When Beontag appointed Alejandro Quiroz Centeno as its new chief executive officer at the beginning of this year, they described him as a “dynamic executive with more than three decades of experience in The Americas, EMEA and Asia.”
Since taking the job, Quiroz Centeno has been on the road learning more about the company, its employees and their customers. He tells us that he is even more excited about the role now than before he took it because of the depth of possibilities to wide-ranging industries.
During our nearly hour-long interview, Quiroz Centeno went in-depth on where he sees growth opportunities for Beontag, the opening of an Ohio plant just as tariffs were being proposed and the global capabilities for the company.
RFIDJournal.com: Alejandro, thanks for taking time to talk to us. You were hired last year to become CEO in Jan. 2026 . Tell us what you have been doing since you joined Beontag?
Alejandro Quiroz Centeno: James, thanks for having me. Since being named, I have traveled to our factories and offices in Europe, Asia, South and North America to get to know the team better. It’s been an intense six months of visits because they are scheduled heavy—as everyone knows, those trips go from 7:00 AM until midnight. But I am enjoying getting to know the teams who work at Beontag and our customers.
RFIDJournal.com: You background is not RFID or the technical world. What attracted you to Beontag and what excited you about this job?
Quiroz Centeno: The breadth of the portfolio and the industries we touch was one of the main attractions. I come from an industrial background focused on durable goods, automotive and industrial technologies where our customer portfolio was deep but relatively narrow.
The offering that we have at Beontag— the fact that it’s a global operation— that is my cup of tea. My wheelhouse is running global companies, and this was really an opportunity to touch so many sectors in the industry that I haven’t been associated with before, such as public transportation, hospitality and luxury. This was a great incentive from an intellectual standpoint.
It being a private company was the second one because my background had been with public companies.
RFIDJournal.com What do you feel is your greatest strength you bring to the company?
Quiroz Centeno: The familiarity with the global scale, having been part of multi-regional operations previously. There are so many cultural sensitivities that as a company, we can forget about how important it is for all the stakeholders to understand the local needs and language barriers. I have lived in nine countries in the last 33 years. I grew up in central Mexico but resided in different places— three times in Germany, three times in the US, twice in Brazil— and the language and understanding of the way of doing business in those regions is important. That is something that I bring to the role.
RFIDJournal.com: Where was your favorite place to live?
Quiroz Centeno: While married with young kids, it is the U.S. Growing a family in the Midwest is ideal for the lifestyle and infrastructure and this is where my kids grew up and we enjoyed it. Living in Europe, you get the history. As a professional, going to Asia was very rewarding but extremely challenging. For a stretch of about four years, I was living in Korea, China and Japan— the level of trust building that may take a few months everywhere else takes longer in Asia.
RFIDJournal.com: What are your priorities coming in as the new CEO?
Quiroz Centeno: My focus from the beginning has been in three different areas: first, just reinforcing the global presence. The international compilation of companies that we have acquired still needs to be cemented. So, strengthening the global scale to me was important which is why I have been traveling to see customers. Our office remains in Italy but, honestly, I have been the Italian office 15 days at the most because I’m seeing customers in Europe, the U.S., and South America. And of course, I went to our facilities where majority of our employees are present.
The second priority is just strengthening the portfolio. We believe that RFID is a high value item that different industries are not currently using that they could benefit tremendously from. Our portfolio is fairly strong in automotive, logistics, hospitality, luxury, , and cosmetics. But there’s so many more things that we can cover to strengthen our portfolio.
That leads me to the third priority—making sure users are adopting the technology in a faster way. When I go to shows, there’s an ecosystem behind the companies that need partnerships or someone to help with development of the technology. I think it’s our role of supporting them getting to that place and accelerating the adoption rate.
RFIDJournal.com: As you’ve got to know the company, what is what is the greatest strength you sell when to a prospective customer?
Quiroz Centeno: The level of customization. It’s incredible how all our customers think that they have a unique problem. The fact that we have the ability to customize the solution, that’s important. An example is the Viking Micro+, a construction purpose-built tag. It’s an advanced mini-Bluetooth tracker designed for smaller tools at construction sites. Other solutions were just too big to attach to the tool. They were looking for something that still had a long-life battery, withstand vibrations and be compact in size.
That was developed explicitly for this user and is becoming a great work opportunity for our partners. We see many applications that can grow off this. I think that’s our strength with our customers, joining together in growth potential.
RFIDJournal.com: Beontag has made two significant deals with tire companies in the last year, Michelin and Kumho Tires. Please explain your involvement in the tire market.
Quiroz Centeno: There are two elements, first the ESG perspective in terms of circularity to trace through the entirety of the life cycle. This is not just the material and construction but distribution and future rethreading.
Then there is the EU’s Digital Product Passport (DPP), in terms of recyclability. There are so many positive uses of the rubber after the life of the tire .
The efficiencies companies gain from the traceability during the production is largely because they know how they construct the tire. They gain efficiencies on the distribution network going from factory through the warehouses and then to the local distribution. And then having the chance of following the tire on the road— that’s one of the main elements.
