Senior Associate

Valerie has deep experience in S&OP, CPFR and global planning process implementations, with a particular focus on CPG and food-related enterprises. Having both analyzed and led these transformative initiatives at companies of virtually every market cap – including Walmart, Kellogg’s and Maple Leaf Foods – Valerie brings a wealth of practical experience to NorthFind’s clients.

Valerie has previously held positions at Walmart and Deloitte, and holds an HBA from the Ivey School of Business at UWO.

Laercio has over a decade of success in supply chain management across few of the largest food processing and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods companies in the world, including Kraft Heinz and Parmalat. He holds a Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management and B.Sc. in Food Engineering. Throughout his career, Laercio has enhanced lynch pin operations processes such as materials and inventory management, demand, supply and distribution planning as well as has led footprint projects and end-to-end S&OP.

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Eric C. Clepper has over 27 years of experience with airlines and aerospace manufacturing and repair companies. He has helped turn around under-performing businesses, created innovative new businesses, and led large P&Ls.

While at Honeywell Aerospace, he led and executed multiple transformations to drive customer profitability, salesforce productivity, and MRO Integrated Service Provider commercial strategies. He also led various initiatives to reduce excess and slow-moving inventory; and implemented strategic replenishment programs, including vendor managed inventory, to optimize Working Capital and inventory turns.

He has led factory flow transformations, and S&OP Processes in both manufacturing and contract manufacturing environments. Additionally, he has also served as a due-diligence focal for buyer and seller side M&A and Joint Venture pursuits.

While at Delta Air Lines, Clepper led an initiative to capture post-merger synergy benefits by working across all functions to develop market-specific strategies. Additionally, he built key analytic models that enabled a complete salesforce transformation to optimize capacity and align to premium opportunities. Additionally, he led the assessment for changing the travel agency commission structure that resulted in immediate savings of over $125 million.

Clepper received his MBA degree from Emory University in 200 and holds a BS in Business Management from University of Phoenix. He is also Six Sigma, Blackbelt trained and Greenbelt certified and is pursuing a designation from the Harvard Business Analytics Program.

Ed Lawton has over 27 years of industry and consulting experience using and implementing supply chain management applications from Adexa, JDA, Kinaxis, Oracle and SAP.  His background includes the areas of demand forecasting, sales & operations planning, production scheduling, inventory planning and optimization and supply chain network optimization.  Ed has a diverse industry background combined with strong leadership, project management, problem solving and communication skills that he uses to provide the bridge between business objectives and successful solution delivery.

Ed has a BS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and a MBA from The Pennsylvania State University, is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) and is APICS certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) and in Integrated Resource Management (CIRM).

Travis Frank is a hands-on leader in Supply Chain and Logistics Operations who has implemented Operational Excellence strategies across multiple Manufacturing and distribution organizations. Travis has held roles as Vice President of Operations and Sr. Director of Operations and Inventory for Canada’s largest vitamin and supplement manufacturer; Senior Director of Site Operations for an aftermarket and original equipment manufacturer for light- and heavy-duty vehicles; Senior Manager of Supply Chain, Distribution and Logistics within the Food Service industry; and Senior Transportation Manager for C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc.

Travis received his Master of Science in Supply Chain and Logistics Management at the RAJ SOIN College of Business at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. Since then, Travis has led multiple large-scale manufacturing and distribution capacity utilization projects to align organizational capabilities to the needs of the customer.  Travis believes to get mutual gain from an employee there must be continuous improvement strategies combined with straight forward “Lean Manufacturing” methodologies.

Most recently Travis complete the Harvard Business School “Leading Change and Organization Renewal” program. Travis is a strong supporter of community involvement and a member of his local APICS chapter, as well as watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) for his local school board.

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Bob Sanders has more than 15 years of experience advising senior executives across a range of corporate functions, including: supply chain, operations, business development, and corporate finance; and has done so in North America, EMEA and APAC.

While at Carlisle FoodService., Mr. Sanders developed and led the company’s strategic plan and process to integrate the Sales, Inventory, and Operations functions. As manager of the forecasting team, he led the transformation to a statistically-focused demand planning process. Mr. Sanders also developed the firm’s operational reporting process, which includes weekly and daily scorecards focused on sales, shipments, fill rates, and available to promise accuracy.

During his time at CEB now Gartner, he worked directly with Fortune 500 executives, to identify and implement best demonstrated practices. In addition, Mr. Sanders managed an international team of research associates and helped to create the Finance Quantitative Analysis team. He has experience creating and administrating surveys and synthesizing results for use in best practices publications and implementation.

Mr. Sanders has an MBA from Penn State University and a BA from Union College, where he majored in Managerial Economics, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business Analytics Program.

Frank Russell is a senior consulting professional who has played a leading role implementing the systems, processes and infrastructure to support the growth of a diverse group of companies including Electronic Arts, Lululemon, British Columbian Safety Authority, Pacific BioEnergy, Canfor, Rocky Mountaineer and the Factors Group of Companies. As an IT leader Frank has led initiatives for privacy compliance, business continuity, IT security, and enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Frank has built Project Management Offices (PMO) from the ground up which included the establishment of project governance and the adoption of best practices for project management. He has also restructured failing PMOs for a large manufacturers, greatly increasing the company’s capacity to implement major systems and process improvement initiatives.

In recent years Frank has developed expertise in the implementation of privacy programs and led a major initiative for an international retailer to ensure its compliance with European privacy regulations (GDPR).

Frank has earned certifications including: Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Project Management Professional (PMP).

Frank majored in Finance (B.Comm) at Concordia University and earned his MBA from Queen’s University.