In the last quarter, Saphineia welcomed four outstanding food & beverage manufacturing professionals to Saphineia, bringing our team to 22 strong and adding depth across manufacturing, supply chain, and continuous improvement.
As we approach the completion of our 3rd year in business, Saphineia’s growth reflects continued progress toward our vision of being the go-to operational partner for CEOs, operational teams and financial investors in the food and beverage manufacturing industry.
We have provided brief details on each of these individuals below and you can learn more about each of them at Team members – Saphineia.
- Mary Casas: Joins Saphineia after 12+ years with Makers Pride (formerly Hearthside Foods) and its predecessor companies. Her experience includes leading productivity and efficiency programs and projects, and training and development initiatives across 13 bakery & bars plants. Mary brings strong Lean and Kaizen facilitation skills, as well as expertise in training, systems implementation, and Agile leadership. Mary is bilingual (English and Spanish).
- Bill McWilliams: 30+ years in food manufacturing, operations, and supply chain leadership. Former Senior Director of Manufacturing at Smithfield Foods and 18-year veteran of Kraft Foods in operations and engineering. Bill spent the last 5 years of his career with middle market food & beverage makers, providing a valuable perspective on how to apply large CPG best practices in smaller organizations. Bill brings deep experience in lean manufacturing, engineering, continuous improvement and end-to-end supply chain performance.
- Chinaelo Okafor: 10+ years of experience in strategy, analytics, and large-scale transformation. Most recently, she served as Senior Manager, Corporate Strategy at General Mills, where she led cross-enterprise teams in developing and executing transformational projects. Prior to General Mills, Chinaelo spent 5 years at McKinsey & Company, most recently as an Engagement Manager. Chinaelo brings experience in strategic planning, M&A, and leading cross-enterprise initiatives.
- Aaron (A.J.) Risenmay: Joins Saphineia from Impossible Foods, where he spent over a decade, most recently as V.P. of Supply. Among his many accomplishments there, Aaron led Impossible’s buildout of a hybrid supply chain of owned and contracted facilities, expanding production capacity 5x; founded Impossible’s company’s Lean Six Sigma academy, created a frontline leadership training program, developed career paths for all employees in the operations organization, and designed and built a first-of-its-kind HEME (plant-based protein) production factory, securing long-term strategic ingredient supply. A.J. brings expertise in Lean Six Sigma, global supply strategy, and cross-functional commercialization.
At Saphineia, we take pride in the depth and diversity of our team’s operational expertise and our ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams — from the C-suite to the shop floor.
As we close out another strong year, we look forward to continuing to leverage our growing team of exceptional professionals to help our clients solve problems and successfully address strategic priorities.
