ASSOCIATIONS/ORGANIZATIONS:
Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), Washington, D.C.
Leslie Lake joined as director of media relations. Previously, she served at Weber Shandwick as a day-to-day lead for a variety of clients across the company’s healthcare and public affairs practice groups. Prior to that, she held account executive roles at Edelman and FleishmanHillard, and also spent time on the events team at Politico.

The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI), Washington, D.C.
Dr. Kim Davies-Schrils was hired as director, research and organizational development, effective April 7, responsible for providing design, development, oversight and analysis of key programs, as well as primary research and scientific and technical reports based on the outputs of programs. Davies-Schrils has a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology with research specialization in safety culture, fatigue and worker well-being. Davies-Schrils was most recently employed with Volpe National Transportation Systems Center as an engineering psychologist in the human factors division, where she led multiple research and evaluation projects aimed at improving safety in the railroad industry.

PROCESSORS/RETAILERS/DISTRIBUTORS:
Hormel Foods Corp., Austin, Minn.
Jose Luis Prado, chairman and CEO of Evans Food Group, was elected to the board of directors, effective March 25, serving on the Audit Committee. Prior to joining Evans Food Group, Prado served as president of Quaker Foods - North America, a division of PepsiCo, and has held leadership roles at the company since 1984, including president and CEO of Grupo Gamesa-Quaker from 2002-2010; regional vice president of the Frito Lay International Andean Region from 2000-2002; president of PepsiCo Snacks in Argentina from 1997-2000; and president of Frito Lay Snacks Caribbean from 1994-1997. His early career included assignments in sales, finance, IT and engineering. He also serves on the boards of directors of Evans Food Group, Northern Trust Bank Corp.and Brinker International.

Clearwater Seafoods Inc., Canada
Teresa Fortney, vice president, finance and CFO, announced plans to resign to pursue other opportunities closer to her family in Ontario, Canada. 

Albertsons Cos., Boise, Idaho
Vivek Sankaran was appointed president and CEO, effective April 25. Sankaran was named chief executive officer of PepsiCo Foods North America in December 2018. Prior to that, he had served as the company's president and COO since 2016.  Over the last 3 years, he has led Frito Lay to growth by remaining focused on innovation, technology and execution. In addition to leading Frito-Lay, over his 10-year career at PepsiCo, Sankaran also served as chief commercial officer for PepsiCo North America, chief customer officer of Frito Lay and senior vice president of strategy for PepsiCo. Before joining PepsiCo in 2009, Sankaran was a partner at McKinsey and Co., where he served various Fortune 100 companies. Jim Donald, currently the company’s president and CEO, will continue as co-chairman of the board, while Leonard Laufer will serve as the other co-chairman. Laufer, who was appointed to the board of directors in October 2018, is a senior managing director and head of transformation and technology for Cerberus Capital Management, where he led a subsidiary of Cerberus focused exclusively on leveraging emerging technology, data and advanced analytics to drive business transformations. Laufer and his team of senior technologists work closely with Cerberus investment and operating professionals on targeted initiatives aimed at improving systems and generating value from data. Prior to joining Cerberus, Laufer launched and was the head of JPMorgan Intelligent Solutions, a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., created to solve business problems and provide strategic insights through data mining, analytics and modeling. Prior to JPMorgan Chase & Co., Laufer co-founded and was CEO of Argus Information and Advisory Services, which was sold in 2012 to Verisk Analytics. Robert Miller was named chairman emeritus.

PepsiCo, Inc., Purchase, N.Y.
Steven Williams, currently senior vice president and chief commercial officer for Frito-Lay's U.S. operations, was appointed chief executive officer of PepsiCo Foods North America (PFNA), effective immediately. Williams replaces Vivek Sankaran, who will depart the company April 12 to become president and CEO of Albertsons Cos., Inc. Williams was most recently responsible for leading Frito-Lay North America’s customer, field and foodservice sales teams, go-to-market strategy and execution and overseeing an organization of more than 29,000 employees. Previously, he served as division vice president for the Eastern division of Frito-Lay; as global senior vice president of PepsiCo's Walmart business; and was head of sales for a number of PepsiCo's food and beverage brands. Williams joined PepsiCo in 2001 as part of PepsiCo's acquisition of the Quaker Oats Co., which he joined in 1997.

