Kirk Tanner, CEO of Wendy’s, has been chosen to lead Hershey.
The event takes place in Miami, Florida, USA, on Friday, January 31, 2020. Kirk Tanner, who was CEO of North America Beverages for PepsiCo Inc. at the time, offers his thoughts.
As of August 18, Kirk Tanner, the CEO of Wendy’s, has been named the new CEO of The Hershey Company.
Michele Buck is leaving after almost 20 years at Hershey, including almost eight years as CEO. Tanner will take her place.
Tanner started working at Wendy’s in 2024 after more than 30 years at PepsiCo, where he led the North American beverages business. He is going back to work with consumer packaged goods with his new job at Hershey.
According to a press release released Tuesday by Mary Kay Haben, director and chair of Hershey’s CEO search committee, Kirk is a proven, high-impact leader in the food and beverage industry who has a great mix of customer and consumer passion, business sense, and practical scale. “His broad experience in snacks, drinks, mergers and acquisitions, and new ideas, along with his roles as CEO and board member of a public company, makes him a good choice to lead Hershey into the future.”
Buck first told Hershey that she was leaving the company at the start of the year. She will still work for Hershey as a consultant until the end of the year.
Wendy’s has tapped CFO Ken Cook to take over as CEO until Tanner steps down on July 18. Cook has been CFO since 2024. Before that, he held important jobs at UPS.
The board of Wendy’s has started looking for a stable replacement.
