Kraft Foods is moving quickly to hire a new chief marketing officer to replace Jeri Finard, who resigned late last week.
Kraft is looking inside the company and at outside candidates for the job that oversees media, advertising, consumer promotions, marketing alliances, digital and relationship marketing, packaging and brand design and consumer relations as well as category development.
“It’s difficult to predict the exact time, but we are moving as quickly as possible to fill this important position,” said Kraft spokesperson Donna Sitkiewicz.
Finard is leaving her post as executive vice president and CMO after just seven months on the job. She has been at Kraft for 20 years; the company said she’s leaving “for personal reasons” (PROMO Xtra, April 16, 2007). “Leaving was Jeri’s choice,” Sitkiewicz said.
Her departure comes as Kraft prepares for its annual stockholders meeting on April 24. This is the first shareholder meeting since parent Altria Corp. spun off Kraft on March 30, separating the food business from its Philip Morris tobacco business. Analysts are watching closely to see if Kraft can use that new independence to turn around sluggish sales and stagnant growth.
In February, Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld outlined for analysts a three-year plan to pit Kraft more broadly against restaurants, to improve its new-product pipeline and upgrade its current recipes, and to boost marketing spending (PROMO Xtra, Feb. 21, 2007).
Many analysts were non-plussed by the plan, adopting a wait-and-see attitude and even downgrading their ratings of Kraft’s stock. That puts even more pressure on Kraft for its April 24 showing to stockholders. Finard stays on board through mid-May.
Finard had been in charge of category development when a September 2006 reorganization merged that function in with Kraft’s global marketing division, making Finard the top player in marketing and category development worldwide.
That restructuring included the launch of a Consumer Innovation and Marketing Services Group under Finard, to track consumer trends worldwide to spark new-product ideas. That remains a crucial element of Kraft’s growth plan.
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