大食品行业CEO为何组团外逃

在过去一年半的时间里，食品行业的猎头人士们忙得可是不亦乐乎。

这一阶段始于2016年5月，马克•斯马克成为自家果酱果冻公司JM斯马克首席执行官的时候，他取代了已经在这个职位上坐了15年的叔叔。随后，大肉食行业在当年秋天出现了一系列管理层更迭——首先是10月份Hormel Foods公司CEO易主，泰森食品则在12月份步其后尘。最后，全食超市联和首席执行官沃尔特•罗布在2016年底正式离职，留下约翰•麦基在这家高档天然食品超市独挑大梁。同一天，在雀巢干了八年多CEO的保罗•巴尔克卸任。

随着时间的推移，高管陆续离职，而且其中一些堪称这个行业的勇士。今年春天，首席执行官穆泰康在可口可乐处于顶峰之际卸任，他在这个位置上待了八年多；5月底，通用磨坊食品公司CEO肯•鲍威尔也为自己10年的任期画上了句号；大约两个月后，生产奥利奥饼干、吉百利巧克力和清至口香糖的亿滋国际CEO艾琳•罗森菲尔德宣布自己计划退休，她在这家年销售额260亿美元（1708亿元人民币）的休闲食品巨擘担任CEO的时间已经超过10年。

截至8月底，上市食品制造和零售领域已有17位CEO在差不多17个月的时间里离职或公布了离职意向。Bernstein分析师艾莉西亚•霍华德说：“在这么短的时间有这么多人离职，这种局面堪称前所未有。”

这是巧合吗？还是说它表明规模近1万亿美元（6.57万亿元人民币）的美国食杂行业要出大事？答案或许是两者皆有可能。有些CEO是大食品行业老手，他们只是在自己接近65岁时按正常的权利交接程序行事。但在过去几年里，他们也一直承受着巨大的压力。咨询公司AlixPartners董事总经理大卫•加菲尔德指出：“这个行业的CEO遇到了历史上最大的挑战。他们面对的是前所未有的变化。”霍华德相信，CEO组团离职显然和大食品行业景气度下降有关。她说，和她交流过的那些前行业高管告诉她“情况真的变了，在那个当口他们的态度都比较公正，而且都说局势确实很棘手。”

一方面，以往的方法已经不再起作用。这批离职CEO是在大品牌如日中天的时候一路走上职业巅峰的。波士顿咨询集团合伙人吉姆•布伦南认为，这个阶段的“致胜模式”就是生产和广告的规模效应，再加上每年的人口增长带来的动力。

但正如霍华德所说，在过去10年中，这个“历来都安全又稳定的独立行业”变得远不像以前那样了。比如说，购物者开始回避超市中间的食杂区，回避那些罐装或盒装产品及其包含的人工色素、人工香精和防腐剂，同时开始青睐放在周围的生鲜产品。消费者，特别是商家最想争取的80、90后，想购买自己眼中的天然食品。无论怎样调整生产工艺，大食品领域中的企业似乎都无法让购物者相信它们的产品有了变化。霍华德说：“消费者已经失去了对老牌食品的信任。因此，我们看到的情况是大型包装食品厂商受到了全方位的冲击。”

如果说这场战争的一个焦点是大食品企业的产品里有什么，那么另一个焦点则是它们销售产品的方式。为了对付闯入美国市场后大举扩张的折扣零售商，比如德国的Aldi和Lidl，超市一直在对供应商施压，要求后者降价。在决定零售业未来的对决中，沃尔玛和亚马逊采取了同样的策略。今年夏天，亚马逊进一步加大了赌注——斥资137亿美元（900亿元人民币）收购全食超市，这让大食品行业的CEO们更睡不着觉了。完成收购后第一时间，亚马逊就开始迅速下调主要商品的价格。对此，老牌公司CEO没有什么好的对策可选。波士顿咨询集团的布伦南说：“你必须调整商品结构，否则就是死路一条。”

和绿色果汁成为消费者新宠相比，更让大食品行业CEO感到担心的只有一样东西，那就是3G Capital。这家巴西私募集团已经成了徘徊在这个行业上空的幽灵。

借用《财富》杂志高级自由编辑杰奥夫•科尔文的描述，收购亨氏并将其与卡夫食品合并后，3G Capital立即进行了一场“削减成本闪电战”。现在，卡夫亨氏已经成为利润率最高的大食品公司，从而向某些人证明管理团队应该可以提高利润，而且不受巨大行业压力的影响。高管猎头公司Russell Reynolds Associates董事总经理安德鲁•海斯说：“从那以后公司一直都很紧张。它们担心自己可能成为下一个目标，而且试着像3G Capital那样进行自我调整，以此作为预防措施。”年销售额580亿美元（3811亿元人民币）的联合利华发现自己处在这场3G Capital风暴的中心，原因是卡夫亨氏今年2月对这家英荷合资公司发起了要约收购。尽管董事会直截了当地拒绝了此事，但联合利华随后确实采取了措施来压缩开支并提高盈利能力。但在包装食品领域，3G Capital的威胁依然存在。食品行业资深人士艾伦•默里在大食品和初创领域都有经营经验。他解释说，3G Capital“可以用非常冷漠和冷静的方式来削减成本”，而这些公司的很多管理者是一级一级升上来的，所以“他们没办法像3G Capital那样冷酷地砍掉成本。”

