Kerry Groupt o keep with local CEO tradition

IN keeping with long standing tradition Kerry Group have promoted from within with the appointment of the Tralee based global food and ingredients giants new CEO.

Last week it was announced that current CEO Stan McCarthy is to step down in September with Edmond Scanlon to replace him in the, reportedly, €4 million a year job.

Mr Scanlon(43) hails from Brosna where he grew up on the family farm which supplied the Kerry creamery.

A father of three is currently heads Kerry group’s operations in the Asia Pacific region having relocated to Shanghai in 2012.

Edmond Scanlon – who had studied commerce and accounting at University College Cork – joined Kerry Group’s graduate programme in 1996.

He spent three years in financial roles at the company’s consumer food business, before transferring into its dairy ingredients division in Listowel.

He then moved to the US in 2004, and was later appointed VP of operations for Kerry’s supply chain and financial functions there.

He gradually moved up the ranks, leading Kerry’s busy mergers and acquisitions function for the US unit, before being appointed president of the group’s pharma business.

In 2014, he took on his current role, opening a regional headquarters for the group in Singapore in 2015.

Mr Scanlon will formally take up the chief executive role on October 1 and relocate to Kerry’s global headquarters in Tralee.

He told investors in London that he is “honoured and a privileged” to be appointed chief executive at the group, which employs 23,000 people around the world and last week reported revenues of €6.1 billion for 2016, and a €750m profit.

“Kerry Group has undergone remarkable development under Stan’s leadership…and together with my colleagues I look forward to continuing to building the Kerry Group,” said Mr Scanlon.

He will be Kerry Group’s third CEO following in the footsteps of Mr McCarthy and Denis Brosnan who was the founder of Kerry Group and chief executive and chairman until 2003.