Kraft Heinz creates new senior strategy role

The Kraft Heinz Company has named Dafne Hefner its first chief strategy and transformation officer. In this newly-created role, Hefner will help the Chicago-headquartered company accelerate its growth plan in the U.S. and Canada.

As a member of the leadership team, Hefner will lead an Agile Center of Excellence for the North America Zone and spearhead a digital agenda for the region. She will report to Carlos Abrams-Rivera, Kraft Heinz EVP and president, North America.

Hefner’s experience in the CPG industry includes high-level positions at Anheuser-Busch InBev, where she most recently served as SVP of strategy and insights and built that organization’s first internal research agency. Prior to Anheuser-Busch InBev, she co-founded a data analytics tech startup. 

“Dafne brings a tremendous amount of leadership and experience to the critical areas we’ve been building since late 2020, including digital, innovation and insights. Her proven ability to translate strategy into action, and effectively leverage agile methodologies and teams at scale, will help us deliver a best-in-class innovation agenda, operations plan and go-to-market approach,” said Abrams-Rivera, in a press release.

Hefner's appointment follows the company's recent decision to combine the U.S. and Canada businesses into a North America Zone. The company has enhanced its leadership team in the United States and Canada over the past two years to add expertise in key areas such as commercialization, marketing, sales, insights, research and development, human resources and communications.

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This article appeared at ProgressiveGrocer.com