“The Driver of Transformation”

Ian Roberts, CTO at Buhler is a visionary and tech expert who has numerous years of experience in the innovation arena. Since his arrival in 2011, Ian initiated the evolution from a highly focused machine builder for the food, feed and mobility industry into a solution and service provider and an innovation ecosystem builder. His transformative innovation culture change from internal focus to a collaborative engagement model unlocked partnerships with customers, suppliers, academics and startups, with a focus on contributing to sustainable food value chains and mobility. This supported Bühler to embrace digital transformation and to credibly convene industry to tackle societal challenges.

“Bühler has three business pillars: Grains & Food solutions ensure safe and healthy food and feed. Consumer Foods solutions create culinary delights. Advanced Materials contributes to the production of energy-efficient vehicles and buildings.”

Combined with technological and business competencies, Ian’s insights into mega trends, his visionary thinking and firm anchoring in values, particularly regarding human rights and a healthy planet, made him a key driver of the transformation of Bühler in recent years. When he entered Bühler, the company lacked a group wide vision and overall orientation for its numerous innovation initiatives. Ian was able to bundle these, forming a Corporate Innovation Team and giving the whole company a clear guidance under the vision of “innovations for a better word”. He emphasized topics such as digitalization, food safety, established a mindset to think in complete value chains, set the focus on reducing energy, waste and water; developed a global network with universities, start-ups and accelerator such as MassChallenge, NGOs such as Partner in Food Solutions, One Young World; even more, he was the driving force behind the digitalization of Bühler solutions. Based on these efforts, Bühler was able to initiate and host the “Bühler Networking Days” – an unique industry platform to catalyze sustainable industry practices under the key question: how can we feed and move 10 billion people sustainably in 2050?

According to Ian, today’s world is so complex and dynamic, with demanding challenges and opportunities, that no one can create the solutions of tomorrow alone. “The key here is to be fast in development and in scaling. That’s why innovation ecosystems in which you partner with the world of science, suppliers and startups are so important,” explains Ian. “This ecosystem we have built up around our CUBIC Innovation Campus and global network of application labs – engages all our employees: Bühler runs an internal bottom up business competition, the Bühler Innovation Challenge empowering employees to propose and subsequently develop and implement business ideas that contribute to our sustainability goals.”

Bühler’s purpose states “innovation for better world”, and their key goal is to reduce energy and water consumption as well as waste by 50 percent in the processes for the customers by 2025. “Through these targets we believe that we will make a significant contribution towards mitigating climate change by 2030. Equally we are convinced that this will unlock major business opportunities,” adds Ian. “All our innovation initiatives, solutions and services are supporting these goals and we have excellent examples across all our business areas.”

Advising the leaders of tomorrow, Ian urges them to have a clear purpose to drive impact, “this not only enables you to motivate people to engage, it helps get the best talent and have them focused on the correct outcome. Do not become lost in the technology, but do be obsessive about the value the technology can bring to your company and to society.” For the days to come, Bühler wants to create new business opportunities that drive financial sustainability, while enabling them to play a key role in tackling global issues. “We announced our targets last year to reduce energy, waste, and water consumption and we are focusing on our R&D activities, our ecosystem activities, and our energy on achieving these targets.” IE