这是食品中最难去除的元素

泰森食品和Campbell's Foodservice首席执行官都这样认为。

维权投资者已经表明，如果老牌食品公司不主动采用3G Capital的模式，他们就会采取必要措施来迫使后者就范。这些年来，纳尔逊•佩尔茨的对冲基金Trian一直在要求吉百利、亨氏、百事可乐、达能和亿滋国际做出改变，而比尔•阿克曼的潘兴广场基金也持有这些公司的股份。Jana Partners敦促全食超市做出调整，进而使这家食杂超市接受了亚马逊的收购。同时，丹尼尔•勒布的Third Point最近披露自己已经参股雀巢。AlixPartners的加菲尔德说：“这个行业没有什么区域或地方是不对维权投资者开放的。”就连拥有最受欢迎品牌、规模最大的公司现在也是可以攻击的对象。

行业资深人士指出，在这种情况下，公司董事会无疑会鼓励一些CEO早早离职。以泰森食品为例，该公司已经表示汤姆•海斯有可能接替长期担任CEO的唐尼•史密斯。《华尔街日报》则报道，交接工作“已经提速，部分原因是业绩前景更为黯淡。”（泰森食品严词否认了这种说法，它在声明中表示，此项决定“和公司的业绩前景毫无关系，实际上公司的业绩前景非常乐观。宣布史密斯离职的消息时，泰森食品的年度业绩刚刚创下纪录。同时，该公司预计2017财年的表现还会再创新高，而且目前正在朝着这个目标顺利迈进。”）

其他CEO则可能就是筋疲力尽了。亿滋国际的罗森菲尔德不得不应付两名维权投资者。宣布退休计划后，她在《财富》杂志的一次采访中曾两次表示，自己很高兴跟这个没有头的工作说再见：“我不会想念那些永不停息而且必须要做的‘救火’工作。” 石原农场董事长加里•赫什伯格说：“现在的困难要大得多。他们不仅仅是被迫离开。他们也累了。现在干这一行并不轻松。”今年8月，达能把石原农场转让给了法国乳制品公司Lactalis。默里透露，跟他合作的一位上市公司CEO曾提出过这样的请求：“他说，‘艾尔，我已经累了。把我弄出去吧，体面地弄出去。’”

那么，董事会可能会选谁来填补这些越来越有挑战性的职位呢？实际情况表明，继任者和那些离职的CEO非常像。几家高管猎头公司表示，虽然董事会在招人时变得更加严格，但在大多数情况下他们还是会挑选内部人士。瑞士信贷银行分析师罗伯特•莫斯科说：“让我感到意外的是董事会挑的人就是现有管理团队的成员，而且是不会显著背离既定策略的人。”以可口可乐的詹姆斯•昆西和通用磨坊的杰弗里•哈梅宁为例，升任CEO前，两人都在各自的公司待了20多年。赫什伯格说，有些公司“对在自身文化中成长起来的人感到放心，后者要非常忠诚和小心，但那不一定意味着他们会成为最好的增长引擎。”

有那么几家公司不落窠臼。汤姆•海斯2014年随着被收购的Hillshire Brands进入泰森食品。和选择公司老人相比，人们认为选他做CEO接班人是比较激进的做法。亿滋国际选的是加拿大冷冻薯条制造商McCain Foods首席执行官德克•范德普特，同样出乎行业观察人士意料。同时，雀巢的新CEO是来自医疗保健领域的“外行”，这也被视为令人震惊而又大胆的选择。

不过，这个行业的大部分思路依然狭隘。管理咨询公司柯尔尼（A.T. Kearney）零售行业首席合伙人格雷格•波特利说：“如果把大食品和零售相比，那么零售是个炙手可热的行业，甚至热得发烫。因此他们开始从外面找那些真的有不同见解的人。”星巴克远没有经历过其他同类公司那样的磨难，CEO霍华德•舒尔茨则亲自把科技行业资深人士凯文•约翰逊指定为自己的继任者。舒尔茨今年春天对我说：“我觉得我在内心里已经意识到自己充分相信凯文在把控星巴克的未来方面会比我更合适。”

