the work my team and I have been able to lead as part of transforming innovation in North America, and can't wait to expand that mission globally.”
He’s spent over three years with the company, starting as marketing director and head of U.S. disruptive innovation before expanding his oversight into the company’s North America efforts.
Kleinerman brings an extensive background in marketing and innovation, having spent time as the senior director of global health and wellness innovation and portfolio strategy at Mars. Prior to that, he was associate marketing director for U.S. Enfamil Brands at Reckitt, where he was tasked with executing on the brand’s strategy and innovation pipeline.
Innovation at Kraft Heinz
Last week, Kleinerman shared news about the company’s ranking as a top 50 most innovative business by Fast Company, which recognized Kraft Heinz for its IoT-enabled digital sauce dispenser, launched last May. Kraft Heinz is leveraging the data from this initiative to build out new product developments, expediting the process to bring them to market in under six months.
The No. 21 publicly owned consumer goods company has also been working on its tech innovation, supporting behind-the-scenes processes with a generative AI “Ask Me Anything” app known as KraftGPT.
Additionally, it is establishing an organizational-wide, systematic methodology and discipline to measure, monitor, and build brands through a growth trajectory called Kraft Heinz Brand Growth Systems, per CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera.
As part of this, it has invested in a dedicated organization within revenue management, launching a proprietary trade management system to increase the accuracy of promotion impact measurements and provide recommendations through real-time data.
“When we started out on our journey to transform innovation at Kraft Heinz through our Agile@Scale approach, we set an ambition to be the world's most innovative food company,” said Kleinerman in a recent LinkedIn post. “It is exciting to see this transformation in action, and even more exciting to know that there is so much more to come!”
