Business
Nearly 2 billion people lack access to nutritious food — a staggering number likely to increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lara Ramdin, Ph.D., and Barbara Guerpillon are trying to change that. These two global female executives are playing integral roles toward Dole Food’s corporate initiative: the Dole Promise Sunshine for All, the goal of which is to make nutritious foods accessible to 1 billion people by 2030. Ramdin, chief innovation officer at Dole Packaged Foods, has built her global research and development team to be made up of 60 percent women, demonstrating her advocacy for women and girls in STEM. Guerpillon, head of ventures at Dole and Asia Fresh, is the first person to hold this position and focus on a global strategy to enable profitable business growth through start-up led innovations and the creation of entrepreneurial networks worldwide. Listen to how these two women foster change by showing how a large company can leverage the ingenuity of the global startup ecosystem to help solve food inequity. It’s all in a day’s work as they balance their home lives as well.