Who is DecisionNext?

Mike Neal is a serial entrepreneur who has focused throughout his career on applying mathematical models to important businesses decisions. Holding 15 patents in related fields, Mike has founded multiple SaaS companies that have delivered highly focused analytics to business users. In 1999 he cofounded DemandTec (formerly NasdaqDMAN, now part of IBM). DemandTec is the largest provider of Consumer Demand Management (CDM) software for retail price and promotion optimization globally. In 2004 he cofounded SignalDemand, which applies mathematical models to commodity price forecasting in the food industry. SignalDemand was acquired by Pros Holding in Houston in 2012. Mike also serves on several early stage company boards and is an amateur ultra-marathoner. He holds an MBA from the J.B. Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BA in economics and statistics from the University of Florida.

Gavin Gallagher has over 30 years of experience in both industry and consulting roles with a focus on technology. He has worked with Macy’s, Accenture and H-E-B, spending the last 20+  years with H-E-B creating a world class team of engineers and technologists. They focused on building enterprise class custom applications, mobile applications for customers and employees, cloud native applications hosted across the major public cloud providers, along with a broad set of SaaS offerings.  Gavin spent over 18 years as Chief Information Officer and retired from H-E-B as Chief Operating Officer for Digital in 2023. He has a great passion for applying technology to solve business challenges and is actively using his experience as a Board member for Logile, Favor and Decision Next. Gavin is also an early investor with Hudini and is currently COO.

Bob’s work has brought advanced mathematical analysis to entirely new markets and industries, improving the way companies engage in strategic decision making. Prior to DecisionNext, Bob was Chief Scientist at SignalDemand, Inc., where he guided the science behind SignalDemand’s solutions for manufacturers. Bob has held senior research and development roles at Khimetrics (now SAP) and ConceptLabs, as well as academic posts with the National Academy of Sciences, Penn State University, and UC Berkeley. His work spans a range of industries including commodities and manufacturing and he’s made contributions to the fields of econometrics, oceanography, mathematics, and nonlinear dynamics. He holds numerous patents and is the author of several peer reviewed papers. Bob holds a PhD in theoretical physics from UC Berkeley.

Based in Perth, Western Australia, Graeme has an extensive track record of creating innovative strategic transformation in businesses and has been awarded the Curtin Medal for Innovation from the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK. He has overseen a number of strategic transformations in resource-driven industries and developed strategies for major engineering and services companies as well as policy groups, universities, and industry bodies. Graeme holds a PhD from Imperial College London, an MBA from Monash University, and a First Class Honours Degree in engineering from the University of Adelaide

Paul Weinstein is a founding General Partner at Azure Capital Partners. Prior to founding Azure, Paul was a managing director with Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, PaineWebber and Kidder Peabody. Paul represents Azure Capital on the Boards of Fonality, K2 Software, Virtual Instrument, Switchfly and Unitas Global. He is a graduate of Babson College.

Mr. Bill Rupp is an experienced food industry executive who has held executive roles at JBS and Cargill. Mr. Rupp served as Chief Operating Officer and then President of JBS USA Beef from 2010-2016. Prior to that, Mr. Rupp served as President of Cargill Meat Solutions from 2007 to 2010. Mr. Rupp has extensive experience with meat processing operations and has earned a reputation as an innovator for his work at Cargill and JBS. Mr. Rupp serves as a Board Member of the Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters and Lose The Training Wheels, a charity dedicated to providing recreation and learning opportunities to individuals with disabilities. Mr. Rupp holds a BS in business administration from the University of South Dakota.

President at Milton Merl &Associates and Owner, Milton Merl & Associates

Hal is a Beef Industry Executive Veteran who was raised on his family’s ranch before serving 32 years across Cargill’s Beef and Food Distribution businesses. He held roles in boxed beef sales, product management, strategic pricing, sold position execution and cutout optimization. He has 20 plus years in pricing including 12 years leading the beef pricing team as well as other senior commercial roles. Responsibilities over his career include box and ground beef pricing, carcass utilization, customer satisfaction, RFP/RFQ structuring, contract negotiations, strategy structure, market analytics, and team development. Hal is a “pay it forward” leader who focuses on improvement benchmarking and is deeply passionate about learning while mentoring and advising others by leveraging wisdom, experience perspective, and intuition gained from over 25 years of leadership in these areas of focus.

Recognized as being among the world’s foremost strategic experts in the food, beverage, consumer products and retail industries, Mark is SVP and Chief Collaboration Officer of Food Marketing Institute (FMI). Baum’s career in the food, beverage, and CPG industry spans more than 25 years. He served as the president and CEO of the Association of Sales and Marketing Companies (ASMC) as well as executive vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). Later, he was a partner and managing director of the CPG and Retail Practice at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Most recently, Baum was the managing partner of MARCAT Group LLC, a leading consulting firm specializing in business, market and customer development.

Known for his ability to create the optimum interface between people and organisations, Lionel is a business-focused psychologist and a partner at Virtual Consulting. He has international experience in visioning, strategic positioning and large-scale change processes. As an in-house manager to industry with both Rössing Uranium and CRA, he has been involved in a variety of challenging organisational projects in Namibia, South Africa, the U.K., Australia, and the United States. Lionel has gained particular recognition in the areas of work redesign, organisational change, and management development. He has participated in leading strategy and visioning workshops for large shared services business ventures and has served on large scale organisational change projects within the mining industry.

Gideon Malherbe is a founding partner of VCI, a unique strategic consultancy focused on delivering measurable material benefits to its clients. Since starting the firm in 1996, VCI has developed an international reputation for helping top companies successfully negotiate challenges in strategic positioning, innovation, organization design, and change management. Gideon’s work spans a range of industries including natural resources, finance, publishing and the automotive sector. His specialty is applying scenario planning to help his clients leverage competencies, optimize asset utilization, and develop appropriate actionable strategies. Gideon’s specialized scenario planning process has become a benchmark for large scale strategic planning projects.

Gian Pablo Villamil makes things using technology, gaining strategic insight along the way. He has an undergraduate degree in computer science from Macalester College, an MBA from IESE (University of Navarre), and a Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program program at NYU. Gian Pablo spent 16 years consulting to the tech and telecoms industry at Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, and Cisco around the world. Gian Pablo has worked with leading artists for projects at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Sundance Festival and the Bay Lights project in San Francisco. He worked on 3D printing software initiatives at Autodesk, and is now leading software development efforts at a Bay Area 3D printing design and service bureau. Gian Pablo has extensive hands-on experience with a number of emerging technologies, including 3D printing, embedded microcontrollers and wearable computing and immersive video.

Phil Strause has over 40 years of management consulting experience focused on strategy and business planning, corporate governance, financial management and operations. He was a member of the Deloitte’s Financial Services Leadership Team from 1988 through his retirement in 2006. From 1997-2003, he served as a Practice Director for Deloitte’s Financial Institutions Practice based in Hong Kong. In that capacity, Mr. Strause led Deloitte’s consulting practice to financial services firms in Japan, Greater China, Southeast Asia, Korea, Australia and South Africa, quadrupling the business and integrating the practices across the region. From 1993-1997, Mr. Strause led Deloitte’s global financial management service line which included Value Based Management, Performance Measurement, Strategic Cost Management and Activity Based Costing, Cash Flow Productivity, Shared Services and Reengineering the Finance Function. From 1983-1992, Mr. Strause was Managing Director of Deloitte Consulting’s San Francisco practice. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank on issues of corporate governance in the Chinese financial services industry and with China Investment Corporation, China’s sovereign wealth fund.