Stan McCarthy to retire as Kerry Group chief executive

Kerry Group has announced a change at the top of its management, with chief executive Stan McCarthy to retire at the end of the summer.

McCarthy will have spent almost 10 years at the head of the company when he steps down on 30 September, having taken up the role in January 2008. He will also retire as a director at year-end.

County Kerry native McCarthy, who joined the supplier 41 years ago, is set to be replaced as CEO by Edmond Scanlon – an appointment approved by the Kerry board of directors at its meeting yesterday (20 February). The chief executive designate is currently president and CEO of Kerry Asia Pacific, a role he has held since November 2013.

Scanlon joined the Richmond owner’s graduate development programme in 1996 and worked in finance until his appointment in 2004 as vice-president of finance for supply chain & operations in Kerry’s global flavours division.

In 2007, he was made vice-president of mergers & acquisitions, Americas region, before becoming global president of functional ingredients & actives in late 2008, and then president of Kerry China about four years later.

The Kerry board thanked McCarthy for his “outstanding leadership” as CEO and for his career-long contribution to the growth of the organisation, which he joined in 1976 via the graduate recruitment programme. He worked there in finance until his 1984 move to become financial controller in the US on establishment of the group’s representative office in Chicago.

Following the Cheesestrings maker’s acquisition of Beatreme in 1988, he was appointed vice-president of materials management & purchasing, before becoming vice-president of sales & marketing three years later, and then president of Kerry America in 1996. His retirement as CEO will come just days after his 60th birthday.

Also approved yesterday by the group’s board were the appointments of Gerard Culligan and Con Murphy to the board, with effect from 1 June. The two owner-operators of agribusiness firms are former directors of Kerry Co-operative Creameries.