Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
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Eric Cepek

Minnetonka,MN

Summary

Business professional with history of leading regional and international teams to success. Known for strategic thinking and driving impactful initiatives that align with organizational goals. Highly collaborative, adaptable to shifting priorities, and committed to team success. Skilled in cross-functional leadership, strategic planning, and change management.

Overview

22
22
years of professional experience

Work History

Global Director

Cargill
09.2019 - Current
  • Developed, implemented, and maintained a global strategy and go-to-market approach for renewable materials in the wax, manufactured wood, and polyurethane industries, driving a threefold increase in bottom-line results.
  • Expanded product lines into new geographies, achieving 35%+ year-over-year growth into Europe, India, China, Vietnam.
  • Led global expansion of existing products into new applications. Identified target markets, established value propositions, and collaborated across functions for implementation. Successfully entered two new markets.
  • Partnered with technical teams to develop disruptive, new-to-the-world technologies, increasing market available by over 20x.
  • Built and led a high-performing, multi-functional global team of 30+, recognized as best-in-class and asked to lead consultation to other business categories.
  • Served as the primary relationship owner for the businesses largest customer, fostering B2B alignment and cross-business collaboration, which resulted in the team winning the customers 'Supplier of the Year' in 2023.
  • Spearheaded strategic and value-added pricing initiatives, leading to a 36% margin improvement on targeted products.
  • Managed P&L exceeding $125M USD, surpassing bottom-line growth goals in four of the past five years.
  • Managed cross-functional teams to achieve project milestones within budget and on time.

North American Commercial Manager

Cargill
02.2014 - 06.2019
  • Led a high-performing national highly technical sales team of over 15 focused on bio-based chemical solutions in the paints and coatings, lubricant, ag. chemical, oilfield, and polyurethane markets. Responsibilities included commercial strategy development and implementation, P&L management, sales talent development, customer relationship development and retention.
  • Integrated acquisition sales team and product lines. Through integration, maintained 97% of customers, 84% of sales professionals and grew the business by 11% during acquisition year.
  • Customization and implementation of Salesforce.com. Developed and implemented the sales processes to support, identified and prioritized technology requirements and implemented nationally.
  • Within this role, the North American commercial team experienced a minimum of 11%+ year on year-on-year margin growth in mature markets.

Innovation Manager

Cargill
09.2012 - 01.2014
  • Identified and implemented best in class methodologies and tools to manage an ever-growing global new product development portfolio.
  • Responsibilities included developing and challenging business cases, prioritizing the opportunity portfolio, ensuring appropriate resource allocations, and setting milestone and project objectives.
  • Accomplishments in this position included 15%+ year on year growth.
  • Championed a customer-centric approach to innovation, incorporating user feedback into every stage of product development.
  • Introduced a structured framework for evaluating new ideas against predefined criteria, leading to more informed investment decisions in R&D projects.

Furniture and Flooring Category Manager

Cargill
03.2011 - 08.2012
  • Led a team to create and implement a global product line strategy and customer and supply relationships. This effort led to sales growth and manufacturing into two new geographies.
  • Developed global strategic account relationships, product line extensions into new targeted markets, new chemistry development, and long-term supply agreements including asset divestitures.

Product Manager / Supply Chain Manager

Cargill
09.2006 - 04.2011
  • Designed and implemented a supply chain and product management organization to optimize operations and maximize profitability. Over this time, grew the organization from 1 to 18 employees.
  • Established the businesses first global arbitrage supply chain leading to record margins in the applicable product lines.

Consulting Business Analyst

Cargill
09.2003 - 08.2006
  • This position afforded the opportunity to work with various business models, various geographies and an oversees assignment while supporting business strategy projects. Within this position, responsibilities included as-is business identification/documentation, development of best-in-class business processes for recommendation.

Education

MBA - Gloal Business

University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN
07.2005

Bachelor of Arts - Economics

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN
12.1999

Skills

  • Revenue generation
  • Innovation management
  • Cross-functional team leadership
  • Global operations management
  • Team leadership
  • Customer-oriented
  • Strategy development
  • New business development
  • Risk management
  • Business planning

Timeline

Global Director

Cargill
09.2019 - Current

North American Commercial Manager

Cargill
02.2014 - 06.2019

Innovation Manager

Cargill
09.2012 - 01.2014

Furniture and Flooring Category Manager

Cargill
03.2011 - 08.2012

Product Manager / Supply Chain Manager

Cargill
09.2006 - 04.2011

Consulting Business Analyst

Cargill
09.2003 - 08.2006

MBA - Gloal Business

University of St. Thomas

Bachelor of Arts - Economics

University of Minnesota

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Eric Cepek