Program 2020

VP Operational Excellence - Diageo North America, Plainfield, Illinois, USA Mario manages a team of subject matter experts developing best practices, establishing standardization, building capabilities, providing technical support and assuring compliance of 5 manufacturing sites, 5 distilleries and 12 sales offices. Since he joined Diageo in 2007, his responsibilities included but not limited to Environment, Health & Safety, Quality, Food Safety, Customer Care, Risk, Data management, Regulatory, Custom & Trade, Security & Manufacturing Excellence for Diageo North America. He also led the Canadian operations and NA distillation before moving in his current role. He previously spent 20 years with Labatt breweries, now ABI, working in various locations across Canada and in the US. He had a variety of roles within the business in packaging & brewing operation, engineering, asset care, EH&S and quality and overall plant operation. He acquired a solid manufacturing experience and expertise in Safety excellence, lean manufacturing, total quality and Continuous improvement with large organizations in the various aspects of a total supply chain. Mario holds a B.S. in Engineering and is also a Brewmaster.

Brei Clifford is currently the Deputy Director and Quality Assurance Manager for the Nestlé Quality Assurance Center (NQAC) in Dublin, Ohio, where she oversees quality assurance, accreditation and certification activities. The NQAC is Nestlé’s largest regional quality assurance laboratory and is accredited for over 150 analytical methods, performing roughly 1 million food safety and quality analyses each year in support of Nestlé North American manufacturing operations and other markets throughout Central and South America. Additionally, Brei is responsible for laboratory performance across Nestlé factory laboratories in the US, Canada and the Caribbean. Prior to her role as the Quality Assurance Manager at NQAC, Brei worked in a variety of business roles including operations, audit and verification, and analytical sciences. Throughout her 15-year career with Nestlé, Brei has supported quality and food safety across various consumer packaged goods categories including frozen meals, confections, beverage and infant nutrition and health, through various technical and operational leadership roles. Brei received her BA in Microbiology from Miami University in 2002.