The Kraft Heinz Company has named five new executive leadership team members, who are to collaborate with incoming chief executive Carlos Abrams-Rivera in the beginning of the 2024 financial year.
All members are internal candidates and will assume their roles at the beginning of next year, the company noted.
Pedro Navio has been promoted to the role of president of the North America unit of Kraft Heinz.
Currently, Navio serves as the president of the company's taste, meals, and away from home unit in North America.
In this role, he was instrumental in delivering a new product pipeline beyond ketchup and supported the transformation of the away-from-home business by reconnecting the company’s brands with customers.
'Updated Structure'
Commenting on the management revamp, Abrams-Rivera said, "Over the past four years under Miguel’s leadership, we’ve made great progress and now have a solid foundation to build our future.
“Our strategic plan maps our ‘jobs to be done’ in each of our ‘must-win’ markets and defines the areas where we believe we need to focus to accelerate our growth. Our updated structure is designed to help us activate that strategy – with a focus on profitable growth and a dynamic omnichannel plan.”
Elsewhere, Willem Brandt will step in as president of Europe and Pacific developed markets division.
Brandt has been at Kraft Heinz since 2021 as president of continental Europe. Under his leadership, the company has significantly improved its top-line business in the region and reinvested in marketing and sales.
Bruno Keller will also join the executive leadership team as of president of West and East Emerging Markets.
In 2014, Keller joined Kraft Heinz and has since held several roles, including managing director for South Europe, president, Canada, and most recently, president, Latin America.
In this role, he has driven significant top-line growth, accelerated profitability and sales, and increased market share across all Latin America countries.
Other Appointments
Other additions include Cory Onell, who will take on the role of chief omnichannel sales and Asia emerging markets officer and Diana Frost as chief growth officer.
In the new role, Onell will lead global omnichannel sales and go-to-market capabilities and tools to unlock growth across developed and emerging markets, the company noted.
He joined the company in 2020 as the president of US Sales and embedded an omnichannel mindset and structure and strengthened its sales capabilities in the North America Zone.
As chief growth officer, Frost will be responsible for accelerating growth globally through the company’s long-term plan, building brands through marketing excellence, and transforming the product portfolio through disruptive innovation.
Most recently, she served as chief growth officer for North America, where she established cross-functional marketing capabilities and measurement and built an accelerated agile pipeline of brand innovation.
“I am incredibly proud these are internal elevations as it reflects the quality of the talent and focus on people development at Kraft Heinz,” added Abrams-Rivera.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Pedro, Willem, Bruno, Cory and Diana in their new roles, and I am confident these are the leaders to help take Kraft Heinz to the next level and power our growth as we set our course to lead the future of food.”
