Montana Gordon

I am an innovative and energizing technology professional with nearly 10 years of experience in innovation, new business development, and team leadership. My biggest career highlights include presenting on innovation at the World Economic Forum, serving as founder of patent-pending technology solutions, and leading strategic partnerships for Cargill’s Digital Studio.

Head of Studio Partnerships, Cargill Digital Business Studio | April 2023 - Present                                                                   

• Developed and executed a partnership strategy to both enable and expand the studio’s customer traction within the food industry.
• Built relationships with industry partners to find new and creative connections for Cargill’s technology. Created and negotiated partnerships agreements (e.g., licensing, referrals, and white label) for both integration and commercial opportunities.
• Established integration roadmaps for the studio and led planning efforts cross-functionally. Led the effective management of risk, legal requirements, and dependencies across integrations to drive prioritization.

Founder / Venture Lead, Cargill Digital Business Studio | June 2021 – April 2023

• Collaborated with customers to identify, understand, and solve the biggest problems in the food industry. Ideated and launched solutions to solve these problems using agile and startup methodologies.
• Lead a team of engineers, scientists, and product specialists to design, build, and test patent-pending technology solutions. Commercialized ideas into scalable solutions to generate new revenue for Cargill by defining business model, customer segments, and strategies for growth.
• Invented and prototyped a hardware solution for order accuracy within restaurants. Signed 3 restaurant customer LOIs, including one national 900 unit fast casual concept, and two local chains.
• Created a marketplace business for helping packaged goods food entrepreneurs grow. Took business from idea to business model validation in under a year.

Product and Agile Coach, Cargill Digital Labs | January 2019 – June 2021

• Coached business teams on agile product development practices and train them on topics such as product ownership.
• Guided developers through the prototyping and production of digital products in the form of 6-8-week sprints. 
• Facilitated release planning, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospective meetings for each product. Remove team impediments daily to allow the product teams to deliver on sprint goals.

Internet of Things (IoT) Lab Manager, Cargill Digital Labs | October 2017 – January 2019

• Created a strategy for IoT at Cargill and influenced leadership buy-in of the vision, goals, team, and cost estimates.
• Assisted in the curation of ideas and development of IoT-related projects and prototypes for a variety of Cargill business lines and functions.
• Coordinated and presented roadshows to educate customers on the lab capabilities. Fostered a community around IoT to create awareness and alignment for Cargill’s position on the technology.

Business Relationship Manager, Cargill Animal Nutrition | July 2016 – October 2017

• Built and maintained relationships across a diverse, multifaceted global organization. Brought together three animal nutrition business areas to create one view of the IT portfolio, goals, and financials.
• Translated IT messages into actionable business items and supported business administrators through the adoption of new technologies.
• Worked with other team members to recommend and implement improvement actions to achieve expected service levels.

Degrees:

• B.S. Information Science and Technology at Missouri University of Science and Technology (2016)
  • Minors in Business and Enterprise Resource Planning (Summa Cum Laude)

Certifications:

• Strategic Pricing Bootcamp, Cargill Strategic Pricing | Spring 2023
• Essential Negotiator, The Gap Partnership | February 2022
• SAP Certificate of Excellence | 2015