Hershey Unifies Sweet, Salty and Protein Products Under ‘One Hershey’ Operating Model

Seven months into the job as CEO, Kirk Tanner is bringing together the company’s sweet, salty and protein brand portfolios under a unified U.S. commercial operating model called ONE Hershey. That will necessitate some personnel reassignments.

Those three business segments were, respectively, Hershey’s traditional sugar and chocolate candies, the salty snacks that were acquired since 2017 and its small bar business.

“The integration is designed to unlock deeper consumer connections, strengthen customer partnerships and accelerate Hershey’s leadership to deliver the next generation of snacking,” the company announcement said.

Under the One Hershey model, the company will combine its execution of commercial activity across all three U.S. categories while centralizing global brand marketing. This marks the first time Hershey has unified its brand power, category strategies and consumer insights under a single integrated structure, the company said.

There was quite a bit of executive churn last year at the company, including the CEO job after Michele Buck retired. Now, three of the four key executives charged with implementing this reorganization joined the company within the past year and two of them came from PepsiCo, as did Tanner:

* Andrew Archambault, who was president of just the U.S. confection business, will manage the full U.S. portfolio as U.S. president. He came from Keurig Dr Pepper.

* Nitin Jain, who joined the company from PepsiCo as chief strategy & transformation officer, joins the executive leadership team reporting directly to the CEO, integrating enterprise and business unit strategy, prioritization and resourcing.

* Stacy Taffet, also from PepsiCo, gets oversight of demand creation capabilities, portfolio strategy, innovation, consumer connections and brand leadership as chief growth & marketing officer.

* Vero Villasenor, who’s been with Hershey more than 20 years, as chief brand officer will lead the activation of Hershey’s global portfolio of brands as part of the Growth and Marketing team. She was as president of Hershey’s salty snacks business unit.