Mark Smucker

Mark Timothy Smucker (born December 30, 1969) is an American businessman who has been the president and CEO of The J.M. Smucker Company since May 2016. He is the fifth-generation member of the Smucker family to lead the business, a now publicly traded Fortune 500 company encompassing coffee, packaged food, and pet food, headquartered in Orrville, Ohio.

Prior to his appointment as CEO, he had held executive positions since 2001 in the company's Canadian, international, special markets, coffee, consumer foods, and natural foods divisions, and had been a member of its board of directors since 2009. He had been in managerial positions at the company from 1997 to 2001.

Early life and education Smucker was born in 1969, and the great-great-grandson of Jerome Monroe Smucker, who had founded The J.M. Smucker Company (Smucker's) in 1897. He grew up in Orrville, Ohio, where the company is headquartered. Family members who wanted an executive career at the company were also expected to try something else first for at least two years, and to get a master's degree.

Smucker attended Orrville High School, graduating in 1988. He began composing electronic music in high school,

He attended the College of William & Mary, receiving a BS in geology with a minor in English in 1992. In 1996 he received a Master of International Management degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona.

Career Early career After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1992, Smucker enrolled in the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, and had an internship in Mexico City one summer which also took him to Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile. becoming general manager and managing director of Smucker do Brasil

Executive roles In November 2001, he was elected a vice president of Smucker's and appointed general manager of its international market, and he returned to the U.S. in 2002. and was strengthening its focus on its much larger-scale businesses in North America, In May 2006 he became vice president, international and managing director, Canada, and in July 2007 he became vice president, international. In January 2009, he was also elected to the company's board of directors. In this role he oversaw coffee brands including Folger's, Millstone Coffee, Café Bustelo, and Dunkin’ Donuts. and after his cousin Paul Smucker Wagstaff resigned from the company, Smucker was elected president of both the consumer foods and natural foods divisions.

CEO In March 2016, the company announced, in a planned leadership transition, that Mark Smucker would become president and CEO effective May 1, succeeding his uncle Richard K. Smucker, who had been CEO since 2011 and co-CEO with Mark's father Timothy P. Smucker from 2001 to 2011. Under his leadership, in 2018 the company acquired Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, the parent company of Rachael Ray's Nutrish line of dog and cat food, and sold off its dry baking-mixes business as consumers moved away from cake-mix brands towards buying fresh baked goods and healthier foods.

In his first four years as CEO, Smucker modernized the company's marketing and communications. He focused the company on interacting more closely with consumers by: establishing one-on-one connections between consumers and brands via extensive use of social media and other avenues, In November 2019, the company announced a number of executive leadership changes designed to streamline decision-making and enable greater agility.

In 2019, Smucker updated the company's purpose statement to meet changing consumer and societal dynamics, by gathering a diverse cross-section of 40 of its 7,000 employees from all ranks and departments, together with a consulting firm, for brainstorming. This resulted in a new purpose statement, "Feeding connections that help us thrive – life tastes better together", which he has stated refers to making connections between people and communities, business and communities, and business and the planet. In 2014, two years before he became CEO, the company had detailed three specific six-year environmental goals it aimed to achieve by 2020. Under Smucker's leadership the company achieved the first two goals a year early, by July 2019; the two benchmarks were diverting 95% of waste which would have gone to landfills; and reducing water use by 15%. By 2019, the company had also supported thousands of individual coffee farmers in sustainable practices, and sponsored efforts, via cross-breeding, to develop new varieties of arabica coffee that can withstand global warming.

Board memberships In addition to being on the board of directors of The J. M. Smucker Company, Smucker is on the boards of directors of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the Consumer Brands Association, and the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

He is on the advisory board of the LeBron James Family Foundation, and is on the Thunderbird Global Alumni Network Advisory Council at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Personal life Smucker lives in Akron, Ohio. He met his wife Katie during his work stint in Argentina in the late 1990s; at the time she was an American expat working in Mexico City and was on a business trip to Argentina. The couple married in 2000, and have two children.

He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. His hobbies include deejaying house music.