Kraft Foods, Inc. announced Executive Vice President and CFO Timothy McLevish will leave the company, effective mid-2011. David Brearton, current executive vice president of operations, will be promoted to succeed McLevish, who will pursue other opportunities in general management.
Meanwhile, Brearton will take over the responsibilities of CFO after the company files its first quarter financial statements. The company said it has initiated an external search to fill Brearton's current role as EVP, Operations.
"We sincerely thank Tim for his many contributions to Kraft Foods. From the beginning of his tenure as CFO and our spin-off from Altria, Tim has had a clear mandate to reshape the portfolio and our capital structure, which he accomplished with the highest quality results," Chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld said in a statement.
McLevish joined Kraft in October 2007 as executive vice president and CFO, and led its financial operations, including accounting and reporting, financial planning and analysis, treasury, tax, audit and investor relations.
McLevish came to Kraft from Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. (IR), an $11-billion global, diversified industrial products and services firm, where he served as senior vice president and CFO since 2002. Before that, he was with Mead Corp, where he most recently served as vice president and chief financial officer. McLevish joined Mead Corp. in 1987 and during his 15 years there held a series of finance, administration and leadership roles. Prior to joining Mead, he began his career in accounting and transportation systems roles at General Mills, Inc. (GIS).
"Dave has more than 25 years of experience in senior financial and broader cross-functional roles both domestically and internationally. I'm confident that Dave's deep understanding of the consumer packaged goods industry and his intimate knowledge of Kraft Foods will enable him to step into the CFO role seamlessly and continue our drive toward top-tier financial performance," Rosenfeld added.
Most recently, Brearton has been leading the company's procurement, manufacturing, and customer service and logistics functions since 2008 as the operations head. He has held a number of positions in his twenty-year tenure at Kraft. He joined Kraft in 1984 as a financial analyst with Kraft Canada.
Brearton has since then progressed through a series of finance roles of increasing responsibility in Canada, Switzerland, the U.K. and the US Dave was named senior vice president, finance, Kraft Foods International, in 2002. In 2004, he was appointed senior vice president, business process simplification and served as corporate controller from 2004 to 2006. In 2006, he became executive vice president, global business services and strategy, where he led the mergers and acquisitions, strategy and information systems functions and initiated the Catalyst project.
