Accelerate Success
with FlavorSum.

Karen Tichy is an accounting and finance professional with over 20 years of experience. As the chief financial officer of FlavorSum, Karen plays a key role in the development and execution of the company’s growth and acquisition strategies. She leads the business applications, IT, and finance functions, ensuring alignment of data, metrics, processes, and technologies.

Karen launched her career with KPMG, where she had the opportunity to work with and learn from world-class global organizations in a variety of industries. After leaving KPMG, she found her niche within the private equity sector. Karen has spent the past 10 years working with growth-oriented organizations. She has a passion for implementing key foundational infrastructure by enhancing process efficiencies, maximizing ERP functionality, and leveraging the power of data analytics. Karen is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Wisconsin.

Dave Franz brings over 15 years’ experience with both regional and global flavor manufacturers to FlavorSum. He has held functional leadership roles across multiple disciplines including strategic marketing, business development, flavor creation, and product innovation.

Dave’s sales and marketing team plays a key role in helping customers translate their visions for new products into business results through the alignment of market and consumer insight, technical capabilities, and innovative solutions.

Responsible for developing and overseeing FlavorSum’s solutions platforms, Dave leads the organization’s growth strategy and advances customer success using our internal resources and external partnership networks.

Dave holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business and an MBA from the University of Illinois. He began his career in commercial roles with both regional and global companies in the food, beverage, and healthcare industries before expanding his experience in commercial and technical leadership as part of the North American management team for a global flavor manufacturer.

Ann Woolley is a human resources executive with more than 25 years’ experience in leadership roles for companies in manufacturing, consulting, and the non-profit sector.
Ann is responsible for all of FlavorSum’s policies and programs relating to people and their development. In her vice presidential role, Ann is helping to build and support a talent-centric culture to enable the company to achieve its goal of becoming a disruptive force in the flavor industry.

Ann is particularly skilled in developing and implementing compensation and benefits programs, team building, employee relations, career development, succession planning, change management, and leadership growth.

Ann in an active volunteer in her community and has served on several boards for a variety of organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Michigan, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Kalamazoo Regional Education Center, and Portage Public Schools. She has studied business administration and management at the University of Wisconsin and participates in numerous development programs through the Society for Human Resources Management to meet the ever-changing needs of the profession.

Nicole Woods has nearly 10 years’ experience in manufacturing and food ingredient companies including with DuPont, Ingredion/TIC Gums, and FlavorSum. She specializes in project management, process improvement, strategic planning, execution, and M&A integration. Nicole has a passion for working with teams to define ambitious goals and building plans to execute and achieve their objectives.

Nicole joined FlavorSum in April 2020 as a vice president and member of the executive management team. She provides support and leadership across the organization to promote effective operations and identify new opportunities for achieving near- and long-term goals. As FlavorSum grows through its strategic initiatives and acquisitions, Nicole helps to ensure alignment between the value created by FlavorSum and our customers’ expectations.

Nicole has a BS in Finance from the University of Delaware as well as advanced certificates in Six Sigma and a Business Strategy Certificate from Cornell University. She began her career in finance at the DuPont Company and then joined TIC Gums (later Ingredion) in business performance and strategy where she gained extensive M&A experience.

Kelly Kerner is the director of operations and the site leader at FlavorSum’s Kalamazoo location. He has served in operations leadership at the company since 2016 and is responsible for safety, quality assurance, manufacturing, warehouse functions, sustainability, and continuous improvement. Kelly develops, implements, and maintains operational strategies to ensure the continued identification and integration of best lean-thinking practice into FlavorSum’s culture and daily processes.

Prior to joining FlavorSum, Kelly was a continuous improvement manager and director of manufacturing at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Kelly also spent several years in the automotive industry working for Lear Corporation as an operations and improvement manager where he trained as a Six Sigma black belt.

Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in packaging from Michigan State University and an MBA from Wayne State University.

Dan Pulice has been the director of operations at FlavorSum’s Mississauga site since 2010. With more than three decades of experience in the flavor industry, he brings a wealth of knowledge and operations expertise to the company.

Dan is responsible for manufacturing at the site as well as its safety, quality assurance, warehousing, sustainability, and continuous improvement. He excels at developing organizational strategy and program management, with a focus on communication, strategic alignment, and reinforcing behavior that supports the company’s cultural values.

Prior to joining FlavorSum, Dan served in plant management for two leading international flavor companies where he developed specialist expertise in process improvement, team building, and change management. He has benefitted from extensive executive training programs in food safety, health and safety auditing, and operations management.