Beam Suntory, The Coca-Cola Company and Heineken are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Beam Suntory and Heineken are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Beam Suntory President & CEO Albert Baladi will transition CEO responsibilities - effective October 1, 2023 - to Greg Hughes, the company’s current Senior Vice President Chief Growth & Brands Officer.
Under this succession plan, Baladi will serve as CEO Advisor through year-end and will be engaged as Senior Advisor for the company throughout 2024.
Baladi has served on the executive leadership team of Beam Suntory for 12 years, including the past five years as President & CEO. Since he stepped into the CEO role in 2019, Beam Suntory’s annual sales have grown at high single digits to more than $5bn. In addition, the company has significantly accelerated its premiumization trajectory, with premium brands becoming the majority of its sales.
Hughes, who currently serves as Beam Suntory’s SVP Chief Growth & Brands Officer, has more than three decades of experience in consumer goods across marketing, commercial and management roles.
Since joining Beam Suntory in 2015, Hughes led the company’s largest market as President North America for four years and prior to that as GM of North America. Prior to Beam Suntory, he served in roles with increasing responsibility at Procter & Gamble, Bel Brands USA and Kraft Foods. Hughes holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University and is a graduate of the University of Kansas.
Succession for the brands and marketing organization, currently under Hughes’ leadership, will be announced in the coming months.
Beam Suntory’s brands include Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Basil Hayden and Knob Creek bourbons; Japanese whiskies, including Yamazaki, Hakushu, Hibiki and Toki; and Scotch brands including Teacher's, Laphroaig and Bowmore.
James Thompson (pictured right), Heineken’s Chief Commercial Officer, will leave the company on 31 December 2023.
After turning 60 earlier this year, Thompson has decided now is the time to retire from full-time executive work.
His last day as Chief Commercial Officer will be 31 August 2023, and he will stay on through the transition period as an advisor to the Executive Board until the end of the year.
Bram Westenbrink (pictured above) will succeed Thompson in the Executive Team as Heineken's new Chief Commercial Officer from 1 September 2023, reporting to Dolf van den Brink, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board.
Thompson joined Heineken in early 2021: bringing considerable external experience and expertise from a nearly forty-year commercial career.
“Under his leadership, we launched our refreshed consumer demand spaces framework to become more consumer centric, which is now embedded across the business,” notes Heineken. “He has reignited creativity in our brand building to accelerate brand power and kicked-off the first Innovation hubs in Singapore, the USA, Mexico, the Netherlands, and South Africa to build strong expansive innovation pipelines, which will be critical to drive the change in scale and shape of our innovation for delivering our EverGreen dream.
"He also kick-started a common approach to data-based marketing and sales, including a leading-edge ROI platform.
“In this period Heineken was the most-awarded alcohol brand at Cannes Lions 2023, premium beer grew 15% and we launched eazle - our global eB2B platform growing from €2bn to €10bn gross merchandise value.”
Before joining Heineken, Thompson held several senior international leadership roles: including at Avon, Diageo (Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer in North America; Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer in Asia Pacific; and Managing Director, Global Reserve) and Unilever.
Incoming CCO Bram Westenbrink has been with Heineken since 2003 and has been Senior Director Global Heineken and Amstel Brands since July 2020.
“Heineken is a 55 million hectolitre brand and #1 global beer brand by value,” notes the company. “Under Bram’s leadership the Heineken brand has grown 32%, with more than 50 markets growing double-digit in 2022. Heineken 0.0 is now launched in more than 110 markets and Heineken Silver more than doubled its volume in 2022 and will be rolled-out to 42 markets across Asia, Europe, and the Americas regions by the end of the year. Heineken was recognised with 20 Cannes Lions awards this year and extended its sponsorship of Formula 1 until 2027. At the same time there has been real velocity behind the Amstel brand which also grew volume double-digit in more than 15 markets.”
Between 2017 and 2020, Bram was Senior Marketing Director of Heineken Brazil: credited with playing an important role in the integration of the Kirin Brazil.
After joining the Heineken Netherlands business as a trainee, he took his next assignment in Singapore as a business analyst, before returning to the Netherlands taking on a number of increasingly senior brand marketing roles. He then moved into a senior sales role as Regional Director for On-trade and Wholesale, where he restructured the business by creating regional teams organised around customers resulting in significant improved performance.
He was appointed as Marketing Director of Heineken Hungary in 2010 and subsequently returned to Heineken Netherlands as Marketing Director in 2013.
WES Brands, parent company of Flecha Azul Tequila and BSB Flavored Whiskey, has appointed Shelly Stein as Chairman of the WES Brands Advisory Board.
Stein spent the last 13 years as CEO of Glazer’s Distributors and then President of Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, where he was instrumental in positioning the company as a leader in the beverage alcohol distribution space. As CEO of the family-owned Glazer’s Distributors, Stein played a critical role in the merger of Glazer’s and Southern Wine & Spirits to create Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits.
Prior to his tenure in the beverage alcohol space, Stein acted as an advisor to Glazer’s Distributors while a Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He also previously held roles as a Senior Managing Director at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. for over 20 years and as a partner in the Dallas law firm of Hughes & Luce.
This appointment of Stein comes just months after WES Brands’ announcement of a new executive suite, including Shawn Thurman as Chief Executive Officer, Sean Penn as Co-President & Chief Operating Officer, Kyle Stein as Co-President, Chris Jebbia as Senior Vice President of Finance, Chris Seithel as Senior Vice President of Sales, Lauren Ryan-Kiyak as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Russel Louis as Senior Vice President of Operations.