Maple Leaf Foods, Canada
Kathleen Long was promoted to vice president of animal care, where she will lead the company’s animal care policies and programs in all livestock and poultry production and processing operations. Long joined Maple Leaf Foods in 2013.

Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA), Chicago
Robin VanDenabeele joined as director of IGA exclusive brands, overseeing the company’s private label redesign, product development and marketing. VanDenabeele has spent the last four years with Fresh Thyme Market, where she launched a more than 1,800-SKU private label brand across just 77-plus stores. Previously, she worked for Topco on a $215 million portfolio of food sauces, and Symphony/IRI, where she focused on market research and analytics for national chains. VanDenabeele joins the IGA team during a systematic research process that began nearly a year ago with analysis of IGA Exclusive Brand’s quality, shopper interest, design, marketing, and range of offerings, and is now nearing conclusion with design and testing of a new label.

High Liner Foods Inc., Canada
Chairman Henry Demone announced plans to retire from the board of directors, effective May 14. As a result, the board intends to appoint Robert Pace as chairman at that time. Pace most recently served as chair of the Audit Committee of the Board for a number of years. He is president and CEO of The Pace Group Ltd., chairman of Maritime Broadcasting System and Chairman of the board of directors of Canadian National Railway Co.

FOODSERVICE:
El Pollo Loco, Costa Mesa, Calif.
Miguel Lozano was named new chief operating officer, effective April 1, tasked with formulating organizational strategy, driving brand growth and profitability. Lozano maintains 30 years of restaurant industry experience. Previously, he spent the last 23 years at Starbucks, most recently leading operations primarily in California. Since 2014, he was responsible for running 780 company-operated Starbucks stores in Southern California, which generated over $1.4 billion in sales. He also led a team of regional directors who consistently delivered best-in-class metrics in the U.S. business. Prior to Starbucks, Lozano worked for El Pollo Loco for six years, starting as a restaurant general manager and working his way up to area leader, when the brand was owned by Flagstar Corp. He and his family then became an El Pollo Loco franchisee, owning and operating a restaurant in La Habra, Calif., for 7 years.

Little Caesars, Detroit, Mich.
Edward Gleich was named to the newly created position of chief innovation officer, where he will work cross-functionally to develop ideas and processes, strategically moving potential innovations from seed stage to implementation, evaluating changing business needs and allocating resources to continue pushing the brand forward. Gleich joined the company in 2011 in the lead marketing role, where he expanded the brand into national media advertising, evolved the core menu with the launch of the DEEP!DEEP! Dish Pizza and the ExtraMostBestest pizza, added thin crust pizza to the menu and promoted limited-time offers.

SUPPLIERS:
Tetra Pak, Vernon Hills, Ill.
Tatiana Liceti was named vice president of Tetra Pak North, Central and South America, effective April 1. Liceti, currently managing director of Tetra Pak Mexico, joined Tetra Pak in 1998. Prior to her current position, she has held various financial and leadership roles with Tetra Pak, including managing director of Andina; managing director of Peru; and financial controller, Peru.

Ruan, Des Moines, Iowa
Chad Willis was promoted to senior vice president, safety, compliance and support services, tasked with leading the company’s safety and operations support teams, including Safety Focus, Ruan’s first Guiding Principle; enhancing and supporting Ruan’s Megasafe program; ensuring Ruan’s compliance with all safety regulations and overseeing continuous improvement initiatives to reduce waste and drive efficiency across operations. Chris Fish was promoted to senior vice president, dedicated contract transportation. Fish been with Ruan since 1998, most recently as vice president of operations, where he worked with customers in a variety of industries, including commercial food, liquid bulk and manufacturing. Bob Elkins joined as senior vice president, industry vertical operations. Elkins maintains more than 20 years of experience in the transportation industry, including global account management and commercial services. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and general manager, dedicated services, logistics and first-to-final mile for Schneider National. Bob also served in the United States Army 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), was an owner-operator, owned a small trucking company and started with Schneider as a driver manager.

