With the completion of the move of its corporate headquarters to Boulder, Boulder Brands' business model will have two centers of excellence. The corporate and leadership team will be based in Boulder. The business service center will remain in Paramus, N.J. Under the new structure, Christine Sacco, Boulder Brands' chief financial officer, will be relocating to Colorado, as will the financial planning and analysis leadership roles within the company.
In addition, the company added two operational leaders reporting to the chief operating officer, Jim Leighton. Kerin Kennedy joined Boulder Brands as senior vice president, Research & Development. Kennedy has over 25 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, with most of her work focused on natural food products. She lives in Colorado and joins Boulder Brands from Precision Kitchen Food Group, where she was owner and founder. Ken Woeste joined the company as vice president, Demand Planning. Woeste has over 27 years of experience in demand planning in food products. Woeste comes to Boulder Brands from The Hain Celestial Group, where he was senior director of Forecasting & Supply Chain Systems.
The company eliminated the roles of chief innovation officer and executive vice president for Smart Balance. Peter Dray, who served as the company's chief innovation officer, and John Becker, who served as the company's executive vice president for Smart Balance, are no longer with Boulder Brands.
With its recent acquisitions, the company is evolving its Natural and Smart Balance segments to "Natural" and "Balance," which will align with the way the company plans to operate its business commencing in the first quarter of 2014. The Natural segment will consist of Udi's, Glutino and EVOL branded products, and the Balance segment will consist of Smart Balance, Earth Balance and Level Life branded products. The brands represented in the Balance segment all represent balanced nutrition, and moving Earth Balance and Smart Balance to the same segment will help leverage the synergies between these brands given they share the same core product platform with spreads and nut butters. The company will provide revised historical quarterly segment results in the new segment format in an appendix in its 2013 fourth quarter earnings release.
The Natural segment will continue to be led by TJ McIntyre, executive vice president & general manager, Natural. The Balance segment will be led by Duane Primozich, promoted to executive vice president & general manager, Balance. Primozich has been with Boulder Brands since 2007 and has served in a variety of roles, including senior vice president & general manager, Earth Balance and senior vice president, Strategic Initiatives. He will remain a director of the Boulder Brands Investment Group. Before joining Boulder Brands, Primozich was with a number of Boulder-based natural foods companies over the past 15 years and co-founded a specialty tea company.
In conjunction with the announcements above, the company reaffirmed its 2013 outlook and expects results to be at the high-end of its previously stated ranges. As a result, the company expects results, which will be reported on February 27, to be in-line with consensus estimates for the fourth quarter.
Commenting on the announcements, chairman and chief executive officer Stephen Hughes stated, "We are excited to share our long-term vision with investors at our upcoming analyst day on March 5. With this vision come necessary changes to support the long-term growth of Boulder Brands. Having all of our key leadership decision makers in Boulder and better aligning our businesses for continued growth, should allow us to realize greater efficiencies as an organization."
