The restructuring and leadership refresh continues at General Mills with thethe company reorganizing into three segments – Cereal, Snacks & International; Meals & Baking Solutions; and Pet.
General Mills also named presidents for each of the new segments, who will assume the positions beginning in 2027, and established a commercial function that combines marketing, sales and consumer insights and analytics, with a focus on the company’s omnichannel business.
The reorg follows the shakeup in early October, when General Mills announced Dana McNabb would move from COO to CEO, succeeding Jeff Harmening, who will assume the role of executive chair of the board of directors beginning in 2027.
That move came about five months after McNabb was promoted to COO from her previous role at General Mills leading North America Retail and North America Pet.
General Mills in transition
The restructuring represents “another important step in General Mills’ enterprise transformation initiative, enabling faster decision-making and sharper resource prioritization,” the company said Nov. 10.
“Winning consumer choice today means responding faster to changing needs,” McNabb said. “We’re modernizing how we operate, strengthening our capabilities, and turning consumer insights into action more quickly. This new structure better aligns our leadership and resources with our highest priorities and positions us to deliver more consistent, profitable growth.”
The company noted that its new Cereal, Snacks & International segment will combine existing Big G Cereal & Canada and US Snacks units in its North America Retail (NAR) segment with the company’s International segment.
Meanwhile, the newly created Meals & Baking Solutions segment combines General Mills’ US Meals & Baking Solutions segment within NAR with the North America Foodservice segment.
General Mills’ Pet segment will remain unchanged.
New leadership at General Mills
General Mills promoted from within the company to lead the new segments, except for the Pet segment, which will continue to be led by Liz Mascolo.
Ricardo Fernandez, who currently serves as segment president of International, will oversee the Cereal, Snacks & International segment. Fernandez also previously served as president of US Morning Foods, which included General Mills’ Big G Cereal and US Yogurt businesses.
Brett White, currently president of US Meals & Baking Solutions and formerly vice president of Finance for NAR, was promoted to segment president of Meals & Baking Solutions.
Josh Yates was promoted to chief commercial officer, where he will oversee US retail sales and enterprise commercial capabilities. The segment includes strategic revenue management, e-commerce, sales and marketing. He now serves as chief customer officer, where he oversees US customer-facing sales and omnichannel execution for NAR.
He and White will join Fernandez and Mascolo on the company’s senior leadership team.
More changes to come?
The leadership team reboot could be the beginning of more changes to come in 2027 at General Mills.
McNabb said at the Barclays 19th Annual Global Consumer Conference in September that the company’s plan to spend $3 billion over the next three years will go toward further innovation at General Mills.
“If you think about a stressed consumer, changing food values, increases in GLP-1, inflation, geopolitical – you name it, we have faced it,” she said at the conference. “But what we want everyone to understand is, in the face of all these challenges, General Mills is not standing still. We are making significant changes to address the changing food landscape and to make sure that we’re serving consumers.”
