Tyson changes

Keystone Foods buy leads to new leadership appointments.

Tyson Foods Inc. on Monday announced executive-level changes related to the purchase last fall of McDonald’s supplier Keystone Foods.

Donnie King, the former president of Tyson’s North American operations, will be Tyson’s new group president of international business. King worked at Tyson for more than 35 years in various roles before leaving the company in 2017 under the leadership of former President and CEO Tom Hayes.

Chad Martin, the current senior vice president and general manager of Tyson’s Fresh Meats beef business, will be the new group president of poultry. Martin joined IBP Inc., which became Tyson Fresh Meats, in 1996.

Doug Ramsey, the current group president of poultry, will be the newly created president of Global McDonald’s Business. Ramsey joined Tyson in 1992.

The leadership team reports directly to Tyson President and Chief Executive Officer Noel White. The appointments are ef-

fective Jan. 28.

Frank Ravndal, the president and chief executive officer of Keystone, will resign “to pursue other opportunities,” Tyson said in a news release. Ravndal will remain through March to “assist with the integration process.”

Tyson bought Keystone from Brazil-based Marfrig Global Foods in a $2.16 billion cash deal.

“Historically, Tyson’s been a very domestic company,” said Rebecca Scheuneman, a Morningstar equity analyst. “Before the acquisition they had some very small chicken operations in China and India and now they get their first sizable international business.”

Keystone has U.S. and

Asia-Pacific operations in China, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia. The deal, completed in November, includes six U.S. processing plants and eight plants along the Pacific Rim. Keystone supplies chicken, beef, fish and pork products for restaurants and retail stores.

Alan Ellstrand, associate dean of the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, saw the changes as a “kind of return to some of the more experienced people who have deeper experience with Tyson.”

“I sense that with the turnover of Tom Hayes that they are getting more to its roots, in terms of leadership,” Ellstrand said.

White went into further detail about the acquisition and upcoming changes in a memo sent to employees

Monday. He described a three-part strategy for the integration of Keystone: Bring Keystone’s U.S. operations under Tyson’s poultry business; create a new global team to work with McDonald’s; and learn from, adapt and combine Keystone’s overseas business into Tyson’s international business.

While some Keystone leaders have agreed to stay on with Tyson, others have agreed to leave. Bill Griffith, president of Keystone U.S. Proteins, and Karen Mooney, Keystone’s chief human resources

officer, will leave at the end of January, according to the memo.

The decision from Keystone executives to leave Tyson contrasts with leadership changes during the Hillshire merger, Ellstrand said.

It signals a “sort of a recognition that Tyson should be run by Tyson people,” he said.

Shares of Tyson rose 82 cents, or 1.4 percent, to close Tuesday at $58.59.