ST. LOUIS — Rob Stevenson has joined AB Mauri North America as vice-president of baking ingredient innovation. In his new role, Mr. Stevenson will lead the organization’s baking ingredient innovation team and oversee the development and implementation of new products and ingredients. He succeeds Marie Thomas, who was recently promoted to a new managerial role within AB Mauri’s global bakery ingredient division based in Made, The Netherlands.

A 36-year food industry veteran, Mr. Stevenson was with Gateway Products for the past 16 years. Gateway is an Australian food ingredient manufacturer, and Mr. Stevenson was a director of the company with oversight for technical sales, marketing and research and development divisions.

Before his work at Gateway Products, Mr. Stevenson held a variety of business development and technical sales roles at several international food manufacturing companies across Australia. He has developed and introduced numerous specialty wheat proteins and multi-protein systems for specialty applications in the baking, meat and vegetarian industries.

“Rob provides a global perspective on food trends and is an accomplished innovator across several sectors of the food industry,” said Mark Prendergast, president of AB Mauri North America. “Given Rob’s vision and leadership, I’m confident our team of passionate bakers and food scientists will continue to innovate and solve the challenges our customers face today and far into the future.”

Mr. Stevenson will be based at the company’s North American headquarters located in the Cortex Innovation Community, St. Louis’ innovation and technology district. The location is home to the bakingHUB, AB Mauri North America’s research bakery and fermentation science laboratory.

He received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Western Sydney University.