Bio

Robert Kreft is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement in Boston. He is a multiple time Chief Information Offer and brings over 30 years of technology and process improvement experience. Mr. Kreft’s primary areas of concentration are interim management, digital transformations, diligence, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, performance improvement, cost reduction and technology roadmaps. He has worked with clients in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, retail and consumer goods. Most recently, Mr. Kreft served as interim CIO for a $22 billion healthcare company. He was responsible for contract negotiation; lowering overall spend; product selection and replacement; restructuring IT; process reengineering; and staff development. Mr. Kreft and the team achieved a 28% savings in overall operating expenses. He also served as interim CIO for a $700 million wholesaler/retailer with 55% revenue derived online, where he was responsible for remediation of e-commerce, ERP and integrations to the existing 3PL and manufacturing plants. The remediation included roadmap development, selection and implementation of platforms for e-commerce, subscription, analytics and integration. He was also responsible for restructuring IT, process reengineering and staff development. Mr. Kreft also served as interim CIO for a $9 billion retailer, where he was responsible for maintaining current platforms, staff development and future roadmap execution. The execution included restructuring and improving a $1.4 billion e-commerce business and implementation of customer mining tools. He also served as CIO for a mid-market $550 million global wholesaler/retailer. He was responsible for IT functions execution during bankruptcy, and after emergence, he led a remediation, a failed ERP implementation, new 3PL implementation, acquisition of a new brand and implementation of a new e-commerce platform and associated tools. Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Kreft spent several years as a Partner with IBM and as head of SAP’s Consumer division, where he worked on global implementation programs and advised consumer product on IT strategies. He also started Zaffera, a consulting and product company, and sold it to Cognizant in 2011. Earlier, Mr. Kreft held various positions at Walmart, beginning in store operations and moving into IT. Mr. Kreft earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from North Park University.