Robert Pekar
Chief Operations Officer at Partner in Pet Food
Previously spoke at: TFEST24
Speaking at TFEST26: Wednesday, December 2 2026 at 09:40–10:00 on the Main Stage: “Building an AI-Native FMCG Organisation to drive Value Creation”. With Ali Sarrafi (Kovant).
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
How do people and AI agents work together in a complex, high-volume supply chain, and what does the organisation around them need to look like? Robert Pekar, COO of Partner in Pet Food (PPF), one of Europe's largest private-label manufacturers, shares how PPF is building an AI-native FMCG organisation designed to drive value creation. Joined by Ali Sarrafi, CEO and Co-Founder of Kovant, he will walk through practical use cases showing where agents take on the work, where people stay in charge, and how to set the right structure and organisation across an end-to-end supply chain so that AI moves beyond isolated pilots and into everyday operations.
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.