这批新CEO或许要为较短的任期做好准备。策略咨询公司Kotter International总监戈拉夫•古普塔说：“改变的步伐加快了这么多。现在企业的需求和五年之后的需求会大相径庭。”默里认为，这会引发第二轮CEO离职潮，而且新的CEO就不那么像是从同一个模子中刻出来的了。他说：“60岁的人把指挥棒交给同一所学校培养出来的50岁的人。那他能让需要做出的改变成为现实吗？如今人们的耐心已经少了很多。”

人们担心，当第二波离职潮到来时，将找不到填补这些位置的人才。大食品的严重滑坡已经造成业内公司对应届MBA的吸引力显著下降。这些企业也将不再是可以创新的领域。更糟糕的是，新一茬的少壮派甚至有可能对自己吃什么不感兴趣。

译者：Charlie

审稿：夏林

The past year and a half has been open season for headhunters in the food industry.

It started back in May 2016 when Mark Smucker became CEO of the family’s namesake jams and jellies maker, replacing his uncle who had served in the top job for 15 years. Then that fall, a wave of leadership change began at Big Meat: First Hormel orchestrated a passing of the chief executive baton in October, and Tyson followed in December. At the end of the year Whole Foods co-CEO Walter Robb officially stepped down, leaving John Mackey as the high-end grocer’s sole head honcho. That same day, Paul Bulcke abdicated at Nestlé after eight-plus years on the throne.

As the months progressed so did the departures—and among them some of the industry’s lions. Muhtar Kent left his post at the pinnacle of Coca-Cola this spring after more than eight years on the job; Ken Powell did the same at General Mills at the end of May as he crept up on a decade tenure; and some two months later Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld announced her plans to retire from the maker of Oreo, Cadbury, and Trident after more than 10 years as the head of the $26 billion snacking giant.

By the end of August, 17 CEOs of public Big Food manufacturers and retailers had departed, or announced their intention to, in almost as many months. “This is a pretty unprecedented situation where you see that level of turnover in such a short space of time,” says Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard.

Mondelez’s Rosenfeld announced in August she would step down as CEO this fall. She began her reign as head of Kraft, where she spun off the North American grocery business in 2012 to create the global snacking giant with remaining powerhouse brands like Cadbury, Oreo, and Nabisco crackers. Romain Gaillard—REA/Redux

Is this coincidence, or evidence of some meaningful moment in the nearly $1 trillion U.S. grocery industry? The answer may be a bit of both. Some of the CEOs were Big Food veterans just following the normal course of succession as they approached the age of 65. But for years now they had also been under an enormous amount of pressure. “There’s never been a time that’s more challenging for a CEO in the industry,” says David Garfield of consultancy AlixPartners. “They’re facing unprecedented change.” Howard believes the rash of departures is clearly linked to the deterioration in the broader Big Food climate. The former industry executives she talks to are telling her “it’s really changed,” Howard says. “They’re relatively unbiased at this point, and they’re saying it’s really tough out there.”

For one thing, the old tricks of the trade have stopped working. The outgoing class of CEOs rose up through the ranks during the glory days of big brands, a period when what Boston Consulting Group partner Jim Brennan calls the “model for winning” came simply from economies of scale in manufacturing and advertising, plus an annual boost from population growth.

But over the past decade, this “historically safe, stable insular industry,” as Howard deems it, became much less so. For one thing, shoppers started avoiding the center of the supermarket, eschewing the canned and boxed offerings—and the artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives inside them—in favor of the perimeter’s fresh fare. Consumers, and in particular those coveted millennials, wanted what they considered natural goods. No matter what Big Food does to reengineer its products, they can’t seem to convince shoppers that anything has changed. “Consumers have lost trust in legacy food products,” says Howard. “As a result we’re seeing big packaged-food companies attacked from all sides.”

If one side of the battle is what’s in Big Food’s products, the other is how they’re being sold. To compete with the aggressive expansion of discounters in the U.S. like German entrants Aldi and Lidl, supermarkets have pressured their suppliers to slash prices. Walmart and Amazon are following the same playbook as they face off in a battle over the future of retail. Amazon further upped the ante—and the sleepless nights for Big Food CEOs—when it acquired Whole Foods this summer for $13.7 billion. It promptly slashed prices on key items the day the deal closed. This has all left legacy CEOs with some dire choices. “You have to reshape the portfolio,” says Boston Consulting’s Brennan, “or you’re going to die.”

The only thing more worrisome to Big Food CEOs than consumers’ new penchant for green juice is 3G Capital. The Brazilian private equity group is the specter looming over the industry.

