Flexible Packaging Association President and CEO Alison Keane is leaving the organization this summer, a spokesperson confirmed via email.
Keane has led FPA since October 2016 and will depart FPA on Aug. 1. The organization hired Vetted Solutions to aid the search for Keane’s replacement, and more details should be available in the coming days, the spokesperson said.
On Thursday, the International Sleep Products Association announced that it had chosen Keane to be its president. She will also be president of the Mattress Recycling Council, which ISPA established in 2014 to operate recycling programs in states that have enacted mattress recycling laws. Keane will succeed Ryan Trainer, a 20-year mattress industry veteran who is retiring.
"I am honored to be named president of the International Sleep Products Association and the Mattress Recycling Council,” Keane said in a statement. “I look forward to working with our members and partners to advocate for policies that enhance the growth and prosperity of this industry and help consumers sleep better."
During her time at FPA, Keane represented U.S. flexible materials manufacturers — including for plastic, metal and paper — as well as converters who use the materials to make flexible packaging. She has led the association as it navigates more regulation, an enhanced focus on sustainability in packaging and growth in the flexibles sector. Flexibles represent an estimated 21% of the total domestic packaging market share, coming just behind corrugated, the market leader at 22%.
Keane also has discussed on numerous occasions the need to boost domestic infrastructure for collecting and recycling plastic films, especially to meet brands’ recycled content goals. “Recycling, like anything else, has to be financially viable. ... Without that return on investment, nobody’s going to do it themselves,” Keane said during a 2023 interview about opportunities for recycling flexible plastic packaging, following the release of a final report on the Materials Recovery for the Future project.
“You’ve got to figure out that last step, how to get all the packaging that’s used today — and even packaging that we haven’t innovated yet — get that all easily back into the recycling stream,” Keane said. “The Holy Grail is putting it all in that curbside bucket and getting it separated correctly so it gets reprocessed.”
Keane, an environmental attorney, has more than 25 years of experience in the association and government sectors. Prior to FPA, she worked at the American Coatings Association for 16 years and at the Environmental Protection Agency.
