Greater Savannah Area
Accomplished Senior Executive with proven success in fueling outstanding sales and profit growth across a range of center store, frozen and produce consumer product categories. Extensive experience designing and building commercial organizations and customer level teams at H. J. Heinz and Del Monte Foods. Successfully partnered with Private Equity firms to accelerate growth and valuation. Recognized for outstanding strategic thinking, innovative business solutions, energizing and visionary leadership and ability to translate annual operating plans and long-range plans into business results. A skilled communicator, adept at transferring ideas into action through building, developing and motivating high performance teams. Specialties: • Business & Sales Leadership • Innovation • Sales Capabilities Development • Talent Development & Team Building • Turnaround & Change Leadership • Strategic Planning & Execution • Revenue and Profit Ownership • Issue Resolution & Crisis Management • Succession Planning
Providing operational and channel insights to start-ups in the $120B natural foods market.
Chief Commercial Officer for $1.8B Del Monte Foods, Inc Portfolio. Overall financial and strategic management of the Del Monte Foods business in the U.S. generating $1.8B in net sales and $160M+ in EBITDA. Led brand strategy, consumer marketing, innovation, consumer/customer insights, marketing and creative services, along with Field Sales and the Marketing Development organization. Partnered with the CEO and new Board to drive significant transformational results, restoring financial performance and positive business momentum. • Large EBITDA growth vs PY (155 index), in F’16. • Successfully integrated new business (Sager Creek) into commercial structure • Applied leading edge principles and industry best practice to deliver a 50% reduction in commercial team G&A spend • Drove 2-year market share growth in 3 of 4 core segments, reversing negative trends from prior strategy • Developed and deployed a new Foodservice sales and marketing organization leveraging a recent acquisition
Chief Customer Officer for the $2B Del Monte Foods Business Unit, which along with the legacy pet food and snacks business ($2B), was taken private by KKR, Vestar and Centerview private equity firms in March, 2011. Led Customer and Market Strategy development and deployment and oversaw all multi-functional resources across headquarters and field customer base. Built Market Development Organization enhancing and pushing key capabilities closer to the customer, such as customer strategy & development, customer finance, category management, customer & shopper insights, shopper marketing, along with the field sales organization. Major player in the sale of the Del Monte Foods business to Del Monte Pacific (March’14) for $1.7B (9x EBITDA), delivering strong return on investment for the PE owners. Primary face to strategic trading partners (Walmart, Sams, Costco, Kroger) during and after 4-year PE strategic reset.
Senior Sales Leader for $1.2B Del Monte Foods Portfolio which includes Del Monte Brands, Del Monte Fruit Naturals, Starkist, College Inn Broths, Meow Mix, Milk Bone, Kibbles & Bits, 9-Lives, Pup-Peroni, Snausages, and Milo’s Kitchen brands. Direct responsibility for sales, customer marketing, category management, and analytics staff of 108 associates across center store, frozen and produce business. Led sales transformational initiative to improve Del Monte Sales capabilities and organizational design, which included: 1) internal capabilities assessment, 2) retail marketplace trends, 3) sales capabilities best practices, and 4) go-forward model design and execution. Areas of influence include customer prioritization and profitability model to optimize resources and grow bottom line, trade funding approach to simplify and leverage customer investment, developed sales competencies in support of transformation as well as designed sales quota and incentive plan to enable Sales success.
Key Senior Sales Leader for $1.1B Del Monte Pet Products Portfolio which includes Kibbles & Bits, 9-Lives, Pup-Peroni, Snausages, Meaty Bone, Pounce and Nature’s Recipe brands. Direct responsibility for sales, category development, category management, and analytics staff of 96 associates across all classes of trade. Key accountabilities included strategic sales planning, joint customer business planning, and trade investment optimization. Member of Executive Management Board and reported to the Managing Director. Key accomplishments include; reversing a 3-Year double digit decline; posting +4% annual sales growth; drove penetration of growth channels, including Dollar and Club; launched a direct and dedicated team in the Pet Specialty Channel; and drove the successful integration of the Meow Mix Company and Milk Bone Brand.
Responsible for $198MM in customer investment and $1.1B in sales and 9 associates. Primary accomplishments during this tenure included; 1) established a category development team to effectively and efficiently translate brand plans into sales strategy and execution; 2) drove the development of our first accrual based category funding approach to simplify and leverage customer funds; and 3) led development and implementation of key business processes to accelerate new product execution.