Senior Vice President of Enterprise Research & Development, Campbell Soup
Search every verified George Vindiola interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2023 appearance, George Vindiola, then Vice President of research and development for Campbell Snacks, discussed the role of diverse perspectives in the company's innovation process. He described the formation of Campbell Snacks from Snyder's Lance and Pepperidge Farm as bringing together "disparate brands, processes, but especially the people." Vindiola noted that the combination included distinct cultures from companies such as Stars of Hanover, Lance, and Kettle Foods, and that his own non-legacy background was part of why he was brought in. Vindiola stated that integrating "four or five different ways of thinking and ways of working" was initially challenging, requiring a baseline level of agreement on processes. However, he said the diversity of thought ultimately allowed teams to "challenge each other" and "innovate in a better way—not necessarily faster, but better." He attributed this to the ability to draw on different points of view to reach a stronger final product.
“When we formed Campbell Snacks from Snyder's Lance and Pepperidge Farm, it was the disparate brands, processes, but especially the people that we brought together. You had a Pepperidge Farm way of doing things and Snyder's Lance was really a combination of several different companies, including Stars of Hanover, Lance,...”
“The diversity in thought really helped us because it wasn't just the Pepperidge way. When I came in from a different experience, I was disrupting that. That was part of the reason I think they brought me in, because I wasn't legacy Pepperidge; I'd been in a different company doing things a different way.”
“Bringing together four or five different ways of thinking and ways of working was hard because we had to get to a certain baseline level of understanding on how we were going to do things. But it was also exciting because we could challenge each other with different points of view and ways of doing things.”
“Once we were all well integrated, the diversity of thought helped us to innovate in a better way—not necessarily faster, but better—because we could challenge each other and get to a better end product at the end of the day.”
George Vindiola, VP of research and development for Campbell Snacks, shares his perspective on how allowing for diversity of ...
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