Eleven of the top leaders from the largest food and beverage company in the U.S. talk about their three-year turnaround and their campaign to reorganize for growth.

WHEN A COMPANY’S CORPORATE core gets too far from its businesses, from the marketplace, and from its consumers, then a new organizational model may be needed. That was true of Kraft Foods when I returned as chief executive in June 2006. I had just spent three years running the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo, where decision making was highly decentralized.

That experience had reminded me how powerful it is when people come to work every day aligned with and focused only on the business, rather than on the internal organizational demands.

Kraft, too, had gone through periods of decentralized decision making, as I knew from my previous 22 years with the company. ... 

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Inside the Kraft Foods Transformation
Introduced by Chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld

From strategy+business issue 56, Autumn 2009

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Participants:
Irene Rosenfeld is chairman and chief executive officer of Kraft Foods Inc. She has spent most of her career at the company. From 2003 to 2006, she was chief executive of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay unit.

Dave Brearton is executive vice president of operations and business services at Kraft Foods and was one of two executive sponsors of the company’s reorganization effort.

Mark Clouse is vice president and managing director of Kraft Foods Brazil.

Gary Conte, vice president of human resources, corporate functions, and employee services, served as one of the program leaders on Kraft Foods’ reorganization.

Brian Davison, vice president of strategic planning at Kraft Foods, was co–program leader, with Gary Conte, on the reorganization.

Lance Friedmann is senior vice president of marketing for Kraft Foods International Inc.

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