Cargill completes reorganization with Jon Nash appointment

Cargill has finished reorganizing its Wichita-based protein business with the appointment of Jon Nash as president of its foodservice channel, effective June 1.

Nash joined Cargill in 1998 at the company’s Schuyler, Neb., beef processing facility. He moved to its Fresno, Calif., beef processing facility in 2005 as controller and was promoted to general manager in 2013. In 2015, he moved to Wichita as operations lead for Cargill Value Added Protein, and led the operations, engineering, and environmental, health and safety teams.

He was then tapped to lead the more-than-yearlong reorganization of Cargill Protein’s strategy and structure in order to accelerate its growth.

In response to a sales slowdown in recent years caused by market forces, especially in beef, as well as longer-term trends, Cargill Protein moved from businesses organized by product and production – beef, turkey, eggs, chicken, case-ready meats, deli – to one built around customer channels.

The new structure also includes new operations and supply chain management, and marketing and innovation functions.

“It’s not just the protein business. Cargill as a whole is undergoing a global reorganization of its corporate structure,” Mike Martin, spokesman for the protein division, said Wednesday.

The reorganization included the search for a new headquarters. The company has just begun the demolition of the former Wichita Eagle building at 825 E. Douglas in order to build a $60 million headquarters on that site.

When Brian Sikes took over as group president of Cargill North American Protein in 2014, the division re-examined its business and the way it operates, Martin said. That meant talking to customers, employees, experts and others on what they wanted.

“It’s a structure that is more aligned with our customers,” Martin said. “We have a customer-first focus that really aligns with serving our customers and provides to them the products and services that helps them grow their business.

“As an example, if you are a customer and we wanted to sell beef or eggs or turkey, you would have had a variety of salespeople coming in. Now it’s more of a portfolio approach. … It was a pretty deep dive on how we want to structure the business for future success.”

Those businesses and their leaders are:

▪  Tom Windish, retail channel president, formerly head of the Cargill Food Distribution business.

▪  John Niemann, protein ingredients and international channel president, formerly head of the Cargill Turkey and Cooked Meats business.

▪  Sonya Roberts, growth ventures and strategic pricing president, formerly head of Cargill’s egg business.

▪  John Keating, business operations and supply chain president, formerly head of the Cargill Beef business.

▪  Chuck Gitkin, chief marketing officer, who recently joined Cargill from another company.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Cargill completes reorganization with Jon Nash appointment."