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Hostess faucets former Kraft Meals government as CFO


Dive Temporary:

  • Hostess Manufacturers Inc. has named Travis Leonard, 49, as its CFO. He’ll prevail Michael Gernigin, who has been period in-between appearing CFO since November, when then-CFO Brian Purcell resigned.

  • Leonard has maximum lately labored in numerous positions at Cardinal Well being, a drug and scientific provides corporate, together with as senior vice chairman and CFO of the corporate’s scientific section, and in the past served in numerous finance and company audit roles at Cargill. Previous he spent just about 14 years in a number of roles at Kraft Meals, together with as director of finance procurement.

  • Whilst Purcell’s departure from Hostess remaining yr used to be “sudden … we are satisfied to look they’ve discovered an overly competent particular person in Travis Leonard to step into the function and we expect that he has a just right resume and will have to be capable of assist Hostess satisfy its expansion aspirations,” mentioned Rebecca Scheuneman, an fairness analyst at Morningstar.

Dive Perception:

Leonard will take the finance helm of the candy snack purveyor that has a portfolio stocked with many iconic merchandise starting from Twinkies to Ding Dongs to Donettes.

Below the introduced transition plan, Leonard will sign up for the corporate on Might 11 and Gernigin, who has been appearing within the function, will stay with the corporate as leader accounting officer, reporting to Leonard. Hostess CEO Andy Callahan, who like Leonard additionally labored for greater than a decade at meals large Kraft Meals, mentioned Leonard’s experience will assist the corporate proceed to construct a “snacking powerhouse and succeed in cross-channel expansion.”

Travis Leonard

Courtesy of Hostess

 

Leonard’s transfer to Hostess could also be notable as a result of he’s certainly one of a rising — albeit nonetheless small — choice of Black executives in best finance seats at public firms. Closing yr the choice of Black CFOs just about doubled off a low base from 12 to twenty (2.9%) of 678 sitting CFOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 firms, consistent with a record from Crist-Kolder.  

Based on a query as as to whether the corporate has sought to extend range in its government ranks, Hostess in an emailed reaction mentioned, “From our bakeries to our government workforce, Hostess Manufacturers is all the time looking for the most efficient applicants for the process. It is also essential for us to make sure our team of workers displays the communities we serve to permit us to proceed turning in the goods and strategic considering that meet our stakeholders’ wishes and assist us force our trade ahead.”

One at a time, whilst many meals firms are grappling with emerging prices, Scheuneman believes Hostess’ robust pricing energy will have to allow it to struggle inflation whilst shoppers are widely beginning to shift clear of some branded merchandise to save cash amid hovering inflation. Regardless of the headwinds, she expects Hostess can building up its long-term running margins to the nineteen%-20% house from 18.2% in 2021. 

Inflation “shouldn’t affect Hostess an excessive amount of first as a result of their emblem may be very robust and 2d as a result of there’s no longer an enormous quantity of personal label merchandise of their class,” she mentioned. 

The corporate weathered the early pandemic partly by means of offsetting declines in comfort retailer gross sales with robust gross sales in grocery shops, Scheuneman mentioned. Taking a look forward Scheuneman says Hostess is recently transferring its priorities to mergers and acquisitions after effectively that specialize in debt aid. The corporate could also be rising thru creating new merchandise, such because the lately introduced Hostess Spice up Jumbo Donettes, doughnuts that comprise caffeine.  

In a up to date interview with Meals Dive, Hostess CEO Callahan mentioned the corporate has up to $2 billion at its disposal that it will faucet into for deal-making to “in reality scale up our corporate.” The chocolates maker is concentrated on category-leading manufacturers that support its presence in areas the place it already exists, or that allow it to go into into a brand new area of interest. 

— Christopher Doering contributed to this record

 

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