Arlin Wasserman, Founder and Managing Director

Arlin Wasserman is the founder and managing director of Changing Tastes. Over the past two decades, he has helped identify and catalyze some of the most significant shifts in the way business and consumers think about food.

Wasserman’s accomplishments include working with General Mills to develop the first sustainability strategy for a major U.S. food company and creating a strategy to drive growth in the once nascent U.S. organic food industry. He accomplished this by linking organic farming and personal health, including raising awareness of antibiotic use in dairy and livestock production, and developing the Plant-Forward culinary strategy which is now is a major focus of culinary innovation in the western world. This strategy also continues to contribute to a meaningful reduction in the environmental footprint of the hospitality industry.

Arlin Wasserman and Changing Tastes worked with the Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to envision, develop, and lead the Menus of Change™ initiative, a groundbreaking executive education program for the food industry to integrate menu design, nutrition, and sustainability. He served as the inaugural chair of the Sustainable Business Leadership Council from 2012-2018.

Arlin previously served as Vice President of Sustainability at Sodexo, the world’s second largest restaurant hospitality company and the largest noncommercial foodservice provider in the world, and as the executive champion for culinary and health and wellness efforts in the North American market. While at Sodexo, Arlin developed the company’s Better Tomorrow™ program. His work included the first food waste training program in the foodservice industry, reaching chefs and culinary professionals in more than 12,000 dining operations. During his tenure, Dow Jones and the Financial Times recognized Sodexo as having the best sustainability performance among all publicly traded hospitality companies.

Prior to his leading role in the food industry, Arlin spent nearly two decades in public policy and public service. As Chief Administrator of Recycle Ann Arbor, he helped envision and launch the nation’s first weekly curbside pick-up program for the city’s nearly 130,000 residents and catalyze the modern era of recycling.

Arlin’s solution-oriented approach also was recognized by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm who appointed him to the state’s cardiovascular health and childhood obesity task forces and by Michigan Governor John Engler to the state’s blue-ribbon commission on Brownfield Redevelopment. Arlin has advised both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the European Union on a range of issues from investing in community food systems to global trade.

Arlin is a contributing author to NASDAQ writing about the business of food, agriculture and sustainability. He has been awarded a Food and Society Fellowship by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a “First Movers” Fellowship for business leadership and innovation by the Aspen Institute. Arlin holds Master’s Degrees in Natural Resources and Public Health, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, all from the University of Michigan. 

Penelope Wasserman, Head of Branding, Design and Social Strategies

Penelope Wasserman leads branding strategy at Changing Tastes. She oversees Changing Taste’s branding and design efforts while creating strategies to promote social and ecological restoration using food as her medium as well as integrating multi-sensory awareness and physical alignment to in-person decision making, training, and other experiences. 

Penelope’s work on aligning consumer understanding and market recognition for fair treatment of workers as well as for regenerative agriculture and aquaculture has been integrated into a host of social marketing efforts as well as her presentation at the Blue Economy plenary of the Business of Conservation Conference of the African Leadership Institute in Rwanda (2019).

Penelope brings her unique background in movement, somatic observation, and fracture prevention into meetings and takes the lead integrating safe and simple concepts to facilitate wellness and joy into previously confined business settings. Penelope also teaches workshops for teams and organizations that invite wellness into the corporate environment in an effort to offer a sustainability platform for the people who are trying to keep our resources alive.  

Penelope has been a featured presenter at the Meeks Method Annual conferences in Sundance, Utah, and Baltimore, Maryland.  Her work in gentle Pilates and scoliosis management has been featured internationally in presentations by Dr. Suzanne Martin, PT for the Pilates Method Alliance and on Brett Miller’s “Pilates Intel” website. She presents and teaches on the national and global stage and is also on staff at Carmel Valley Ranch.

She is the former National Osteoporosis Foundation support group leader from Albany, New York where she formed the first group specifically for “Teens” and served as a Patient Advocate for “Strong Voices for Strong Bones on Capitol Hill” to raise awareness for osteoporosis, bone health, and the need to access quality healthcare, bone density testing, and increase research funding. Along with representing the NOF on World Osteoporosis Day visiting members of Congress and sharing her perspective on how the U.S. can contribute to the healthcare system in curing osteoporosis, she was also nominated by the NOF to serve as a consumer reviewer in the peer review of applications submitted to the CDMRP (Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs) through the Department of Defense. She also served on the Eli Lilly & Company’s Mobility Advisory Board. She developed the “Million Dollar Bones” and “Internal Alignment Awareness” training programs in an effort to teach healthy, safe alignment techniques and prevent osteoporosis related fractures. Penelope is a Leadership Ambassador for the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation.

Mike Faherty, Head of Commercialization Strategy

Mike Faherty leads commercialization strategy and efforts at Changing Tastes and is an accomplished foods industry leader with both consumer product and private equity experience in a career focused on brand transformation through adoption of sustainable practices. He began his business career in advertising and then switched to cpg, working at Kraft Foods on brands such as Maxwell House coffee, Capri Sun juice drinks and Oreo cookies.

Mike moved to Unilever where he managed the North American Foods business. At Unilever he led brand transformations including repositioning Hellmann's to real, simple ingredients, and shifting sourcing to cage-free-eggs and sustainably farmed soybean oil. Mike also transformed Unilever's margarine business, eliminating the use of trans-fats, sourcing palm oil sustainably, reducing the use of plastic, and moving to LEED certification for manufacturing. Mike led the development of a unique cross-brand recipe program to drive product usage, including treating recipes as innovations and developing new merchandising programs at retail. This program was sold into top retailers including Walmart and Kroger, and drove significant sales increases. More recently, Mike led a transformation of Unilever Foods to a more focused business through the sale of brands such as Ragu, Skippy, Wishbone, and Country Crock to other companies.

