Campbell Soup Company has named Luca Mignini as its new COO in a row of strategic reshuffles across the company.
Mignini will be responsible for streamlining the company’s core businesses, including soup, simple meals, shelf-stable beverages and global biscuits and snacks business, according to Campbell.
The company has also promoted Ana Dominguez to president of Campbell Fresh and Emily Waldorf to senior vice president of corporate strategy.
Campbell Fresh will become part of the company’s newly-created ‘Accelerator Unit’, which aims to drive growth in faster-growing spaces, according to the company.
It includes brands such as Bolthouse Farms, Garden Fresh, refrigerated soup and fresh carrots and carrot ingredients.
The new unit will also be responsible for long-term innovation, small brand incubation, future consumer experiences, e-commerce and new distribution models.
Snack Expansion
The company recently completed its $6.1 billion acquisition of Snyder's-Lance, which will allow the company to further expand into the snack-food segment. The brand will be combined together with Pepperidge Farm to create a new Campbell Snacks unit.
“The transformative Snyder’s-Lance acquisition served as a catalyst for us to re-examine how to best organise the company for increased emphasis on execution and profitable growth,” said Denise Morrison, Campbell’s president and CEO.
Mignini will lead the new Campbell Snacks unit along with the simple meals and shelf-stable beverages business in Asia Pacific and Australia, Campbell’s meals and beverages, the company’s US sales organisation and its global product development group within research and development, according to the company.
“This strategic reorganisation—focused on our core, the integration of recent acquisitions, the Campbell Fresh turnaround and long-term growth—provides the right structure for us to optimise the value of our businesses today, while creating future-oriented capabilities,” Morrison continued. “It will simplify our operations, improve our execution and enable us to allocate resources with a greater focus on profitable growth.”
Mignini, 55, is currently serving as Campbell’s president for its global biscuits and snacks portfolio. He joined the company in 2013 as president for Campbell International and previously worked as CEO of Findus Italy and at SC Johnson.
“Since joining Campbell, Luca has proven himself a superb strategist and strong executor with a keen understanding of the critical details of all our businesses,” said Morrison. “He has led our best-performing division, global biscuits and snacks, and helped engineer the acquisition of The Kelsen Group and more recently Snyder’s-Lance. I am confident in Luca’s ability to lead our core businesses, oversee the integration of Pacific Foods and Snyder’s-Lance, and deliver improved execution and performance.”
Mignini said, “Creating a single organisation across Campbell’s core businesses will make us more agile and lead to more effective portfolio management to ensure that resources are invested in the areas with the greatest growth potential. I am confident this simplified model will position these businesses for better performance going forward. My immediate focus is on maintaining momentum in our existing snacks portfolio, integrating Snyder’s-Lance and Pacific Foods, and stabilising the US soup portfolio.”
Accelerator Unit
The newly-created Accelerator unit will consist of the Campbell Fresh business, the company’s existing digital and e-commerce unit and a network of cross-functional teams that can be rapidly deployed against key growth priorities.
It will include important capabilities and functions spanning strategy, innovation, consumer experience and new distribution models, according to the company.
It will focus on utilising consumer experience, funnelling long-term innovation and incubating small brands and startups, according to the company.
“Campbell’s Accelerator unit is designed to drive growth and build critical capabilities with an agile and dynamic operating model that, over time, will expand to other parts of the company and become the way we work in the future,” Morrison said.
Further Appointments
Campbell has started an external search for a chief acceleration officer (CAO) to lead the new unit. Ana Dominguez, 46, will report to Morrison until a CAO is named.
She joined the company in 2014 as president for its Canadian operations after leaving SC Johnson, where she worked in marketing and management roles since 1997. She succeeds Ed Carolan, who is leaving Campbell to pursue another opportunity.
Meanwhile, Emily Waldorf, 40, has been promoted to senior vice president, corporate strategy and will continue to lead enterprise strategy development, planning and measurement. She will also lead strategy for the Accelerator unit and report to Morrison.
Waldorf joined Campbell in 2012 as director of corporate development. She previously held corporate development roles at Discovery Communications and AT&T Corp. and served as a special advisor at the FBI.
Carlos Barroso, senior vice president, global research and development, will move to a strategic advisory role within the Campbell Snacks business. Bethmara Kessler, who previously served as senior VP, integrated global services, has left the company to pursue other opportunities.
Senior VP and CFO, Anthony DiSilvestro will now oversee many of Campbell’s integrated global services, including financial planning and analysis and IT.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Kevin Duggan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
