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CHICAGO, September 9, 2025 Dr. Pippa Malmgren is no stranger to making sense of vexing economic situations. The keynote speaker at this year’s Presidents Conference served on the National Economic Council during the administration of President George W. Bush, whom she also advised on corporate governance and the dynamics of financial markets.
Her lengthy resume includes time as Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. And one of her bestsellers is titled, “Signals: How Everyday Signs Help Us Navigate the World's Turbulent Economy,” a topic likely to resonate with today’s food-away-from-home leaders.
Yet the holder of a doctorate from the London School of Economics hasn’t spent her career behind the business world’s battle lines, advising others without risk to her own financial situation. Malmgren has co-founded companies in a number of fields, including finance and technology. Her most recent venture, H Robotics, produces medical robots and advanced aerial drones.
She will take on the challenge at the Presidents Conference of providing leaders of the food-away-from-home business with a deeper understanding of the economic currents reshaping their world. Her mission is to help them spot opportunity amid head-spinning situations. In past presentations, she’s pointed to such clues as what she’s seeing in the aisles of grocery stores, an exercise that led her to coin the term “shrinkflation.”
More recently, she’s shared her theory that clothing trends can reveal emerging opportunities on a macro scale. “I’ve long believed that the fashion sector is a great source of signals about where the world economy is heading,” Malmgren wrote in the most recent installment of her Substack column.
The economist’s presentation will mark Malmgren’s second appearance at Presidents Conference, the food-away-from-home industry’s top-to-top event. The global economist was a keynoter at the 2023 installment of the annual conference. She was rebooked this year to the enthusiasm of the board of IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, the gathering’s host.
This year’s three-day Conference is themed, “Clarity Among the Chaos,” with the aim of helping the FAFH industry make sense of such unprecedented business factors as heightened tariffs on virtually all imported supplies and the implications of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
Sessions will focus on such issues as how foodservice distribution and the supply chain as a whole is changing. Among the topics will be a candid look at the plusses and minuses of private-label brands.
Other presentations will delve into emerging issues like the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) movement, the trend toward requiring FAFH businesses to foot more of the effort and cost of recovering recyclable packaging. Seven states to date have imposed the new body of responsibilities on the field.
Changing consumer behavior will be addressed in several sessions, including one where new proprietary research on shifting preferences will be aired.
The Presidents Conference will be held Nov. 2-4 at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Scottsdale, Ariz.
More information is available here.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.
Cover image courtesy: Closed Loop Project