ALTIX INDUSTRY CHAMPIONS INTERVIEW
Each quarter we sit down with Industry Executives and Thought Leaders to discuss the trends, challenges, and best practices that are transforming their businesses.
Today, we are with Jonathon Titterton, CEO Coesia Americas & R.A Jones
Introduction and Background
Jonathon, can you share some key milestones in your career and what led you to your current role?
I began my career in England, working my way up from an apprentice to a mechanical Engineering Manager before transitioning into sales support and sales operations at SIG. After several years in this role, I was invited to move to the United States to focus on business development and identify key markets for expanding our technology. At that time, SIG had one large customer in North America and needed to grow its customer base. Subsequently, I took on a product management role for secondary packaging and robotics within a North American division, a particularly exciting time as robotics was just beginning to take off.
Following our acquisition by Bosch, I relocated to Switzerland to serve as the General Manager of our robotics company. This was a big learning curve for me as my first leadership role with responsibility for profit and loss. After five years in Switzerland, I returned to North America as the Sales Director for Bosch Packaging Technology. In 2016, I decided to leave Bosch and joined Coesia, an Italian-based company, as Vice President of Sales for consumer goods machinery in North America. Coesia offered me a role with a clear growth and succession path and by 2018, I was appointed CEO of Coesia North America and Mexico. I realized that success in this role depended on making R.A Jones successful, and in 2019, I became the CEO of R.A Jones.
Can you provide an overview of COESIA Group, including its key markets and applications?
Coesia, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, is a group of companies specializing in innovative industrial and packaging solutions. Our companies are leaders in fields ranging from advanced automatic machines and industrial process solutions to high-performance transmissions. Coesia serves a diverse array of industries, including Consumer Goods, Healthcare and Pharma, Tobacco, Ceramic Tiles, Luxury Goods, Aerospace, Racing and Automotive, and Electronics. Our customers include leading global players such as P&G and General Mills, particularly in the high-growth Consumer Goods sector in North America, where they partner with us for our innovative solutions.
What is the history of RAJ, and what led to its acquisition by COESIA?
R.A Jones has been around for around 120 years. Its culture of innovation has positioned R.A Jones as a market leader in North America in the Consumer Goods sector, bringing engineering excellence and superior customer service. Being a part of Coesia, we are a global leader in the design and manufacturing of primary and secondary packaging machinery for the beverage, chemical, consumer goods, dairy, food, pharmaceutical, and industrial industries. We offer an extensive portfolio of solutions for applications in aerosol, cartoning, chub packaging, cup filling, multi-packaging, pouching, and modified atmosphere packaging.
With access to a global network of packaging machines solutions and equipment service capabilities, our engineers, technicians, and customer service team strive to be an operational asset to our customers, and we are committed to creating a strong and long-term partnership with them.
In 2012, Coesia had a limited presence in North America and no significant foothold in the Consumer Goods market. R.A Jones was an ideal fit for Coesia, as it not only had two manufacturing locations in North America but also brought extensive experience in the Consumer Goods market.
Challenges and Strategies
What makes it challenging to produce high-quality equipment for the most demanding Fortune 500 companies and some of the most demanding technical applications? Can you provide some examples?
At Coesia and R.A. Jones, we take pride in tackling our customers’ most challenging applications. With decades of expertise in primary and secondary packaging, we continually innovate to meet our clients’ evolving needs and demands. Our customers push us to deliver solutions that achieve the highest possible speeds, minimize operational footprint, and require the least number of operators.
For example, we are a leader in the tissue industry. Recently, we shipped several machines to Europe that are packaging tissues at an impressive rate of over 600 cartons per minute-featuring automatic carton leading. This innovation significantly reduces the number of operators needed to run the line efficiently. Another example is in the food industry. We’ve produced and delivered machines designed to handle and stack frozen pizzas, complete with fully automated changeovers, providing our customers with the flexibility to adapt to varying production demands. We also offer one of the fastest pouching machines, for example, putting cereals or crackers into a pouch, a pouch into a box, and a box into a carton.
Reliability, precision, and speed, as well as our after-market support, are critical, and we are known to be the best in class for that. We service machines that have been in the field for over 25 years.
How do you manage change within a large, international, and Italian company like COESIA? What are some challenges and opportunities you’ve encountered?
Managing change within a large, international company like Coesia, particularly one with an Italian heritage, involves navigating a complex set of challenges and opportunities. Coesia, known for its global reach in the industrial and packaging sectors, must carefully balance its strong Italian roots with the diverse needs of its international workforce and markets.
That is why we actively leverage our diversity by drawing on best practices from different regions. This international presence enables us to integrate diverse perspectives into our change management approach, fostering more innovative and effective solutions. We believe that cross-cultural collaboration is vital, and we encourage teams from different countries to work together. By fostering a culture of learning and adaptability, we ensure that our approach to change management is both dynamic and successful.
