Lauren McNamara

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT LAUREN MCNAMARA

A purpose-driven business leader with a passion for fueling the future of food. I\'m currently Senior Vice President of Business Management at SunOpta, a global pioneer of sustainable food and beverages for nearly 50 years. We help companies produce co-manufactured and private label products and produce our own lines of innovative products and ingredients.In my role, I\'ve built the plant-based business into a stalwart stream of growth and revenue, including more than doubling the revenue of the business over my tenure. To date, the go-to-market strategies I\'ve implemented from tapping into previous experience have brought in seven $10 million-plus customers & allowed us to expand the TAM by entering new categories. To increase production capacity, I\'ve led worked on 10 expansion projects including our entry into oatbase production and a greenfield facility in Texas.Among my colleagues, I\'m a respected, dynamic team leader who\'s grown our marketing team from two to eleven employees. I\'ve created efficiencies for our team by streamlining the new business commercialization process, which has increased customer acquisition, enabled cross-team collaboration, improved product innovation and accurately set pricing. Under my guidance, our team launches over 50 new products a year with our commercial partners.Prior to joining SunOpta, I held positions at General Mills and Flagstone Foods, and gave back to my community through board positions at Share our Strength - Twin Cities (marketing chair) and the Minnesota Cup. I\'m also actively involved with startups in the Twin Cities, currently serving as a mentor for Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator. I hold board positions in the Private Label Manufacturers Association and AURI. I love being part of the Twin Cities\' dynamic food and beverage ecosystem and contributing to making our industry more widely sustainable and accessible to all.