We believe the TireTag Gen4 offers a very specific application superior to the prior versions. And now we’re going into production with Kumho Tires with an RFID tag that brings a tremendous presence for them in making sure that their product can be traced. There are other tire makers that we are speaking to currently that are very, very eager to adopt it as well. You will hear more in the coming months.
RFIDJournal.com: You referenced DPP, a huge issue in Europe. In Vegas for the RFID Journal LIVE! 2025 conference, if it wasn’t the first trend topic brought up, it was not far behind. Tell me what Beontag’s strategy is with DPP and how it is offering to help their customers.
Quiroz Centeno: DPP itself can be applied to multiple segments. As I mentioned before, our portfolio is so rich and diverse that we are already using it in in multiple sectors. One that I think has a little bit more clarity for understanding is in the luxury fashion sector. There’s always the concern of where your raw materials come from, ethical practices from the places making the garments—you want the ability to have that traceability from sourcing of those materials in regard to ethical labor laws. Not only during the fabrication, but distribution to these high value retail chains. They sometimes bring those back to dissemble and incorporate into the next season collection. So that really becomes super important.
On the other hand, there is the consumer experience. They can link any garment to the places it has been to, where it has been for repairs or resold. All these things clearly are part of a digital experience with your phone that adds to the connection experience. These two factors establish a special bond with the customer and their product. It’s being done already in luxury but there are many other applications.
DPP will eventually be used as a normal part of business. It’s providing great benefits for the market, and the expansion of the business for our customers. This highlights the way a company works and sources their material.
RFIDJournal.com: The company opened a plant in Ohio last year. Can you give me an update on operations there?
Quiroz Centeno: The Ohio location was a strategic move as we consolidated businesses from across the U.S. in the heart of the Midwest. We now offer a modern facility with better infrastructure. And we were able to bring existing employees from two satellite facilities into one that gave us the opportunity to expand quickly. We employ talent that I believe are more committed than anyone else.
In the nine months since we went online, we had multiple ramping up phases. There are machines we are received with training completed and some still underway that employees we are still receiving training on. We just had more equipment installed on the shop floor last month, a group of very sophisticated European type equipment that takes time to ramp up. And there’s space to grow new equipment on the shop floor.
The local government and the government of Ohio has been very supportive from the beginning. They work with us as a local company, providing support so we can keep growing and provided business incentives. It’s good to have governmental allies in a business-friendly state such as Ohio.
Already welcomed new customers and we truly feel encouraged and optimistic about what the future brings as customers see we’re putting resources and investment behind them. We are happy with the expansion and it’s trending well.
RFIDJournal.com: The expansion is fortuitous due to the tariffs policies of the U.S. Could you give me just an overview on the world economy and how Beontag has been able to navigate it?
Quiroz Centeno: We have been getting extra inquiries. Even though the tariffs have not truly gone into effect, everyone has had to prepare. Before the tariff issue arose, it was a common practice to have multiple sources domestic and foreign. We knew for cost competitiveness; we had to be ready to switch. We had already a well-established list of domestic sources that we could work with that would not have any effect on import tariffs.
For our customers, we became even a greater asset for by being on American soil— that right away put us ahead. Every single customer turned to say ‘I’m glad you had the facility it’s up and running with additional volume so we can source locally.’ I think that’s already a big advantage for us, so we were prepared for the moment.
RFIDJournal.com: Can you give me an overview of the industry and solution to challenges that Beontag is able to provide for their end users and customers?
Quiroz Centeno: Going back to my third priority, the understanding of the barriers and how we can really penetrate various industries. I do believe that there is some educational part that we need to do to make customers understand how we will support them on their journey.
Our expertise is important. When they jump into this journey, and we have few large customers that are just about to start, they need that support.
RFIDJournal.com: No business or industry in untouched by artificial intelligence (AI) these days. So let me ask a twofold question—how is your company integrating AI into its business? And one of the real benefits of RFID is it provides clean data. How is Beontag doing that?
Quiroz Centeno: The data that RFID provides is for our customers databases. The amount of information they have obviously will be sourced to feed their algorithms. I think the way they choose to store that information is very important because it’s tons of data that you can generate.
For us, AI has been used in a more traditional way to make us more efficient, functions that may not even be as technology perceived. I think about human resources and accounting, that is where AI tools make our processes more efficient. That’s one way of approaching it.
RFIDJournal.com: Alejandro, thank you for your time and insights. Is there anything you would like to add?
Quiroz Centeno: I think many companies have seen the global scale that Beontag can provide, the diverse portfolio we have. People should think of Beontag as a provider that is driven by innovation. We can go and customize solutions for not so obvious things. We do believe that there is a lot of value to be added outside of the traditional solutions that people associate RFID with.
We’re trying to solve problems for our regional and global customers and that’s the beauty of our scale and the international presence. We understand the challenges and that enable us to develop solutions driven by our RFID team and our seven R&D centers around the world. They are all interconnected. I think with that network we can certainly bring the solutions that the customer needs in a faster, efficient way.