We also strongly emphasize technological advancements and digital transformation. By embracing digital tools, we streamline communication, training, and the implementation of changes across the organization, making these processes more efficient and less disruptive. We utilize data analytics to monitor the progress of our change initiatives closely and adjust our strategies in real time. This enhances the overall effectiveness of our efforts and enables data-driven decisions.
An important factor in our success is also the empowerment of regional leaders. We encourage them to take ownership of the change process, ensuring that changes are effectively adapted to local contexts and that our employees feel more engaged and invested in the process. We further support this by offering comprehensive training programs, helping our teams develop the skills they need to adapt to changes smoothly, reducing resistance, and increasing acceptance across the organization.
Can you describe your approach to strategic planning and how you align your team behind a strategy?
I firmly believe in the importance of having a detailed and comprehensive long-term plan. We have recently completed an update to our five-year strategic plan, a process that was meticulously detailed and fully engaged our leadership team. The corporation provided us with clear objectives, which we then broke down by department. Each department manager was empowered to develop their own initiative to support the overall plan. We consolidated all the departmental plans to ensure complete alignment at the company level. From there, we created a company-wide Hoshi Kanri (ocean strategy) and a five-year roadmap for each major initiative necessary to achieve our long-term goals. Policy deployment and accountability are crucial, and we ensure this through continuous monitoring and dedicated management attention to all key initiatives required to support the plan.
Differentiation and Innovation
How does RAJ/COESIA differentiate itself from competitors in terms of continuous innovation and customer service?
Innovation has been an integral part of the business and culture of Coesia and its companies throughout their history. It is part of our DNA. It is in everything we create for our customers and the community. It is expressed in the development of new technologies, products, solutions, and processes. It affects all our stakeholders, all our customers, and all Coesia units. Research and innovation are at the core of our business universe and characterize all our business decisions and responsibilities. We encourage the social development of our territory, proposing and developing new and advanced projects, triggering a virtuous circle in community relations.
The Packaging industry is experiencing significant changes as sustainability is becoming a key trend and priority. How do we reduce the amount of material in packaging? In the pouch application, wow, do we switch from plastic to paper and maintain a high-quality seal? The challenging labor market is also driving innovation, looking at how technology can be applied to reduce the need for labor and to make the machines easier to run and more intuitive to operate.
Work Environment and Leadership
How do you ensure COESIA NAM/RAJ remains a great place to work? What role does leadership play in creating a positive employee experience?
On the topic of talent attraction, we realized that it is becoming more and more challenging to recruit people with industry experience. So instead, we are now looking for the right people that we can train. We just started an apprenticeship program, we have a Young Professional program, and we have an executive EBMA program.
Ensuring that Coesia NAM and R.A Jones remain exceptional places to work requires a holistic approach that emphasizes employee well-being, career development, diversity, and engagement. Leadership plays a pivotal role in this effort, shaping the company culture, setting strategic directions, and creating an environment where employees feel valued, motivated, and empowered to contribute to the company’s success. By maintaining a strong focus on these areas, Coesia can continue to be a leading employer in these regions. Employee engagement is vital to our success. We have an outstanding employee Engagement Committee that has planned a variety of activities between now and the end of the year, all suggested and organized by our dedicated team members. These activities include Popcorn Wednesday, ice cream truck visits, National Mustache Day Celebration, Annual Fall Outing with “Casino Royale” Theme, and Halloween Fancy Dress contest. These initiatives are designed to foster a sense of community, fun, and pride within our organization, ensuring that our workplace remains vibrant and inclusive.
What strategies do you use to maintain a good work-life balance while managing such a demanding role and environment?
Good question. I deliberately use prioritization and time management techniques, such as effective planning, starting each day by prioritizing tasks based on urgency and importance, which allows me to focus on high-impact activities and avoid getting overwhelmed by less critical tasks. I also create structured routines by allocating specific time blocks for different activities, ensuring that both professional and personal commitments are met. I also trust my team and delegate whenever possible.
I also leverage technology and use project management and productivity tools to keep track of tasks and deadlines, as well as automation tools to reduce manual work, freeing up more time for personal activities.
Also very important is that I maintain strong connections with family and friends who can offer emotional support and help me decompress and keep things in perspective. I am passionate about skiing and fishing and recently went shark fishing with my daughter in law. We did not find any sharks but caught many snooks!
Thank you again, Jonathon, for being with us today and allowing for this Champions Interview! We are excited and honored to feature you and R.A Jones, as well as Coesia, in the Altix Access Newsletter and Industry Champion Interview!
