Alliances are an increasingly important tool, a spring survey by CFO Research Services and PricewaterhouseCoopers found. But Daniel Malina, vice president of corporate development at General Mills Inc., already knew that. Among other relationships, the Minneapolis grocery giant has a partnership with Nestlé SA to sell cereal around the world, a deal with PepsiCo Inc./Frito-Lay Inc. to sell snacks in Europe and, most interestingly, a joint venture with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. to produce 8th Continent, a soy milk brand.

Launched nationally in June 2003, 8th Continent had sales of $60 million last year and is the No. 2 product (after Dean Foods Co.'s Silk brand) in a high-growth category. What's striking about it is the way it combined assets possessed by each partner to create something new. General Mills could distribute refrigerated foods (thanks to its Yoplait yogurt business) but it had no beverage business. DuPont, meanwhile, had engineered a sweeter soybean but had neither the ability nor the brand to bring it to consumers. "Each of us brought something to the table that the other needed," Malina says.

The deal itself was struck in August 2000, and regional distribution began in 2001. General Mills, searching for the next big thing, had seen the market for soy-based foods hit more than $2 billion. "We did an analysis that did address the various potential means from which we might enter that [soy] market," Malina says. "We looked at things like heart health and other areas that we might target. And, ultimately, we felt that soy beverage was a very significant opportunity."

Now 45, Malina joined General Mills in 2000 from Chicago printer RR Donnelly & Sons Co. The native Midwesterner preaches what he practices. Three years ago, his boss at General Mills, CFO James Lawrence, encouraged him to share his knowledge with business students at nearby universities. So far, he's taught at the University of Minnesota business school and, along with other visiting corporate executives, given students at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management a practitioner's view of strategic alliances. "It has been an awful lot of fun," he says. "I get lots of good questions, and it's an opportunity to interact with a host of other companies in a variety of sectors."

It's not a bad way to meet potential alliance partners, either. - Tara Croft

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