Fiona Kendrick chairman and chief executive, Nestlé UK and Ireland
Fiona Kendrick has worked tirelessly to ease the birth of Britain’s first accredited food and drink engineering degree, as well as carrying out the dairy rigorous demands of running Nestlé UK and Ireland this year.
Kendrick has played a key role in helping to prepare the way for the four-year masters degree which begins in September 2014 at Sheffield Hallam University.
The degree course is being delivered through a partnership with the Food and Drink Federation, The National Skills Academy for Food and Drink and Sheffield Hallam University.
She has also done much to highlight the yawning skills gap.
Earlier this year Kendrick hit the headlines when she said few would-be engineers were “willing to really roll up their sleeves” and engage with unskilled and semi-skilled operators.
Speaking at the launch of the degree course in Sheffield, Kendrick slammed some youngsters’ lack of interpersonal skills and their lack of food industry knowledge.
Kendrick took up her current role on October 1 2012, having joined the food giant in 1980 as a commercial graduate in the Findus Frozen Food Division. She was appointed general manager of the Frozen Food Division in 1991.
In September 2001 she became md of the firm’s beverage division, a position which she held for seven years.