Anne Swanson

Dynamic business consultancy, specializing in delivering top-tier strategic and operational support to organizations preparing for growth or optimizing effectiveness.

• Founded business from scratch and offer expert-level consultancy about strategic planning, operational effectiveness, and organizational design while aiming at surpassing clients’ expectations
• Collaborate with growing, small- to mid-sized companies with less than $100M in revenue and larger companies with target initiatives and transformations
• Existing Client: Sharing Excess, a Forbes 30 Under 30 start-up, food waste logistics organization. Provide strategic advisory expertise to help them achieve their growth targets and navigate fundraising objectives. Align with owners in creating 3-year strategic plan and growth narrative by facilitating brainstorming sessions and one-on-one interviews. Create value stick and SWOT model to inform clients of opportunities and craft value proposition in this emerging space. Connect clients to key business relationships within non-profit and for-profit space

Leading national hunger-relief organization supporting a network of 200 independent food bank operations.

• Built strategic partnerships within produce, protein, and dairy industries and oversaw food rescue initiatives for nationwide hunger-relief organization and network of over 200 food banks.
• Led operational and strategic impact by restructuring a high-performing national office team of agriculture, wholesale, sourcing experts and program managers.
• Grew annual grants (revenue) growth from $1M to over $50M and realized greater fiscal accountability and donor reporting through new KPIs and tracking.
• Championed redesign and new functionality of MealConnect, an enterprise technology and online marketplace, distributing 500+ million pounds of surplus commodity crops to food banks across the country.
• Deployed and championed a key growth strategy establishing eight regional produce sourcing and distribution centers in order to centralize responsibility and free up food bank teams to focus on other procurement.
• Collaborated in nationally recognized venture with USDA, as a result of COVID supply chain upheaval, by recommending an innovative food box distribution model, supporting growers and packers and a spike in food bank volumes.
• Steered innovation projects with CPG corporations to divert millions of pounds of edible but out-of-spec food items to feeding people instead of disposing.
• Developed comprehensive ag rescue master case by proactively engaging with national network of CEOs, cultivating robust partnerships, conducting in-depth needs assessments, formulating a comprehensive plan, and re-establishing trust and credibility.

American-based producer of fresh-cut vegetables, bagged salads and prepared foods.

• Headhunted to turn around fragmented leadership team and optimize operational framework while delivering strategic oversight for creation and execution of financial gap closure plan
• Provided executive leadership to end-to-end company-wide operations, including sales, procurement, human resources, quality, and facilities
• Drove cost-cutting and revenue-generation efforts for the Chicago facility, resulting in stabilizing over $40M in revenue by spearheading P&L leadership to achieve a 15% margin increase
• Boosted organizational effectiveness and productivity by coaching, and mentoring senior leadership team while facilitating cross-functional communication and teamwork
• Successfully launched first-ever product line for Starbucks (Mercato) in Chicago by exceeding role expectations, meeting production requirements, supporting food development team, and conducting multiple product tests
• Transitioned production from 5 to 7 days per week to support launch of new prepared food programs with Starbucks and Kroger
• Coordinated with Safeway Albertsons and Trader Joe's to devise solutions that ensured value for partners, specifically in DSD distribution and product specifications

Dynamic digital marketplace and solutions provider for the automotive industry that connects car shoppers with sellers.

• Oversaw 30-person team for fulfillment, graphic design and add serving operations.
• Created scorecards and set KPIs to achieve daily and long-term business goals.
• Negotiated and managed third-party contracts related to product deliverables, including a custom technology solution for media creation.
• Established first-ever program management office and business integration procedures to improve go to market readiness between operations, product management and sales.
• Received Gold Stevie Business Award in Sales and Customer Service in recognition for significant improvements and innovation

Job search activities, online training and certifications during transition after reduction in force from Nokia

A B2B technology leader in networking and devices. Nokia acquired NAVTEQ in 2007.

• Aligned processes and approach with Nokia team after acquisition. Continued former responsibilities and also merged CRM systems for improved contract and content management

A global location data and technology company that created the first digital map over 35 years ago.

• Managed $20M annual budget while leading global team. Crafted multi-year satellite imagery license agreement and attained $45M+ in future savings, designing and negotiating a subscription-based agreement instead of legacy click-based one

• Started as independent contributor and rapid success led to creating a national team. Led the strategic growth of map and location based services by designing a turn-key solution to license over 4,000 GIS datasets, from county and city government, for new product and global expansion. Supported customers such as Google and Garmin

A top-tier global business advisory and accounting services firm.

• Leveraged firm's audit and Sarbanes Oxley methodology, working with corporate clients to identify gaps in systems and processes vulnerable to financial misstatement. Clients included United Airlines, Johnson Controls and HSBC

Transition after September 11th terrorist attacks and related downsizing in commercial airlines. Moved to Tokyo, Japan with partner to support his career opportunity and to focus on career planning after the disruption in the airline industry.

Prepared the flight operations department monthly, quarterly and annual financial reports, created budget, and forecast documents. Conducted labor, fuel and other cost-analysis on new routes for pilots and flight attendants. Served on crew payroll technology conversion project as flight ops liaison.

After graduating with MBA, joined a niche process improvement team for the airline's inflight catering division. Learned and deployed a lean, cycle-time reduction methodology across two primary hub locations in food production, strengthening overall quality of in-flight food service and contributing to 11.8% production productivity improvement, system-wide.