"Focus on the customer first, your business challenge second and the technology last."
John Kelly’s career has been shaped by execution, not theory. Growing up on a farm in the west of Ireland instilled an early work ethic and an instinct for problem‑solving that would later define his approach to commercial leadership. He began his career in small food businesses and distribution, learning quickly through hands‑on experience, mistakes and moments where ambition outpaced operational readiness. One early lesson, launching a consumer business without the infrastructure to handle success, taught him the importance of thinking end to end, a principle that stayed with him throughout his career.
As John moved into larger organisations including Nestlé, Glanbia and Musgrave, his perspective widened. He learned how scale, governance and stakeholder management change the nature of decision‑making, and how discipline and patience matter as much as creativity. These years provided the foundation for what came next: a 15‑year journey at Heineken that would place him at the centre of one of the most ambitious B2B digital transformations in FMCG.
At Heineken, John transitioned from country‑level commercial leadership into global digital and transformation roles that didn’t previously exist. His work focused on building belief in B2B e‑commerce across markets, starting small, proving value and scaling carefully. Over time, those pilots grew into a global B2B ecosystem spanning more than 30 countries and delivering over €2.5 billion in digital revenue, fundamentally reshaping the company’s route to market.
Rather than chasing disruption, John championed incremental innovation. He blended agile ways of working with the realities of annual planning and governance, prioritised customer centricity over technology, and resisted the pressure to pursue new business models too early. His approach was pragmatic, evidence‑led and grounded in the realities of frontline teams.
In the later stages of his role, John focused on practical applications of data and AI, including dynamic sales routing and next‑best‑action models that changed how sales teams prioritised their time. These initiatives succeeded not because of the technology itself, but because they changed behaviour and improved productivity on the ground.
Today, John has launched Greenstone Digital Partners, an advisory firm dedicated to helping global organisations accelerate commercial and digital reinvention by bridging the gap between strategy and execution. Alongside this, he serves as an Adjunct Professor at University College Cork, sits on the board of international charity Bóthar, and holds qualifications in corporate and AI governance.
This conversation reflects John’s belief that meaningful transformation in FMCG doesn’t come from bold statements or big bets, but from patience, proof and bringing people with you.
Synopsis
This episode explores incremental digital innovation in FMCG, focusing on the practical realities of scaling B2B e‑commerce within complex, process‑driven organisations. It examines how large businesses balance agile delivery with governance, annual planning and route‑to‑market constraints.
The discussion addresses building belief through pilots, measuring the right signals at different stages of maturity, and embedding customer centricity ahead of technology decisions. It also considers the application of data and AI to sales productivity, change management across markets, and the leadership mindset required to turn digital strategy into sustained commercial impact.
Topics covered
Why incremental innovation works better than big digital bets in FMCG
Building belief in B2B digital transformation market by market
Balancing agile delivery with annual planning and governance
Scaling B2B e‑commerce without disrupting core operations
Embedding customer centricity before technology and AI
Practical AI use cases that improve sales productivity
Knowing when not to pursue new business models too early
Key moments
John’s first lesson in end‑to‑end thinking from an early career failure
How Heineken scaled B2B e‑commerce from pilots to over 30 countries
The Mexico market story that reignited belief when momentum was low
Why focusing on adoption matters more than ROI in phase one
A failed credit initiative and what it taught about big digital bets
How customer‑led sprints unlocked merchandising and loyalty at scale
Using AI to move sales teams from static routes to dynamic prioritisation
Özlem Özümer has spent her career navigating the world of global trade, first through banking and later through credit insurance, but she’s clear that her motivation has always been helping businesses grow with confidence.
In this episode, she reflects on launching a greenfield operation in Turkey, the realities of building trust in an emerging market, and why credit insurance sits quietly behind so much of the world’s commerce. She talks about the human side of risk, the importance of being close to buyers on the ground, and the role people play in guiding clients through uncertainty.
Özlem shares the story behind Allianz TradePay, from early experiments that didn’t land to the breakthrough moment when co‑creation with a major client shaped the product’s future. She explains the challenge of innovating inside a large, established organisation, the resistance faced by a small new team, and why sponsorship, alignment and constant communication matter more than any single idea.
Her perspective is thoughtful and practical, a reminder that real innovation in B2B comes from patience, proximity to customers and the determination to keep going when the easy answers run out.
Maxim Gelmann didn’t set out to make edible spoons. He set out to change how people think about sustainability. His journey from strategy consulting to Burning Man to Dragons’ Den shaped the way he now builds his brand: with creativity, playfulness and a refusal to make sustainability dull.
In this episode, Maxim talks about building Stroodles as a brand from day one, not just a product line, and why fun travels faster than fear when it comes to behaviour change. He explains how edible tableware creates the kind of memorable, shareable moments that no carbon‑reporting framework can match, and why B2B hospitality and wholesale adoption requires more than innovation, it requires storytelling, patience and “pre‑chewed” ideas that help chefs and venues imagine what’s possible.
Maxim’s view is clear: sustainability only shifts when it becomes visible, tangible and joyful. And for B2B leaders wrestling with innovation, distribution complexity and customer expectations, his story offers a reminder that differentiation often comes from narrative, not novelty.
Tejal Patel has spent her career inside some of the world’s most influential brands, from Virgin and the BBC to Microsoft, Nokia and Cisco. In this episode, she explains the simple truth many B2B organisations overlook. You cannot innovate if your foundations are broken.
Tejal shares how easy it is for teams to overengineer marketing, lose sight of customers and gravitate toward rational messaging while ignoring emotion, even though every B2B buyer is still a human being.
She talks openly about the gaps she discovered when moving from B2C into B2B, the absence of customer research in large enterprises and the over rotation on technology instead of customer insight. She reflects on the relationship between sales and marketing, the need for marketing teams to raise their ambition and why proving value internally is just as important as storytelling externally. Tejal also explores how to use AI with purpose, not hype, and why human judgement can never be removed from the process.
A clear reminder that before you chase new technologies, you must understand your customers, simplify your marketing and get the basics right.
