Episode No. 1

 
 
 


Justin Shimek:
AI Is Your Thought Partner, Not Your Replacement —
A CEO’s Playbook for Food Innovation

Can artificial intelligence reshape what we eat?

In this episode of Owning Your Legacy, host Laurette Rondenet sits down with Justin Shimek, Ph.D., CEO and Chairman of Mattson: Silicon Valley's premier food and beverage innovation consultancy. Tasked with shaping what will hit grocery store shelves 18 to 36 months from now, Justin is actively redesigning how innovation happens inside a 50-year-old legacy firm. 


Justin pulls back the curtain on Leo, Mattson’s proprietary, Leonardo Da Vinci-inspired AI innovation persona. Discover how food scientists, chefs, and strategists are using generative AI not as a replacement, but as a trusted colleague and collaborative thought partner to expand their creative "dreaming space" and accelerate product development. 


Justin shares his executive playbook on how to lead your organization into the AI future. Moving past the tech hype, he discusses the real human side of technological acceleration: managing workforce anxiety, overcoming ego-driven resistance, eliminating "shadow AI," and guiding cross-functional teams through a profound cultural and operational mindset shift.


From his early days designing marshmallows at General Mills to a live demonstration prompting Leo for modern nutrition concepts, Justin reveals how visionary leadership allows humans to navigate machine speed without losing sight of biological and human limits. 


🎙 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

🦋 The Evolution of Food Tech: How Mattson bridges the gap between legacy food systems and AI-native workflows to spot weak-signal trends.

🦋 Leading Your Organization into the AI Future: How executives can navigate team resistance, address intellectual property anxieties, conquer cognitive overload, and build organizational trust.

🦋 Confronting Workforce Anxiety: Direct, honest strategies for bringing anxious teams along without sugarcoating technological acceleration.

🦋 AI as a Collaborative Thought Partner: Shifting the corporate narrative from automation and job displacement to expanding your team's creative surface area.

🦋 Meet Leo (Leonardo): A close look at Mattson's custom-built AI persona that sits at the brainstorming table, blending 50+ years of institutional innovation history across multiple disciplines.

🦋 The Biological Reality Check: Understanding the friction point when digital innovation speed collides with the fixed timelines of agriculture, biology, and supply chains.

 
Elena ScheinerSeason 12