Norfolk Southern, Norfolk, Va.
John Scheib was named executive vice president and chief strategy officer, charged with overseeing a new service optimization and customer engagement division that comprises strategic planning and newly created departments of network planning and optimization and customer operations. Scheib joined Norfolk Southern’s law department in 2005 as an attorney, and has held positions of increasing responsibility with the company. For instance, he was named vice president law in 2016; senior vice president law and corporate relations in 2017; executive vice president law and administration in 2017; and executive vice president law and administration and chief legal officer in 2018. Annie Adams joined as executive vice president and chief transformation officer, overseeing a new transformation division that comprises of information technology, human resources, labor relations and corporate communications. Adams joined Norfolk Southern in 2001 as manager human resources. Since then, she has served in a number of HR and planning roles. She became assistant vice president human resources in 2012, and was named vice president human resources in March 2016. Vanessa Allen Sutherland was appointed senior vice president law and chief legal officer, tasked with overseeing legal matters. Sutherland joined Norfolk Southern in 2018 as vice president law. Prior to Norfolk Southern, Sutherland held various government and corporate legal positions, including serving as chief executive officer and chairperson of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and as chief counsel with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. All appointments are effective April 1.

Redimark, Wilsonville, Ore.
Jim Vineyard was named customer success lead, responsible for day-to-day customer service operations and ensuring overall customer satisfaction. Vineyard previously served as a support operations manager at a digital printing company, and maintains over 18 years of technical support and operations management.

Forager Logistics, Chicago
Jessie Essman was named chief operating officer, leading the human resources, recruiting, marketing, compliance and IT departments, and responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations. Essman maintains over a decade of logistics and project management experience. Previously, Essman acted as project manager of business transformation for Stepan Co., where she oversaw several transformative projects, including the acquisition of a large chemical manufacturing plant in Mexico and a global IT roll-out. Before joining Stepan Co., Essman rose quickly through the ranks at Coyote Logistics, where she gained experience in LTL operations before working under the vice president of finance and COO, focused on special projects, including ISO 9001 Certification, quality control and developing standard operating procedures for all departments across the company. Essman was also a project manager in IT, implementing several long-standing release management policies and procedures as well as overseeing SOX compliance efforts, before working with HR to provide similar procedural structures. She also worked in the managed transportation division, performing as a project manager, overseeing the implementation and onboarding process of a new management product solution for a large shipper.

Fleetworthy Solutions, Madison, Wis.
Michael Precia was appointed chief executive officer. Precia previously served as senior vice president of sales and account management, and for the last few months, has been acting as president. Precia has also spent over 25 years selling and managing sales and account management teams delivering SaaS solutions to global organizations.

Eriez-USA, Erie, Pa.
Jeff Kaveney was named director of sales and product management, responsible for providing leadership the separation, vibratory, metal detection and recycling product lines, developing key sales strategies for the light industry markets and overseeing order administration. Kaveney has been with Eriez for 24 years, most recently serving as manager of product marketing and administration. He joined the Eriez sales team in 1995 as a technical sales representative. During his tenure with Eriez, Kaveney has completed numerous training programs and authored an extensive array of technical articles for national trade publications.

McLaren Engineering Group, Woodcliff Lake, N.J.
Jeremy Billig was promoted to president. Billig most recently served as McLaren’s vice president and New York City regional director. During his 15-year tenure with the company, Billig has directed a range of engineering projects while starting and growing the New York City office to over 40 staff. Billig also managed McLaren’s organizational planning efforts, including supporting the firm’s merger and acquisition activity and developing a scalable structure to accommodate growth. Billig has worked across the firm’s 10 markets, ranging from entertainment venues and healthcare facilities to comprehensive structural work and restoration of landmarked buildings.

MTC Logistics, Baltimore, Md.
Andrew Janson was promoted to president, effective April 1, taking over for Brooks Royster, who will remain with the company in charge of international supply chain solutions. Janson has held the position of chief operating officer since joining the company in June 2018, where he led the team through “Vision and Values” exercises and expanded transportation offerings. He’s also served in senior leadership roles throughout his 23-year career in the temperature-controlled supply chain industry.