Dawn Foods names new chief financial officer, expands role for chief digital officer

Dawn Foods has made several changes to its executive leadership team.

Jennifer Cloherty has joined the company as chief financial officer. She succeeds Karl Brown, who has moved into an advisory role for Dawn.

Cloherty most recently was CFO at Kellogg North America, where she was also the executive sponsor for the Kellogg African American Resource Group and the Kellogg Veterans Group. Prior to Kellogg, she held financial leadership roles with Aptiv, Owens Corning, and GE. She spent 19 years with GE and held numerous operational and commercial finance roles across the United States and Europe.

“Jennifer is an exceptional financial leader with great long-term vision, and I am proud to have her join the Dawn leadership team,” says Carrie Jones-Barber, chief executive officer of Dawn. “I am confident she will continue to build and develop the wonderful talent we have within our financial organization and partner with our leaders to drive the strategic, operational, and financial performance of our global business.”

Brown, who joined Dawn in 2000, has held a variety of financial and commercial leadership roles and was heavily involved in the development and significant growth of Dawn’s international business. For the past five years, he also has led the global IT team. He will work with Cloherty over the next few months as she transitions into her new role.

“I thank Karl for his incredible leadership, counsel and friendship over the years and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role with Dawn,” Jones-Barber says.

Dawn also has expanded the responsibilities of the company’s current chief digital officer, Bob Howland. Howland now will also lead the development and implementation of Dawn’s long-term digital and information technology strategy to ensure Dawn continues to provide best-in-class solutions for its teams and customers. He has been with Dawn since 2019. Earlier he was executive vice president and general manager of Blueport Commerce. He also has worked at Spencer Partners, Affiliated Distributors, Radial Inc., Vanguard, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, General Electric and American Express.

“Bob has done a tremendous job transforming our business through best-in-class digital solutions that benefit both our team members and our customers,” Jones-Barber says. “Our digital and IT teams already work closely together on technology infrastructure and cyber security projects, which are critical to help protect our systems and data. Bringing together these two organizations under Bob's leadership further strengthens our team and aligns with our strategic ambitions for the business.”