I’ve been doing this job long enough to have seen a steady stream of food & beverage CEOs come and go – sometimes with frightening regularity. Just not lately.
As I near retirement, I wonder if it's time for Generation X, born 1965-1980, to take over. It's not a tidal wave yet, but changes are happening in the C-suite.
At the end of August, Nestle SA, the biggest food company in the world, suddenly replaced Mark Schneider, its CEO of eight years, with Laurent Freixe – who's neither a kid nor a newcomer, having put in 38 years with the company.
A week earlier, Starbucks went outside, hiring Brian Niccol away from Chipotle in a tumultuous turnover at the top of the coffee company. Niccol is a Gen Xer.
Those two news happenings made me realize it's been quite a while since the top dogs changed at the top companies.
Schwan's and Saputo made orderly changes earlier this summer, both installing Gen Xers, but before those there were few turnovers. Which is remarkable when you think about what we've been through in the past couple of years. The pandemic. Then post-pandemic supply chain chaos. Then high inflation coupled with high interest rates. And the resulting charges of price gouging, even as volumes fell at most food & beverage companies. I don't recall a period where the food industry was so scrutinized by Congress or even a President.
Boomer CEOs must be exhausted! As things settle into a new normal, maybe it is time for a new generation of leaders.
Admittedly, some of the following goes back quite a bit: In June of 2008, we noted that 14 of the 15 largest companies (as identified by the Food Processing Top 100 list) named new CEOs in the prior three years.
Between November of 2009 and January 2011, we counted six more new CEOs (plus two divisional CEOs, three COOs and three unit presidents) among the 37 largest U.S. and Canadian food & beverage companies.
We've written many stories about how food companies need to look past the Boomers and develop products for successive generations. Maybe it's starting to happen in the C-suite too.