THREE QUESTIONS FOR GUILLAUME HUMBERT, Chief Operating Officer
What is your professional background and what motivated you to join Consentio?
I am a Frenchman who has lived in Madrid since 2019. I came to Spain as CFO of a telecoms company, MasMovil. In 2022 I radically changed my career path by becoming a full-fledged entrepreneur, with a very clear vision; to build a real-time digital platform for the global fruit and vegetable marketplace.The goal is to provide all the players in the sector, from producers to retailers, digital tools that would target waste of time, food and costs.
Consentio, headquartered in Spain, Europe’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables, was launched in 2018, and I have been involved with the two founders, Benoit Vandevivere and Vincent Rosso, pretty much from the outset. I was initially an investor, and in 2022 I joined as full time Chief Operating Officer, and became fully immersed in the Consentio project.
Prior to Consentio, I was a Financial Director for 15 years, not only in telecoms, but also in real estate and retail, with Casino, which sparked my enthusiasm for the fruit and vegetables, which is, of course, the real heart of any food store. Prior to that I was also a banker for ten years at Crédit Agricole in Italy, France and the United States.
What is your role and what are your ambitions?
My role as COO (Chief Operating Officer), is to run the operational elements of the business, not just focused on admin and finance,but to create systems, processes, strategies and teams to support the rapid growth of the company, in terms of new customers, new services, and new geographical markets. It is a challenging task to achieve all this in parallel,and I am lucky to be able to draw upon my past experiences in large, fast-growing, international groups with multi-cultural environments. Consentio, despite its young age, is already rising to all these challenges, with early expansion into several countries with many others to come. My ambition is to create a company that scales successfully and makes a real impact on the global fresh produce sector. To achieve this I have to be very organized, pragmatic (what counts is what works!) and I always aim to “keep it simple”.
What are the challenges and future prospects at Consentio?
At Consentio we identify and reduce inefficiencies in the agri-food supply chain in a way that complements other players who maybe working, for example, on increasing the shelf life of products. Our focus is to ensure that products move more efficiently up the chain, from producers to supermarkets, changing hands quickly and smoothly, with ease and convenience for all. We are already having a major impact; remember that a third of what is produced is wasted as it moves through the supply chain. It is like an invisible tax, paid by all participants in the food system.
By reducing waste, we are not only delivering a real cost saving for all players in the chain, but we are having a major social impact. Food waste is increasingly becoming unacceptable. What could be more motivating?
