Campbell Soup Company has appointed former Chobani executive Mick Beekhuizen as its new senior vice-president and chief financial officer (CFO), effective from 30 September 2019.
Beekhuizen will lead Campbell’s financial operations – responsible for tax, investor relations, external development, corporate financial planning and more – as well as the company’s information technology group.
Beekhuizen served as the executive vice-president and chief financial officer at Chobani from 2016, and previously held senior positions at Goldman Sachs and Education Management Corporation.
Campbell CEO Mark Clouse said: “Mick’s background and experience in leading publicly traded and private food companies will serve Campbell well as we set the company on a course to deliver sustainable, profitable growth and create shareholder value.
Beekhuizen succeeds Anthony DiSilvestro, who had served as the company’s CFO for the last five years, as he announced he would be leaving Campbell on 15 October 2019 “to pursue other interests.”
Clouse continued: “Anthony has been a strong leader during his Campbell career and a valuable partner during my first seven months with the company. Thanks to his leadership, Campbell is in a stronger financial position today than it was a year ago.” The appointment is the latest move by the company to boost its balance sheet, after coming under increasing pressure from activist investor Third Point last year.
Campbell’s launched a portfolio review in August 2018, which has led to a number of major sales over the last few months, including the full divestiture of its Campbell Fresh operations in June 2019, which generated proceeds of approximately $565 million.
The company announced that it intended to offload its Campbell International business as part of the review, and earlier this month, Campbell’s agreed to sell its Australian snacks unit Arnott’s and some of its international operations to investment firm KKR for $2.2 billion.
This strategy also saw the company offload Denmark-based Kelsen Group to Ferrero affiliate CTH Invest for approximately $300 million.
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