Maximilien Bernardeau has been appointed Cellar Master and Wine Manager of the Laurent-Perrier Group, reporting to Michel Fauconnet.
After a degree in cell biology and plant physiology, Maximilien obtained the national oenologist’s diploma in June 2008 in Dijon.
Following a first experience in Burgundy, he joined Sofralab as a consultant oenologist in Champagne. There he acquired an in-depth experience in the cultivation of vines and Champagne winemaking.
He will work with Christine Carré, Vinification Manager of the Laurent-Perrier Group, which she joined in 2000.
DRINKS, an operating system for alcohol e-commerce, has appointed Justin Dean as Chief Technology Officer.
Dean brings to DRINKS nearly three decades of e-commerce-, marketplace- and SaaS-centric development and leadership experience.
“Alcohol e-commerce is the fastest growing segment of the $285bn US alcohol industry, which DRINKS continues to transform by enabling any business to be in the alcohol business,” says the company. “As CTO, Dean will accelerate the optimization, development and adoption of DRINKS technology, including the DRINKS Shopify App, WaaS, and its proprietary AI-suite, PAIR (Predictive Artificial Intelligence Retailing).”
After serving in the US Marine Corps as a network systems engineer, Dean scaled the ranks of major technology companies. He served as SVP, Technology and Head of Platform Engineering for Ticketmaster during a period of exponential growth throughout the 2010s. Most recently, as CTO and CIO of pioneering cannabis tech company WM Technology (Weedmaps), Dean led the platform's transition to a SaaS-enabled, multi-sided marketplace directly leading to a successful Nasdaq IPO.
Dean succeeds DRINKS' retiring CTO, Peter Wolfert, who shepherded the company's technology development since 2018.
Constellation Brands has announced the election of Luca Zaramella, Chief Financial Officer of Mondelēz International, and William (Bill) T. Giles, former Chief Financial Officer of AutoZone, to the company’s Board of Directors, effective July 18, 2023, following the conclusion of the company’s 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Based on the preliminary results of the Annual Meeting, the 11 incumbent Directors that stood for re-election have each been re-elected to the Board for a one-year term.
The election of Zaramella and Giles brings the size of Constellation’s Board to 13 members and comes as part of a comprehensive Board refreshment and governance enhancement process the company launched following its transition from a dual to a single class share structure last year.
As part of this process - and to facilitate collaboration with Elliott Investment Management L.P., one of Constellation’s largest investors - Constellation has entered into Information Sharing and Cooperation Agreements with Elliott. Under the Information Sharing and Cooperation Agreements, Elliott has agreed to standstill, voting, confidentiality, and other provisions.
Luca Zaramella has served as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of Mondelēz International since August 2018. In this role, he is responsible for the oversight of the company’s global Finance, Information and Technology Solutions and shared service functions. He previously served as Senior Vice President Corporate Finance, CFO Commercial, and Treasurer from June 2016 to July 2018, as Interim Lead Finance North America from April 2017 to November 2017, as Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller from December 2014 to August 2016, and as Senior Vice President, Finance of Mondelēz Europe from October 2011 to November 2014. He joined Mondelēz in 1996.
“As a current chief financial officer, Mr. Zaramella brings to the Board his expertise in global finance, information and technology solutions, mergers and acquisitions, and shared service functions,” says Constellation Brands.
William T. Giles served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President – Finance, Information Technology and Store Development, Customer Satisfaction for AutoZone, Inc., a retailer and distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories in the Americas, from 2007 to December 2020. Giles joined AutoZone in 2006 as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Finance. From 1991 to May 2006, he held several positions with Linens ‘n Things, Inc., a retailer of home textiles, housewares, and decorative home accessories, most recently as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to 1991, Mr. Giles was with Melville, Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“Giles brings to the Board more than three decades of financial proficiency and business leadership in retail products and skills as chief financial officer of a public company. He also provides insights into strategic, risk management, governance, and financial issues facing public companies in retail products,” says Constellation Brands.
The Board of Directors of The Coca-Cola Company has announced the election of Thomas S. Gayner as a director. Gayner, the CEO of Markel Group, joins the board effective immediately.
Gayner has served as CEO of Markel Group since the start of the year and was co-CEO from 2016 through 2022. Markel is a holding company with operations in insurance, services and industrial operations.
Gayner joined Markel in 1990 to form Markel Gayner Asset Management, which provided equity investment counsel for Markel as well as outside clients. Prior to Markel, Gayner held roles with Davenport & Co. and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
Gayner currently serves as chairman of the board of the Davis Series Mutual Funds and on the boards of Graham Holdings and Markel. He previously served on the boards of Cable One and Colfax Corp. He is a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of the Virginia Retirement System.
Gayner earned a bachelor of science degree in commerce from the University of Virginia.
In other business, the board elected Henrique Braun as a corporate senior vice president.
Braun has served as the company’s President of International Development since the start of the year. The board has now elected him as a corporate senior vice president as well.
Braun oversees the company’s operating units for Latin America; Japan and South Korea; ASEAN and South Pacific; Greater China and Mongolia; Africa; India and Southwest Asia; and Eurasia and Middle East.
Previously, Braun served as President of the Latin America operating unit from 2020 to 2022. Braun joined Coca-Cola in 1996 and progressed through a variety of roles in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from the University Federal of Rio de Janeiro, a master’s of science degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from Georgia State University.
