Ms. Marlene Quijano
Director, Snacks & Cereal Sector
Kraft Foods North America
Marlene Quijano is Director R&D for Cereals, Bars, Better For You Platforms and Open Innovation for the Snacks & Cereal Sector. She is responsible for Category Leadership across Growth, Quality and Core Programs across North American Cereal, Bars, Back To Nature and South Beach Diet Categories.
Prior to moving into this assignment, Quijano had prior leadership roles in the Snacks & Cereal Sector. Quijano was the Director for Snacks & Cereal Productivity and Pilot Plant Operations, responsible for Raw & Pack productivity across Biscuit, Snacks, & Confections, involving major product and process cost optimization initiatives and Pilot Plant Operations supporting Growth, Quality and Productivity for the sector. She also served as the Director Packaging and Engineering where she oversaw all of the Packaging and Engineering activities for Biscuit, Snacks & Confections businesses.
Quijano also held a leadership role in Human Resources where she was responsible for guiding the Kraft diversity agenda and focusing on effective strategies to meet quantitative and qualitative goals across the Westchester and New Jersey management sites.
Quijano began her career with the company in 1984 as an intern in the Beverage Division at General Foods Corporation. A year later, she joined the company as a technical researcher in Beverages. She has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility including Senior Engineer for Maxwell House and Asset Planning Manager for Maxwell House Logistics. In 1995, she was named Beverages Operations Quality Manager where she focused on leading and implementing food safety and quality assurance initiatives. A year later, she was named Technology Section Manager for the Beverages Division and then in 1998 became Technology Section Manager for Kraft’s Coffee & Cereals Division.
In 1999 Marlene was promoted to Associate Director for Beverages, Desserts & Snacks with overall technical business leadership across two categories – Ready-to-drink beverages and new product development for the entire division. She progressed in that capacity to overseeing the overall technical business leadership across Kraft’s Dessert businesses. Quijano has a bachelor’s of science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University. She is actively involved in Kraft’s diversity efforts and is the Kraft Key School Recruiter for Cornell University and sits on their Co-op Advisory Board.
Marlene lives in Harrington Park, NJ , is married and mother of twins, whom she is bringing up bilingual and bicultural. Marlene is Cuban American and is fluent in Spanish and English.
In more than 150 countries, Kraft Foods markets the world’s favorite food ad beverage brands including Kraft cheese, Jacobs and Maxwell House coffees, Nabisco cookies and crackers, Philadelphia cream cheese, Oscar Mayer meats, Post cereals, and Milka chocolates.