Subscribe Glen Rock, NJ – The WFFC is pleased to announce the 2017 Annual Recognition Award recipients. They are Gladys Gabriel, IFF (Nancy Poulos Leadership Award), Cynthia Lipka, Prinova Group (Flavorist Award), Martha Noyes, Agilex Fragrances (Perfumer Award) and John Wright, Independent Flavorist and Author (Innovative Excellence Award).
The award recipients will be honored at the WFFC Annual Recognition Dinner on Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at the Liberty House Restaurant in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Gladys Gabriel, Vice President of Global Procurement at International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (IFF), is the recipient of the Nancy Poulos Leadership Award. Gladys is the first woman to reach chief procurement officer among the top flavor and fragrance companies in the world. Gladys received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. She is the inventor of seven scientific patents. Gladys started her career as a research chemist at Unilever and has progressed in various R&D, sales and marketing, procurement and supply chain leadership roles at Rhodia, Clorox, and IFF for the past 15 years. In her current role at IFF, Gladys drives a procurement vision and mandate, aligns internal and external stakeholder processes to optimize efficiency, mitigates risks, and maintains sustainable sourcing. She focuses on developing the procurement talent pool and caliber to maintain IFF’s best practices and leadership for the long-term growth. Together with Bob, her husband of 29 years, Gladys has raised four sons, young gentlemen now with their own professional career paths. The family has been an active contributor to their church and its charitable activities for many years.
Cyndie Lipka, Senior Flavorist at Prinova USA, is the recipient of the Flavorist Award. Cyndie has 30 years of food industry experience and has worked for Hershey Co., Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., Sethness Greenleaf Chicago (later, Synergy Flavors) and Bell Flavors & Fragrances. She began her career at the Hershey Co., and helped develop a new chocolate-making process that contributed to Hershey’s first fully computerized modern day plant. Classically trained as a flavor chemist she was admitted into the Society of Flavor Chemists (SFC) in 2000. Cyndie is one out of 350 globally certified flavorists. Active in industry organizations, Cyndie has served twice as the president of the Board of Directors for the Chemical Sources Association, served on the Society of Flavor Chemists Board and is a member of Women in Flavor & Fragrance Commerce, Inc. She serves on Judith Michalski’s Organoleptic Flavor Materials panel to evaluate materials for an article, which is featured monthly in P&F magazine. Cyndie is a published author and in 2014 won the O.F. Stambaugh Outstanding Chemistry Alumni Award from her alma mater, Elizabethtown College.
Martha Noyes, Senior Perfumer at Agilex Fragrances, is the recipient of the Perfumer Award. Martha’s fragrance industry career began in 1994 as a perfumer’s assistant at Shaw Mudge & Company in Stamford, CT. In 1996, she moved to New Jersey to work at Manheimer, as a perfumer’s assistant and later in the GC lab, where she learned everything about gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) from her mentor, Odila Zocca. After eight years at Manheimer, she joined Alpine Aromatics, as a GC perfumer for three years, and then joined Agilex Fragrances where she has been for the last ten years.
In 2016, the WFFC Board created the “Innovative Excellence Award,” honoring an individual who offers novel contributions to the industry, and acts as a role model for guiding change and innovations. This year’s Innovative Excellence Award recipient is John Wright, Flavorist and Author. John has worked as a flavorist for more than forty years, in the UK, Canada and the US. He was responsible for global flavor creation from 2000-2007 for IFF. For the past five years he has worked in the flavor group at Mondelez R&D in East Hanover. He has always been enthusiastic to retain an active creative role and to promote training in the dark arts of flavor creation. Memberships include Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Flavor Chemists, Inc., and Fellow of the British Society of Flavorists.
For more information please visit our website www.wffc.org or contact us at info@wffc.org
About the WFFC
The WFFC, Inc. was founded in 1982 by women employed in various capacities in the U.S. flavor and fragrance industry. This organization was borne out of a recognized need for a networking, education and support system for women in our industry. Our mission has been and remains to this day to provide a center of education, camaraderie, support and networking opportunities for women in our industry. Our membership encompasses women involved in sales, purchasing, customer service as well as technical careers.
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