Kevin Gilligan
President – Food & Nutrition, Graham Packaging
EDUCATION
BSE IOE ‘88
BIOGRAPHY
Kevin Gilligan currently leads Graham Packaging’s food and nutrition business unit as its president. Prior to joining Graham in 2023, Gilligan ran his own consulting business focusing on strategic and operational improvement. He previously served as chief executive officer and board member of Appvion, first joining the company as president of its paper division in 2014.
With a long history in the packaging industry, Gilligan enjoyed a 20-year career with H.B. Fuller prior to joining Appvion, serving in a variety of leadership roles including global operations vice president; vice president for Asia Pacific region; general manager of H.B. Fuller Window; North American operations director; e-business director; product line manager; and plant manager. He began his career as a manufacturing engineer for Texas Instruments.
Gilligan has extensive executive experience running complex organizations, both domestic and international, with a history of transforming operations and sales through redesign of strategy. While at Appvion, Gilligan oversaw the execution of its enterprise strategy and successfully led the company through a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring process. In addition, Gilligan brought renewed spotlight to safety, quality and accountability, as well as notable improvements in employee engagement. During his tenure at H.B. Fuller, Gilligan led his teams to achieve significant growth and to integrate the largest acquisition in the company‘s history.
Outside of work, Gilligan currently serves on the Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative Board of Directors as finance and audit chair, and the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center Board of Directors as a member of the executive and governance committees. He also serves on the Industrial and Operations Engineering Advisory Board at the University of Michigan.
Gilligan earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing and operations management from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan.