Sara Lee promotes three executives

FoodProcessing.com
07/07/2005

Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp. announced June 30 that its board of directors has elected George Chappelle a senior vice president of the corporation and Kees Gielen and Aldo Uva, each to vice president of the corporation, effective immediately.

George Chappelle, who joined the company as chief information officer earlier this month, reports to L.M. (Theo) de Kool, executive vice president, and chief financial and administrative officer of Sara Lee Corp. Prior to Sara Lee, Chappelle was vice president/chief information officer at H.J. Heinz Co. Before that, he served in a variety of management positions of increasing responsibility at the ABB Group, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and The Gillette Co. Chappelle also has held positions with Polaroid, Beth Israel Hospital and Post-Tron Corp.

Kees Gielen was recently named program director of process improvement to excellence, a change program to build a culture of continuous process improvement throughout the company. He reports to L.M. (Theo) de Kool. Gielen joined Sara Lee in 1997 as chief financial officer of Sara Lee Household and Body Care Netherlands. In 2000, he left the company to serve as financial director of Leen Bakker, a division of Blokker Holding, and then rejoined Sara Lee in 2002 as chief financial officer for Sara Lee Household and Body Care.

Prior to his current position, Gielen served as chief financial officer for Sara Lee Branded Apparel. He began his career as an auditor at KPMG and later served in financial management positions in Unilever's European operations before joining Sara Lee.

Aldo Uva currently serves as vice president of Sara Lee's transformation management team. He reports to Brenda C. Barnes, president and chief executive officer of Sara Lee Corp. Uva joined Sara Lee in 2001 as regional vice president of South Europe and Latin America for Sara Lee Household and Body Care and later became president and chief executive officer of Sara Lee Coffee and Tea North America.

Before joining Sara Lee, Uva was the president and chief executive officer of Parmalat USA and Mexico. He began his career with Merloni Elettrodomestici (now known as Indesit Co.), where he worked for 13 years, the last five of which were as president and chief executive officer for the former U.S.S.R. and East Europe division.