Smithfield Shakes Up the C-Suite

The new CEO of Smithfield Foods is making some extensive changes to the company’s top ranks.

Dennis Organ was promoted to the top spot in November from chief operating officer – a promotion that was due to take place early this year but was pushed up a few months. The company announced these C-suite promotions on Jan. 6:

• Russ Dokken has been promoted to chief sales officer from executive vice president, U.S. packaged meats.
• Keira Lombardo assumes expanded responsibility as chief administrative officer and leads the company's administrative operations, including corporate communications, external affairs, government affairs, human resources, investor relations, legal and sustainability functions.
• Scott Saunders is appointed chief supply chain officer. His previous roles include executive vice president, U.S. supply chain, and president, fresh pork division.
• Shane Smith is appointed chief strategy officer, to help achieve growth through internal resources, as well as mergers and acquisitions. He previously served as executive vice president, European operations.
• Brady Stewart is appointed chief manufacturing officer, promoted from executive vice president, U.S. hog production.
• Joe Weber is appointed chief commodity hedging officer, responsible for commodity hedging activities and research, and analysis of economic factors that impact business. He was promoted from executive vice president, growth and emerging business.

Smithfield also announced these promotions to executive vice president:

• Luis Cerdan is appointed EVP for European operations.
• Jamie Dik is appointed EVP for fresh meats, overseeing the domestic and international sales and business management for Smithfield Foods' fresh meats portfolio.
• Steve France is appointed EVP for packaged meats, and is directly responsible for Smithfield's packaged meats and value-added fresh sales, with accountability for revenue and profit goals across all trade channels. In this role, he also leads the company's marketing and innovation teams. Prior to this role, France served as senior vice president, packaged sales.
• Mark Hall is appointed EVP for finance. His responsibilities include financial planning and analysis, operations and logistics finance, trade spend, data analytics and project and capital management in support of U.S. business.
• John Sargent is appointed EVP for hog production. He is directly responsible for the profitability of Smithfield's U.S. hog production operations, which comprise roughly 530 company-owned and 2,100 contract farms in 15 states producing nearly 18 million hogs per year.