Susan Weller
VP Global Foods
Susan, a food enthusiast, is passionate about exploring places off-the-beaten path, watching soccer, and enjoying the great outdoors.
Favorite food: Japanese nabemono with family and friends
Favorite cheese: fresh, squeaky cheese curds
Favorite libation: margarita on the rocks with salt
Susan has intimate knowledge of what it takes to run effective domestic and international market development and export promotional programs through 13+ years of work at a US agricultural marketing board.
Managing programs in 20+ countries and the US, she reached a high level of financial stewardship for stakeholders and US government funds through attention to detail and understanding complex regulations.
Her career portfolio spans foodservice, retail, export and international trade, agriculture and food manufacturing.
In addition to living and working in Japan for five years, she has worked for a number of Japanese clients including a food multinational, multiple government entities and educational organizations.
Extensive work travel has enabled her to build a wealth of knowledge about business culture, trade and food organizations throughout North Asia, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Central America. Her research expertise includes managing competitor, new channel, business development and marketing communications studies, various foodservice and retail market research projects and consumer usage & attitude studies.
She truly enjoys working with and training foodservice culinary professionals, importers and distributors, product suppliers, retailers, nutritionists and media worldwide to help them better understand food trends, usage and product benefits to further their businesses. She has led trade missions, conducted culinary seminars and other educational events resulting in new business.
Susan graduated from the University of Colorado, Leeds School of Business and participated in post-graduate studies at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan as well as The University of the Basque Country in San Sebastian, Spain: as a result she is proficient in Japanese and has basic Spanish.
Client Testimonials
Orrani Consulting is unique in combining genuinely global experience in the dairy industry, exceptionally strong insight into local markets and business cultures and a determination to deliver high quality, practical results.
This has accelerated and enabled our business development decision, and I fully recommend them to other international marketers.
Orrani have delivered a number of high quality research projects covering the European and Russian dairy sectors. Their strong 'in-market' experience combined with an ability to clearly articulate and interpret developments have helped provide excellent outputs that are of direct benefit to our client companies.
We would have no hesitation about recommending Orrani Consulting to companies seeking to carry out research into the dairy sector.
We have used Orrani's services for developing detailed industry reports and found them excellent - they were clear up front about project timelines, scope and costs, and delivered a quality product that met all of their promises, while being easy to work with.
We retained Orrani Consulting first in late 2006 because of their extensive experience in providing strategic insight into the world dairy industry and developing markets.
The CMAB found that the Orrani team took a very proactive approach to our projects and is now helping our organisation and industry to develop distribution in key international markets.
They have approached our projects with only the highest level of integrity and commitment and are always working to go the extra mile to produce world class results.
Our organisation has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the team at Orrani Consulting since the mid-1990s. We have engaged them upon a wide variety of research consultancy assignments assessing business opportunities and strategic issues in key markets such as the US and in developing regions such as Asia, Latin America and Africa.
We value their expertise in the international food industry and particularly the dairy sector very highly and expect to continue to work in partnership with Orrani Consulting.
Orrani Consulting provided expert advice to a tight deadline to enable us to make an informed appraisal of a potential investment target in a specialized sector of the food industry.
We would strongly recommend them as an insightful, flexible, honest and cost-effective support to strategic and financial decision-making on food industry issues.
Orrani have a real understanding of the global dairy industry because they roll their sleeves up and get out there in the market to find the real insights that make the difference. This means they really try to understand what we're looking for. I read Orrani's reports from cover to cover and I can't say that about all reports that I see.
Annette Brune and her team of experts at Orrani conducted a review of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s (ASMI) Southern Europe Marketing Program – funded in part by USDA MAP funds – in 2011-12.
The evaluation they produced exceeded expectations by providing incisive and actionable recommendations for Program Managers as well as a cost/benefit analysis that demonstrated the merit of the program to USDA. While it is common to get well-written evaluations, they frequently wind up only being read by program managers.
A testament to the quality of the work that was done was that many seasoned Alaska seafood industry members requested the report for the in-depth seafood market research and it continues to be used as a reference today. Excellent work!
The USA Poultry & Egg Export Council has utilized the services of Orrani Consulting on a number of projects including research studies in the Caribbean, Oceania, Asia and Africa. The work carried out by Orrani is always top-notch and really gives us a detailed look into potential export markets for our industry. Without their assistance, we would not be able to effectively carry out the programs we do in over 75 markets worldwide.
Orrani Consulting is second-to-none in its understanding of the global dairy markets. Their ability to use this knowledge to provide clear and actionable counsel to industry players at all levels and from many different angles is a key strength. The Orrani team has many years of experience in analyzing and communicating the dynamics of the business. Clients and the industry in general benefit immeasurably from the phenomenal network that Richard and Annette have developed and nurtured over their many years in the industry.
We have retained Orrani Consulting to support us on a number of projects relating to global dairy ingredient markets. Each time Orrani has delivered high quality, in depth expert advice and insight on quite specialised topics. We would strongly recommend Orrani to organisations seeking insight into the global dairy sector.