Past Speaker
Chief Customer Officer, Procter & Gamble
Bob was born in Detroit, Michigan USA in January of 1957. Upon graduation from the University of Michigan Business School (BBA) in 1979, he went straight to work for Procter & Gamble in their Food Sales division.
After numerous assignments in the United States, he and his young family moved to Warsaw, Poland where Bob became the first Sales Manager of P&G Polska as P&G entered Eastern Europe in 1991. Three years later he was named Sales Director for the Central & Eastern European division encompassing what was the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact countries and down through the Balkans.
Following this assignment, he was named Vice President of P&G’s EMEA Customer Marketing Department and shortly thereafter Vice President of Sales for the Tissues & Towel Global Business Unit. These assignments led the Fregolle family from Warsaw to Frankfurt to Brussels and Geneva.
In 2000, Bob was named Vice President of P&G’s Greater China Customer Development & Services department responsible for all sales & distribution, customer marketing, and customer logistics across the three markets of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong where he lived in Guangzhou, PRC. While in Guangzhou with his wife, Lori, and his two children, Bob established Guangzhou’s first-ever “Little League” baseball league for children ages 5-14. In 2003, Bob returned to Geneva as Vice President, Customer Business Development for CEEMEA (Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa). In the summer of 2008 Bob moved to Singapore as Vice President, Customer Business Development Asia.
After a very short tenure in Asia, Bob was elected to his current position as Global Customer Business Development Officer (Chief Customer Officer) in February 2009.
In addition to being the Vice-Chair of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business Advisory Board, Bob served as co-chair of the Operational Excellence Committee of the Global Consumer Goods Forum from 2009-2013, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cincinnati Museum Center.
When not working, Bob and his family love cycling/exercising, scuba diving, snow skiing, reading, traveling, baseball, and anything that has to do with the University of Michigan!
Session: Four Steps to Transforming Customer Relationships
