Past Event: Thursday, May 20th, 2021 – 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT
Smart Retailing (SR) is the use of technology to shape interactions between shopper and retailer. In food retail these might be sensors, artificial intelligence, or mobile applications. SR is already having a significant impact on food quality, food safety, labeling, efficiencies and labour in the food retail space.
Arrell Food Business and Technology Forum 2021 digitally brought together members of the food value chain, from food production, distribution, retailing and technology suppliers and academia, to explore this topic and provided insight into SR’s current and future impacts on the Canadian food sector.
This forum served as a sneak preview to a full-day Forum in 2022, which Arrell Food Institute hopes to host in-person.
Event Format
This dialogue was held online, featuring an industry keynote and research panel.
Keynote: Teemu Salmi, Stora Enso
As CIO and Head of Digitalisation, Teemu Salmi holds the accountability of the Group level IT and digitalisation strategy while also being accountable for the operational IT service delivery.
Mr. Salmi was awarded “CIO of the year, 2020” in Finland for his accomplishments in leading the digital- and IT transformation in Stora Enso. Before joining Stora Enso, Mr. Salmi has more than 18 years of senior and executive leadership experience in a variety of industries. His past roles have covered executive leadership positions in the telecom industry including leading sales, as well as delivery and transformation of product and service business. In his most recent role, prior to joining Stora Enso, Teemu was Ericsson’s SVP IT & Cloud in the Region Middle East and North-East Africa.
Panel
Dr. Kimberly Thomas-Francois
Dr. Kimberly Thomas-Francois is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management at the University of Guelph. She holds a PhD in Management with specialization in Service Management with the distinguished scholar medal for academic excellence. Dr. Thomas-Francois also holds a Master of Science Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management (with Distinction) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Management (hons.) from the University of the West Indies.
Kimberly has been engaged in multidisciplinary research work within various themes. She has conducted research work in agriculture and tourism linkages, service management, food supply and value chains at hotels, customer engagement, service leadership, innovation in rural tourism, governance and engaged entrepreneurship. Currently in her post-doctoral research, she commenced a research programme in smart and virtual food retailing and continues to investigate the digital food economy using both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.
In addition to her passion for research and research supervision, she also enjoys teaching and most of all envisage contributing to development in broader society through the combination and use of modern management principles with natural, human, and social capital to ensure that livelihoods of all at risk groups are realized.
Dr. Lili He
Lili He is an Associate Professor of Food Science at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She received her BS and MS degrees from Zhejiang University in China and PhD degree from University of Missouri-Columbia in the US in 2009. Then she did her postdoc training in University of Minnesota for about three years. In 2012, she joined the faculty in the Food Science Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst as an Assistant Professor and in 2018 became Associate Professor. Dr. He’s major research focus is to develop and apply advanced and innovative analytical techniques to help solve critical and emerging issues in food science. Her group has developed various surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) based techniques for food safety and other applications.
Recent research interest has expanded to X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy and its applications for elemental analysis in food. Dr. He’s research has been strongly supported by external funding from federal and industry, and published over 120 papers. In 2020, she established the Raman, IR, and XRF Core Facility at UMass, providing analytical services on campus and elsewhere. Her excellence has been recognized by receipt of the 2012 Young Scientist Award from the International Union of Food Science and Technology, 2015 American Chemical Society (ACS)- Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division Young Scientist Award, 2016 Young Investigator Award from Eastern Analytical Symposium, 2016 Institute of Food Technologists Samuel Cate Prescott Award for Research, and was selected as one of the Talented 12 by C&EN, the ACS magazine in 2016.
Harumi Urata-Thompson
Harumi Urata-Thompson is founder and CEO of HUT Consulting. She specializes in leading and advising companies on taking innovative paths to achieve strategic, operational and marketing success in their businesses. Currently, she is consulting to and serving on the board of directors of several companies. In addition, she acts as mentor to a number of people and speaks at numerous events. Subjects include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Outerspace, Cross-border Business, and Diversity and Inclusion.
Prior to starting HUT Consulting, Harumi was the Chief Operating Officer for CFA Society New York (previously New York Society of Security Analysts), a nonprofit affiliate of the CFA Institute with 10,000 financial professionals. As COO, she was responsible for operating all aspects of the organization, and successfully improved its performance through offering better value to its members, instituting significantly better operating processes, developing corporate partnerships, and establishing a new business model for attracting revenues from sponsors. Before CFA Society New York, Harumi spent 14 years at Thomson Reuters where she held various positions including: Director at the corporate level overseeing innovation and managing a portfolio of mobile products across divisions; Chief of Staff to the CEO of the Healthcare and Science business, where she oversaw all management activities of five business units, including acquisitions, business and product management, and planning for an annual $900M budget covering 4,300 employees; and Product Manager looking after the company’s fixed income business, while launching the most significant product in this division’s history. Harumi began her career in investment banking with Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, working in fixed income derivatives sales and mergers & acquisitions.
Harumi has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA, magna cum laude, in business from Sophia University in Japan. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst, Project Management Professional certified, an Advanced Communicator and Leader of Toastmasters, and bilingual in English and Japanese. Harumi has traveled extensively, plays piano, keenly follows performing arts.