When 3G acquired Heinz and subsequently merged it with Kraft, it immediately implemented what Fortune’s Geoff Colvin has described in these pages as a “blitzkrieg of cost cutting.” Kraft Heinz now has the highest margins among its Big Food brethren, proving to some that management teams should be able to increase earnings despite the sector’s intense pressures. “Companies have been on edge ever since,” says Andrew Hayes of executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. “They’re concerned that they might be the next victim and have tried to 3G themselves to preempt it.” The $58 billion Unilever found itself in the eye of the 3G storm when Kraft Heinz made an unsolicited bid for the Anglo-Dutch company in February. Though Unilever’s board roundly rejected the overture, the company did later move to cut spending and improve profitability. But in the packaged-goods realm, the Brazilian threat remains. 3G is “able to cut costs in a very unemotional and clinical way,” explains food industry veteran Alan Murray, who has operated in both the Big Food and startup worlds. Since much of the industry’s management has come up through the ranks, “they cannot cut as brutally,” he says.

This Is The Most Difficult Ingredient to Remove From Food

Tyson and Campbell's CEOs agree.

If legacy food companies don’t adopt the 3G model themselves, activist investors have shown they will do what they have to in order to force the company’s hand. Nelson Peltz’s Trian has agitated for change over the years at Cadbury, Heinz, PepsiCo, Danone, and Mondelez, where Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square has also held a stake. Jana Partners pushed for a shake up at Whole Foods, which led the grocer to its deal with Amazon. Meanwhile Daniel Loeb’s Third Point recently disclosed a stake in Nestlé. “There is no quadrant or zip code in the industry that’s off-limits to activists,” says Garfield of AlixPartners. Even the biggest companies with the most cherished brands are now fair game.

Amid this backdrop some CEOs were no doubt encouraged by their boards to leave early, industry veterans say. Tyson, for example, had signaled that Tom Hayes would likely succeed longtime CEO Donnie Smith, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the transition was “expedited partly because of the dimmer outlook on profit.” (Tyson vehemently denies this characterization, saying in a statement that the decision “had nothing to do with the company’s profit outlook, which was very positive. When his departure was announced, Tyson Foods had just completed a record year, and we were projecting a record fiscal 2017, which we’re on track to attain.”)

But others may simply have been worn out. Rosenfeld, who had to deal with two activist investors at Mondelez, told Fortune twice in an interview upon the announcement of her retirement that she was happy to say goodbye to the nonstop nature of the job: “I won’t miss the 24/7 fires that have to be fought.” “It’s getting a lot harder,” says Stonyfield chairman Gary Hirshberg, whose company was sold by Danone in August to French dairy Lactalis. “They’re not just getting forced out. They’re tired. It’s not an easy business now.” Murray says he was working with a public company CEO who had one request: “He said, ‘Al, this is not fun anymore. Get me out of here. Get me out of here elegantly.’ ”

So who could boards possibly select to fill these increasingly challenging roles? It turns out they look a lot like their predecessors. Several executive search firms said that while boards are being more rigorous in their search process, they are still for the most part selecting insiders. “What surprises me is the board is putting in people who are part of the existing management team, who will not depart radically from the pre-existing strategy,” says Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow. Take Coca-Cola’s James Quincey and General Mills’ Jeffrey Harmening, who both were at their companies for more than 20 years before taking the top job. Some companies are “comfortable with somebody who grew up in their culture who is going to be very loyal and careful,” says Hirshberg. “That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be the best engine of growth.”

A few companies have broken the mold. The selection of Hayes, who joined Tyson in 2014 through its acquisition of Hillshire Brands, was considered more radical than going with a company lifer. Mondelez surprised industry watchers with its pick of Dirk Van de Put, CEO of Canadian frozen french-fry company McCain Foods. And Nestlé’s new CEO, an outsider and health care executive, was considered a shocking and bold choice.

The industry, however, is still thinking mostly inside the box. “If we compare Big Food to retail, retail is a sector that’s on fire, and it’s burning. Therefore they’re bringing in people from the outside who can really take a different view,” says Greg Portell, lead partner in the retail practice at A.T. Kearney. Howard Schultz of Starbucks, which hasn’t even suffered close to the trials of the rest of the industry, hand-picked tech veteran Kevin Johnson to replace him. “I think I had my own private moment of realizing I honestly believed that Kevin would be better suited to run the future of Starbucks than myself,” Schultz told me this spring.

This new batch of CEOs may want to prepare itself for a shorter tenure at the top. “The pace of change is increasing so much,” says Gaurav ¬Gupta of strategy firm Kotter International. “What business needs today and five years from now are going to be dramatically different.” Murray believes that will lead to a second wave of CEO turnover in which the next generation isn’t made quite so much in the same mold. “The 60-year-old guy passes the baton to the 50-year-old guy who’s grown up at the same school. Can he effect the changes that need to take place?” he posits. “The patience is now much shorter.”

When that second wave comes, there’s concern there won’t be the talent to fill it. The Big Food slump has made the industry’s companies far less sexy for graduating MBAs. They’ll no longer be the innovative place to go. And even worse, this new crop of young guns might not even be interested in their food.