We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tia Glave and Jill Stuber NA. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tia Glave and Jill Stuber below.
Tia Glave and Jill Stuber, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Tia and Jill are technical experts who have worked in food manufacturing for decades. What they noticed was working in food safety was like pushing a rock uphill. It was always challenging, tough, and underappreciated. After years of navigating this world, they learned technical experts aren’t always the best leaders. Food safety needs leaders who focus on taking care of people on their teams to drive successful outcomes. However, there wasn’t a relatable, progressive leadership development program to support these highly intelligent and driven professionals to improve their leadership skills. Both Tia and Jill had worked with professional coaches and experienced the power of coaching-based programs to improve their leadership skills. That’s what sparked the idea for Catalyst. Tia and Jill developed leadership development programs for technical people in food to transform how people lead in food so they are empowered to live authentically, achieve more, and enable business growth.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
After careers working in food safety and quality for large and small companies, Tia Glave and Jill Stuber struck out on their own, founding Catalyst LLC in 2021 to improve the well-being and effectiveness of food safety professionals. They are the leading provider of coaching-based programs for developing, growing, engaging, and retaining technical leaders and teams to drive food safety culture to ensure food safety and quality is strategically integrated within the organization. Their clients can be found across top retailers and manufacturers and in start-up companies in dairy, poultry, meat, produce, meals, baby food, snacks, beverages, and grains.
Tia & Jill have spoken at a variety of industry events, such as the Food Safety Tech Consortium, Southern California IFT, and Pennsylvania IAFP, they’ve been guests on various podcasts, including Food Safety Matters, Food Grads, and Meatingplace, they’ve hosted and been guests on numerous industry webinars, and have written articles for Food Safety Magazine, QA and Food Safety Magazine, and Food Safety Tech. You can find Tia and JIll every Wednesday at Noon ET, hosting their LinkedIn live show “Real Talk Food Safety with Tia & Jill”.
—–INDIVIDUAL BIOS—–
Tia Glave is the President & Co-Founder of Catalyst, LLC with over a decade of experience in large and small food manufacturing, food retail, and start-up food environments, including supporting iconic General Mills brands like Pillsbury and Yoplait, and leading food safety and quality at the nostalgic sweet shop founded by Christina Tosi, Milk Bar.
Being a chemical engineer and a Certified Master Coach, she combines her technical knowledge of systems, data, and proven strategies, with her passion for developing and growing the capability of others to empower technical experts to become technical leaders through Catalyt’s crafted, coaching-based leadership development curriculum and sparking culture strategy workshops. She is HACCP and Seafood HACCP certified, FSVP trained, a PCQI, and has led teams in FSQ, Sanitation, Laboratory Services, Operations, and Maintenance, and has served on global policy teams.
In 2021, Tia founded the Black Professionals in Food Safety & Quality networking group to mentor and grow Black talent. She is an active International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), serving as the Retail & Food Service Professional Development Group (PDG) Chair and the Food Safety Culture PDG Vice Chair, and is an advisory board member for QA & Food Safety (QA) Magazine. She is a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Outside of work, Tia enjoys coaching mothers and spending time and traveling with her husband, Theo, and daughter Tiana.
Jill Stuber is a true professional, having served in Quality and Food Safety Teams for several multi-million-dollar food companies and food industry support companies – at both corporate levels and front-line facility levels. She has defined expectations and programs for company-wide food safety and quality systems and has been responsible for verifying the implementation of those systems. Jill has led multi-plant teams with up to 50 team members to clearly define team roles, expectations, and boundaries to more fully integrate and collaborate across organizations. In the spirit of curiosity, Jill branched out to serve the food industry through technical sales, where she was awarded the 2019 Technical Sales Manager in North America at Merieux Nutrisciences.
Jill holds a number of degrees, including Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science degrees in Food Science, with a micro/food safety emphasis, from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, and Madison, respectively, as well as a Master of Science degree in Quality Management from Eastern Michigan University. She is a professional coach certified through the Learning Journeys 200-hour coaching program – an accredited program through the International Coaching Federation, HACCP Certified, PCQI Certified, an SQF Practitioner, an Institute of Food Technology (IFT) Certified Food Scientist, a Lean Facilitator, and a Six Sigma Black Belt.
As a co-founder of Catalyst LLC, Jill has been engaging individuals and teams to increase confidence, and clarity, and build community so they can have the success they deserve as technical leaders in food. Their clients can be found across top retailers and manufacturers and in start-up companies in the dairy, poultry, meat, alternative meat, produce, and grain sectors.
When not working, Jill can be found at the hockey rink or baseball field with her family, taking long walks with their dog, or hanging out in the hammock.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Tia and Jill met online! They met through LinkedIn in 2020 when Tia posted a job opening for the company she had been working at. Jill reached out to see if she wanted this new person to join her Bootcamp for new leaders. Tia didn’t fill that role, but their friendship was forged! They continued to talk, engage, and inspire each other. After Tia left her role and started consulting, they knew a joint project was in their future, they just didn’t know what it would be. One day, at a webinar, a participant described what she needed and it was exactly what both Tia and Jill worked on. As they put together a working plan for that client, they knew their work was destined for more. That’s when they started Catalyst. They formed Catalyst and worked together online for eight months prior to meeting face-to-face.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
First and foremost, allow people to do their job. People value autonomy as they bring gifts and talents to their role. Too often managers are trying to “manage” instead of lead people, which can feel like unsupportive. At Catalyst, we help leaders explore their mindset and change the way they lead by putting people first, not work. This involves being clear on expectations, creating safe spaces, changing conversations, and building trust. Along the way, we inspire them to create fun and show appreciation for their team which in turn leads to high morale and engagement.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.foodsafetycatalyst.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foodsafetycatalyst/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@foodsafetycatalyst/