Nestlé Names Head of Operations; Company Veteran Stephanie Pullings Hart Makes Her Return
Stephanie Pullings Hart, an executive with over 20 years of experience across global supply chain and manufacturing roles, is returning to Nestlé, taking on the title of head of operations.
Pullings Hart will be replacing Magdi Batato, who is retiring from the role after a 30-year career with Nestlé, spanning procurement, logistics, and sustainability for hundreds of Nestlé factories across three continents.
Pullings Hart is a Nestlé veteran, having spent 23 years with the company in myriad capacities — factory management, R&D, human resources, supply chain, and manufacturing — before moving on to other companies in 2018. She makes her return on July 1, formally taking on the new position by January 1, 2024.
Most recently, she was SVP of operations at Warby Parker, where she oversaw manufacturing, supply chain, and customer experience. Prior to that, Pullings Hart served as Beyond Meat’s SVP of global operations, helping to transform the company’s manufacturing and supply chain efforts to boost sales.
Mark Schneider, Nestlé’s CEO, said Pullings Hart’s appointment results in the company gaining a “highly qualified leader with extensive experience across all areas of operations, and a proven track record in growing businesses.”
“Her highly entrepreneurial and digital experience, combined with her knowledge of Nestlé, make her the ideal leader to take us forward,” he added.
Pullings Hart’s experience across supply chain and manufacturing will be helpful as the company continues to expand its efforts, such as with its Indonesia cereal pilot program, which allows consumers to refill their own cereal containers in stores.
She will also undoubtedly play a major role in the company’s long-term operational goals, including implementing advanced operational planning tech to elevate demand sensing and production scheduling to more efficiently react to consumer insights by 2025.
Other enterprise-wide supply chain efforts over the last couple of years have included using AI and digital twins to “reconfigure” Nestlé’s networks, reduce energy and water consumption, and elevate delivery quality.
This follows trends recently predicted by Gartner that the field of operations is set to see massive, widespread transformation across the supply chain, and this includes the implementation of AI.
“The last three years of uncertainty have blurred the line between business and technology strategies to the point that they must be considered together,” said Simon Jacobson, VP analyst in Gartner’s supply chain practice, in response to these trends. “Supply chain leaders must have an understanding of the strategic, disruptive, and unavoidable technologies that will impact their planning processes over the next five years.”
