Experience & Successes

George founded Business Growth Innovations, Inc. (BGI) upon achieving his Fortune 500 corporate career & middle market private company CEO goals – and preferring to then follow his “pay it forward” mentoring and entrepreneurial passion. While leading several companies, over 5,000 employees and two dozen manufacturing plants as CEO, Senior Exec and Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, well-known Fortune 1000, Private Equity-held and Family-owned companies, he grew all of these businesses. George gained new world class customers, developed award-winning new products, mentored & promoted many upcoming new executives, turned around stalled companies/subsidiaries, and completed several Enterprise Sales at high multiples of EBITDA.

Since founding BGI over twenty years ago, George continues to successfully build client's top and bottom lines, grow their customer base and product lines, and amplify their company image & brand credibility among key accounts and consumers. Importantly, he has a strong track record of solving urgent situations when they unexpectedly occur in client company operations/departments as well as with their customers, suppliers & difficult competitive marketplaces.

Business Growth Innovations - Sector Expertise
 

• Brand & Private Label Foods – perishable and shelf stable
• Consumer Packaged Goods & Services – multiple categories
• Retail & Wholesale Distribution – soft and hard goods
• Industrial and B-to-B Products & Services – chemical and technology

Highly effective at forging trust with family and private equity owners/investors, boards and management, George is proven at adding significant value by working closely with clients. Documented results over the past decade include:

• Restoring growth to stalled EBITDA, bottom line losses, falling margins, growing costs, declining share & pricing problems
• Coaching and developing family company owners and their family-relative managers 
• Mentoring/aiding private equity portfolio CEO’s & Executives through high-value expansion , M&A activity, and sale of the enterprise
• Growing revenues, solving customer relationship/buyer issues as well as competitive encroachment
• Rejuvenating stagnant products - branded and private label across food, consumer goods and industrial sectors
• Handling product recalls and marketplace withdrawals in a way that maintains/builds key account relationships
• Improving operations, employee turnover, manufacturing downtime/waste, and other internal expenses
• Driving cost savings and related bottom line improvements without alienating internal & external parties
• Filling in short-term for unexpected Loss of CEO and/or Senior Executives due to unexpected illness, departure
• Bringing strong value to Boards of Directors as a member or advisor on special initiatives & strategic planning
• Fixing Other Urgent Sensitive and Confidential Situations - internal & externally-driven
   

George currently serves on several Boards of Directors and as an operating partner with private equity. Leveraging his experience across core functions (finance, marketing, sales, R&D/new products, operations, strategic planning / budgeting, systems, human resources and supply chain / purchasing / warehousing, etc.) he reliably and collaboratively brings value to clients with pragmatic profit-building strategies, tactics, and urgency-driven executional approaches. To date, George has received many industry awards and also attained them for clients, including:

• National Restaurant Association Global Food & Beverage Innovation New Product Award
• M&A Advisor of the Year Finalist
• QBA & AMA Marketer of Year Awards, Public Relations Society Award, Telly for Employee Motivation
• Two Forte "Top Interim CEO" of the Year awards … and more

These recognitions were based on achieving double-digit profit growth, key account & product gains, company turnarounds, integrations, consolidations, acquisitions and enterprise spin-offs. Prior to his professional career, George worked union trade and plant labor positions, was a university counselor, and graduated top of class at University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana with highest honors including: Beta Gamma Sigma, Campus Leader-Mortar Board, Bronze Tablet-Highest GPA, and Top Student Leader awards.

Don has over 35 years of classic business management experience ranging from Fortune 500 to Private Equity and Venture Capital driven companies. Those experiences include: Deloitte, a leading global audit, tax and consulting firm, Keebler/Kellogg's Company as Senior Vice President Marketing and ConAgra Foods Inc. a $15 billion food company where Don served in various senior executive roles across several ConAgra companies.
 

For more than a decade, Don also has been a proven Executive Consultant and Mentor to Family Owned, Private Equity, Nonprofit and Venture Capital based companies. He has repeatedly and successfully addressed urgent company needs including raising significant capital funds, identifying and completing multiple strategic acquisitions, creating or reorganizing sales functions and distribution channels, improving operational excellence and driving top and bottom-line growth with aggressive new product development processes. Currently in-market new products and services exceed well over $1 billion dollars in annual sales within multiple business sectors including:

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• Branded and Private Label Consumers Products
• Foodservice Manufacturing, Distribution and Restaurants Chains
• Food Ingredient and "Over The Counter" Drug Industries
• Nonprofit Organizations

The emphasis of his work gives Don a depth and richness of expertise in supporting a broad range of client needs from:
 

Functional Expertise

• Finance
• Sales
• Marketing
• Operations
• Human Resources/Reorganizations
   

To Broad Experiences in:

• Merger and Acquisitions
• Family Owned & Operated Companies
• Private Equity - Venture Capital Markets
• Turnarounds
• Nonprofits
   

Don's experience has helped companies urgently address poor top line performance,

under performing product margins, creation of strong focused organizational teams, building award winning new products and establishing strong customer relations while building trust and integrity with clients and their employees.  He has a long and successful history of achievement that has been repeatedly recognized with professional awards from many industry leaders - including American Marketing Association, Food Business News, Prepared Foods Magazine and the National Restaurant Association.

Don has a degree in Accounting, has been a Certified Public Accountant, and attended Management Programs at the Oxford School of Management, Oxford England.

John joined Business Growth Innovations, Inc. in 2023 as Project Management, Data Analytics and Client Support Manager. 

Before and after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies School of Business (with majors in Information Systems & Technology / Informatics as well as Business Process Management), John gained experience in deep analytics, problem & opportunity identification, IT support, project management and customer service while working at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC Consulting) and strategy / startup firms in the financial, healthcare, CPG and non-profit sectors. 

John supports C-Suite executives, VP’s, Directors, Managers and Associates by successfully moving forward revenue, operations and profit-building initiatives:

Core Areas Of Value-Add Expertise

Data-driven analyses, research and recommendations that identify growth opportunities for:

• New Products and Services
• Existing Lines of Business
• Current & Potentially New Sales Territories and Pipelines
• Expansion into New Sectors / Leverageable Verticals

Identification of Improvement Opportunities for clients in:

• Operations - i.e. Plant Cost Savings, Monthly Variance Analyses vs. Budget and Year Ago
• The Marketplace – i.e. market share opportunity gaps, competitive trends, etc.
• Pricing – i.e. by product line, service, customer and/or geography
• Various Cost Accounting and Contribution Margin Analyses

Project Management (PMO) Support in:

• Annual Budgeting and Strategic Planning
• Sales and Innovation Pipelines
• Key Internal Initiatives
• IT System and Software Implementation Projects

Process Improvement Support – Operations, Sales, Finance, Marketing, Other Departments

Key Metrics – Analysis, Tracking and Reporting

Mergers, Acquisitions and Integrations Support

Other Advanced Data Analytics – with company databases, analytical applications and communication software:

• Microsoft XLS Macros, Pivot Tables, Index-Match, VLookup, HLookup, etc.
• Microsoft Teams, Word, PowerPoint, Project, SharePoint and More
• Google Suite, SQL, Tableau, Slack, Zoom, etc.

John is recognized for being a strong team player, building trust, managing ambiguity, collaborating cross-functionally and leveraging analysis to identify business-building opportunities for private profit and nonprofit clients. Having travelled internationally to more than 20 countries with friends and on his own, John enjoys building relationships and making a positive difference in both professional and personal endeavors. Today as well as during college and high school, John volunteers at the local food pantry, served as an Eagle Scout, business & social fraternity officer positions and earned a national championship, arena public speaking, honor society and other awards.