Dive Brief:
- Cargill is consolidating its upper management by moving from two separate corporate leadership teams with almost 30 people total to a single 10-person group with CEO David MacLennan at the helm.
- Cargill spokesman Mark Klein said the restructuring won't mean layoffs for other employees. "We have not set any kind of target for reduction of our employees," he told Star Tribune.
- The management shakeup will go into effect Dec. 1 and will be the most significant structural change in the company's leadership in nearly 15 years.
Dive Insight:
"The latest move eliminates the company’s Cargill Leadership Team, which usually consists of four to five of its highest-ranking executives and its CEO. The company also is dismantling a second-tier corporate leadership team made up of about two dozen executives. In its place will be a leadership team made up of the CEO, heads of Cargill’s five major business groups and the leaders of four functional operations: finance, human resources, business services and business operations and supply chain," Star Tribune reported.
"This change is aimed at simplifying our leadership structure and increasing the speed of decisionmaking — agility being critical in today’s fast-moving world," MacLennan said in a statement.
The company recently announced it would be closing its Lititz, PA plant and shifting production to locations in Mount Joy, a separate Lititz location, and Hazleton, PA, in addition to Milwaukee and Ontario, Canada. The company is transitioning leadership, administrative, and costumer-focused jobs for its North American cocoa and chocolate segment to Milwaukee and Minneapolis.