Tyson Foods Hires First Chief Growth Officer

Dec. 15, 2022

She’s a veteran of Kraft and Coca-Cola.

Tyson Foods has hired away the chief North America marketing officer of Coca-Cola Co. to be its first-ever chief growth officer.

Melanie Boulden will fill the newly created role of executive VP/chief growth officer effective Feb. 6, reporting directly to CEO Donnie King. Boulden has worked with Coca-Cola since August 2019, starting as president and general manager for venturing and emerging brands and becoming CMO for North America in January 2021. She has also served as senior director of strategy for the beverage unit of what was then Kraft Foods, and has held marketing positions with Reebok and Crayola.

In her new job, Boulden will be a member of Tyson’s Enterprise Leadership Team. She will oversee functions including consumer and corporate branding, innovation, R&D, communications, and consumer insights and analytics.

“Melanie is an exceptional talent and a proven leader in growing global household brand businesses. She has the creative, operational, and financial experience to drive value creation across Tyson Foods’ brand portfolio,” King said in a statement.

About the Author

Pan Demetrakakes | Senior Editor

Pan has written about the food and beverage industry for more than 25 years. His areas of coverage have included formulations, processing, packaging, marketing and retailing. Pan worked for Food Processing Magazine for six years in the 1990s, where he was operations editor (his current role), touring dozens of food plants of every description. He has also worked for Packaging and Food & Beverage Packaging magazines, the latter as chief editor, during which he won three ASBPE awards. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in communications.