Mike is currently the COO of Sea & Flour and serves on the board of U.S. Salt. He also leads community green initiatives near where he lives in northern New Jersey with his family. Mike attended the University of Virginia and the Wharton School.

Steve Petusevsky, Culinary Strategist

Steve Petusevsky is a culinary strategist at Changing Tastes and a pioneer of flavor-first, plant-forward cooking. Chef Steven Petusevsky is driven by the desire to make healthier cuisine more creative, accessible, and understood. Dedicated to transforming the way people shop and eat, his early culinary studies took him across the globe in search of innovative and authentic cooking techniques. As a result, Steve was one of the first chefs to bring quinoa directly from Peru during a time when people still struggled to pronounce it, and to raise kale’s profile from uninspired seafood garnish to delicious star of the show. 

As an early leader of vibrant, healthful cooking, Steve created foundational recipes for Whole Foods Market—many of which continue to brighten the shelves and deli counter in stores throughout the country. As the retailer’s National Director of Creative Food Development, Steve quite literally wrote the book on natural foods, authoring The Whole Foods Market Cookbook—A Guide to Natural Foods with 350 Recipes. Over the years, he has continued to influence modern diets and dinner tables, reaching millions of readers as a celebrated cookbook author and columnist/contributing editor for many of the nation’s top food publications including Food & Wine, Health and Cooking Light. 

Today, Steve’s deep understanding of food trends and expertise in modern, plant-centric, Mediterranean-inspired cuisine continues to be sought out by leading retail stores, restaurant chains and institutions, including Google, Lettuce Entertain You, Mariano’s, Native Foods, UCLA, Canyon Ranch, Foodland Farms, and many others. As an innovator and creator of food service programs, Steve is an in-demand outside resource, renowned for bringing a fresh perspective and global eye to help an ever-growing list of foodservice businesses craft profitable, unique food service programs. 

Russell Walker, Ph.D., Economic Strategist

Russell Walker is an advising partner at Changing Tastes and is Director of Experiential Learning in Analytics and Senior Lecturer at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. Before moving to Seattle, he was Clinical Professor at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. He has founded and teaches very popular experiential learning classes focused on data and strategy. Russell has led many studies with leading food, beverage, and agribusiness firms, such as RxBar, Cargill, Land O’ Lakes, Kraft, Morton Salt, major food retailers and grocery store chains, and a host of winery, distillery, and food service start-ups.

His most recent book, From Big Data to Big Profits: Success with Data and Analytics is published by Oxford University Press (2015), explores how firms can best monetize Big Data and focuses on the strategic use of data assets. He has also authored many business cases through Harvard Business School Publishing, and his cases have been recognized for excellence in teaching by Harvard Business School Publishing, the Aspen Institute, the World Bank, and the Bank of England.

Russell also served on the Scientific and Technical Council for the Menus of Change and has advised the Cuba Study Group, a non-partisan organization dedicated to bringing prosperity to the poor of Cuba, by examining agricultural investments for increased protein production. 

Russell hold a PhD and MS from Cornell University, an MBA from Northwestern University and a BS from the University of South Florida.

Marc Zammit, Senior Business Strategist

Marc Zammit is the senior business strategist at Changing Tastes. Until recently, he served as Vice President of Corporate Sustainability Initiatives at Compass Group North America, overseeing the development and implementation of their national sustainability platform including all food purchasing and product development programs. In this role, Marc developed sustainability training programs for food waste reduction that served chefs and culinary professionals in more than 6,000 dining operations.

Prior to this role as Director of Culinary Development at Bon Appétit Management Company, he was pivotal in shaping their emergence as the industry leader in food-related social responsibility, including helping Bon Appétit become the first restaurant company of significance to recognize and reduce antibiotic use in its supply chain.

More recently, his efforts to engage the industry in climate change related issues is allowing him to emerge as an industry subject matter expert. Marc’s culinary leadership at Compass included the development of innovative food concepts and campaigns with emphasis on authenticity, wellness and sustainability influenced menus. His passion in sustainability is anchored in the preservation of flavors for future generations.

Neel Inamdar, Ocean Markets Strategist

Neel Inamdar is an advising partner at Changing Tastes. He brings his extensive finance and hospitality skills to support the development of sustainable food systems. With extensive experience in Asia, Latin America and Africa, he has actively supported a range of businesses in developing and implementing innovative business plans designed to achieve social, financial and environmental objectives. 

Neel utilizes his hospitality and financial skills to develop innovative solutions to food system challenges. He has worked with clients ranging from small-holder farmers in Africa, artisanal fishers in Asia to ecolodges and hotels as well as multinational corporations and funders to develop, implement and execute sustainable solutions in challenging food commodity markets. He has worked with commodities ranging from seafood to vanilla to enhance the viability and demand for these products across national and international value chains. 

He is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. 

Leah Wheeler, Research Chef and Project Manager

Leah Wheeler is a research chef and project manager at Changing Tastes where she supports innovation and product development for our clients. She brings her excellent chef, menu design, and people skills to our clients, to meetings and workshops, and to public events. 

She is a recent graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia with a certificate in Food Entrepreneurship and a BA in Culinary Arts, Magna Cum Laude. Leah began her career in food and hospitality at the young age of 14 in her hometown of Lenox, Massachusetts and was inspired to go to culinary school.  While in Culinary School, she worked with Changing Tastes to support product development and launch for the Sea & Flour bread company.