Southern Glazer’s Staffs New Data Center To Advance Digital Capabilities
Alcoholic beverage distributor Southern Glazer’s has created an Enterprise Data Center of Excellence (CoE) that will help the organization better leverage analytics, AI, and data. The company recently appointed leaders to head up the effort.
The new center will be led by chief digital officer Alan Wizemann and overseen by chief growth officer David Chaplin. It will also include a collaboration with the Enterprise Technology Partners department led by chief information and technology officer Ann Dozier.
"We are now looking at data as one of our products, bringing insights to life and driving better outcomes for our teams and trading partners," said Wizemann.
The four executives, each bringing a wealth of experience and expertise, include Tom Kornegay, senior vice president and head of data, analytics, and insights, who will report to Wizemann and develop and execute enterprise data strategy.
Duan Peng, senior vice president and head of data science, AI, and machine learning, will also report to Wizemann and execute the company's enterprise AI and ML strategy.
Bharathi Sampangi, vice president of data platforms and services, will report to Dozier and lead architecture, technical design, and the roadmap for enterprise data platforms. Thomas McDevitt, senior vice president and head of industry and supplier data, will report to Wizemann and help drive industry insights to better understand capabilities and data.
"The cross-functional CoE highlights a culture of collaboration that is being embraced by the organization in order to continually advance our digital and data capabilities," said Dozier. "This new team brings expanded experience and expertise to our company so we can create even more value from our industry-leading data and analytics capabilities."
Taking a Collaborative Approach to Data
Apart from the new center, Zach Poelma, senior vice president of supplier strategy and insights, will continue to guide the Supplier CoE, which will collaborate with the new enterprise data team to leverage data and insight investments.
Many companies are proactively ramping up R&D and data-powered efforts to help improve efficiencies and drive productivity.
To scale disruptive and AI-powered innovations, Unilever launched initiatives across its innovation labs, including Horizon3 Labs and Datalab Ecosystem. Mars recently announced a new R&D lab in Hackettstown, New Jersey, supporting a $70 million investment in manufacturing. General Mills invested in data infrastructure over the last five years, increasing its data science team by 40-fold since 2018.
