Michael Degrace Email Address

Senior Vice President of Sales

Universal Robots is the result of many years of intensive research at Denmark's successful robot cluster, which is located in Odense, Denmark. The company was co-founded in 2005 by the company's CTO, Esben stergaard, who wanted to make robot technology accessible to all by developing small, user-friendly, reasonably priced, flexible industrial robots that are safe to work with and on their own can be used to streamline processes in the industry. The product portfolio includes the collaborative UR3, UR5 and UR10 robotic arms named after their payload in kilos. Since the first UR robot launched in December 2008, the company has experienced considerable growth with the user-friendly robots now sold in more than 50 countries worldwide. At just 195 days, the average payback period for UR robots is the fastest in the industry. The company, a part of Boston-based Teradyne Inc., is headquartered in Odense and has subsidiaries and regional offices in the U.S., Spain, Germany, Singapore, Czech Republic, India, and China. Universal Robots has more than 300 employees worldwide.

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS → Led WhiteWave national growth performance from 2011 - 2013 with Channels team net sales growth of +13% for 3 years. → Transformed and separated WhiteWave Food Service business from Morningstar Foods and led broker optimization in 2013. → Developed dispenser enabled platforms on Bulk Cream / Iced Coffee Bag-in-Machine for Non-Comm and C-Store and Plant Based Bev Bag-in-Machine for College & University, generating over $75MM in annual sales. → Led expansion of multi-year contract negotiations with top 20 C-Store chains, Food Service GPO and FSM / distribution companies. → Collaborated with HQ Business Teams to co-develop, sell and expand Club and Dollar channel distribution footprint. → Designed, restructured and led WhiteWave’s East Team direct conversion from broker go-to-market model. Led WhiteWave team growth in 2009, +9% and 2010, +7%. → Collaborated with WhiteWave leadership to drive out costs in New York City’s organic milk and dairy distrib network. → Led WhiteWave Kroger Team business +$32MM from 2007 through 2008. Designed and built office, hired, trained and developed 7 person team. Developed JBP relationship with Kroger. → Leveraged dunnhumby insights in designing, selling and executing first-ever International Delight Mainstream Critical and Sharebuilder programs – gained 10 share points in 2008 → Sourced Weyerhaeuser to design and develop Horizon Single Serve quarter pallet program at Kroger. Sold over 10,000 quarter pallets / program adopted corporately. Grew Horizon from $30M in 06 to $45M in 08 behind Single Serve growth. → Grew ConAgra Kroger team sales +7%, in 2006, +9% in 2005 behind strong insights driven merchandising initiatives including brand exclusivity on Hunt’s Snack Pack, RoTel / Velveeta racks, Manwich Sloppy Joe racks, Pam / Eggs racks. → As DTM, led turn-around of declining trends on Kid Cuisine (-4% to +5%) and Marie Callender’s (-12% to +4%) frozen. →