Robert Pekar

Chief Operations Officer at Partner in Pet Food

Previously spoke at: TFEST24

Speaking at TFEST26: Tuesday, December 2 2026 at 09:35–09:55 on the Main Stage — “Beyond the Hype: Building an AI-Native FMCG Organisation from the Factory Floor Up”.

About Robert

Robert Pekar serves as Chief Operations Officer at Partner in Pet Food, bringing extensive international experience in operations and supply chain leadership across leading global FMCG companies including Mars and Danone. Over his career he has led complex, multi-site manufacturing networks and end-to-end supply chain organisations — most recently steering the supply chain of Mars Pet Nutrition Europe, spanning 12 factories and more than 4,000 associates across seven countries. A seasoned senior executive with a strong track record of large-scale turnarounds and transformations, Robert focuses on reliable service, quality, cost competitiveness, and best-in-class safety standards. Known for an accessible, inspirational leadership style, he builds diverse, high-performing teams and fosters strong cross-functional collaboration in complex, multicultural environments — combining a hands-on operating approach with a strategic, enterprise-first mindset.

Session Overview

For many FMCG manufacturers, AI remains an isolated "IT science project" rather than a true driver of operational resilience. What does it take to build a deeply AI-native organisation from scratch within a complex, physical supply chain? Robert Pekar, COO of Partner in Pet Food (PPF) — one of Europe's largest private-label manufacturers with 12 factories and 3,000 employees — explores the gritty reality of deploying AI across a high-volume enterprise. This session cuts through the hype to deliver a practical blueprint for modernising legacy operations, shifting organisational mindsets, and unlocking hidden production capacity by layering intelligent, agentic systems over existing legacy infrastructure.

About TFEST26

TFEST26 is Europe's most senior supply chain conference, taking place December 1–2 2026 at Colosseum Berlin. It brings together 400+ Director-level and above leaders — Chief Supply Chain Officers, VPs, and senior directors from Cisco, Henkel, Estée Lauder, Diageo, Schneider Electric, Novartis, Mars, and others — for two days of peer benchmarking, candid practitioner firesides, themed roundtables, and pre-scheduled 1:1 meetings.