The Dawn European & AMEAP Leadership Team

As CEO of Dawn Foods, Carrie has led Dawn to become one of the world’s premier bakery companies. She is intensely proud of Dawn’s legacy, yet focused on Dawn’s next horizon of international growth in a sustainable and profitable manner. Having started her career in medical sales, Carrie came to appreciate the true value of understanding your products completely and being able to effectively communicate their benefits to customers. This served her well upon entering Dawn in a sales role in the Florida market. She has held various cross-functional roles with progressively increasing responsibility, including CIO, where she oversaw the implementation of the company’s first global ERP system, and President of International, where she successfully led a turnaround. Carrie has introduced significant organizational change at Dawn Foods, including global strategic planning processes and change management best practices. A keen advocate of the Dawn Difference, she is a firm believer that the company’s culture spans geographic and social boundaries. Carrie loves to interact with Dawn’s customers as often as possible and, like she did as a child, enjoys taking her daughter on bakery visits.

“Dawn has the products and people that enable our customers to deliver bakery experiences that are a point of differentiation for their businesses and that will entice consumers again and again.”

Hails from: Jackson, MI

Our Greatest Asset: People. I think we do an excellent job in attracting and developing the best people. At Dawn, people can make a difference every day, and our people do.

Our Greatest Challenge: Balancing family culture with growth requirements. It is essential that we maintain the spirit of Team Dawn and the great sense of family, while changing as an organization and ensuring our growth metabolism is founded on processes and structures that maintain profitable growth.

Favorite Sports Team: Northwestern Wildcats. As dangerous as it is in my family to support anyone other than a Michigan team, I got my MBA at Kellogg.

Favorite Baked Good: Tuxedo Vortex Cake

Hobbies: Being with my family. I love cooking food from around the world with my daughter, skiing, bike riding, tennis, reading and traveling.

Favorite Food: Italian – I have a weakness for truffles!

Favorite Travel Destination: Any place with a palm tree and crystal clear water

Bob Howland is our first ever Chief Digital Officer. This new role reflects the growing importance that digital has for our customers and our company.  Bob has been a pioneer in helping companies adopt ecommerce, engage customers online, and build digital business models. Bob will leverage his leadership, insights and expertise to implement Dawn Food’s long term digital strategy and overall business model so that we can continue our tradition of innovation to support our customers around the world.

Before joining Dawn, Bob was Executive Vice President and General Manager at Blueport Commerce, the leading SaaS Cloud ecommerce platform for furniture, used by the largest retailers in North America to run their omnichannel business. Prior to Blueport, Bob has held executive management positions at various companies with the focus on business transformation and change management.  Bob is married and has 2 daughters.

“In the coming years, I see Dawn continuing to make history in the bakery industry by being the indispensable partner for our customers by offering digital solutions to meet their needs. Ultimately we want to help the industry take advantage of the digital opportunity and keep pace with the rapid digital changes taking place.”

Hails from:   New Jersey // New York

Our Greatest Asset: Being a leader today by driving digital strategy internally and externally.  Working with our regional partners to implement a global change.

Our Greatest Challenge: Digital transformation is a mind shift change. Our success will come from our team members across the organization and our customers adopting this change. Ultimately, our daily interactions with customers will allow the organization to adopt the change. It is all about the people, the processes and technology working together.

Favorite Sports Team:  College hoops (Go Duke!) and the NBA  

Favorite Baked Good:  Croissants

Hobbies:  I treasure time with my family and love to travel.  I enjoy cycling, pilates, live music, movies, discovering new artists and restaurants, and being outdoors

Favorite Food:  Chocolate, sushi, Thai food and many more!

Favorite Travel Destination:  Anywhere with an ocean/sea/lake view.

Chris joined Dawn at the end of 2015 as Cluster Director for UK & Ireland. His job is to manage the UK Commercial operation directly and support the remaining UK based functions.

His role involves driving the sales and marketing agendas and ensuring that the whole team gives outstanding customer service to our internal and external customers.

Most of his experience comes from working various FMCG companies in sales, marketing purchasing and operations roles across retail, Foodservice and manufacturing organizations.

Hails from: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our Greatest Asset: Dawn has many great assets. The people across the company in whichever area they work in do so with a passion and commitment to make sure our customers are delighted every time they eat one of our products. The products themselves which are first class and have been created over the years and which we seek to improve and develop every day.

Our Greatest Challenge: Is to keep leading this sweet bakery market. We must remain the standard that all the competitors seek to meet. So that means we need to keep on getting that little bit better in all areas every day.

Favorite Sports Team: As a proud Welshman there can only be one answer. Rugby is a religion in Wales and we come together as a nation to support the Welsh Rugby team. We have had our ups and downs over the years but the team are never short of support and to hear the crowd singing in the Millenium Stadium still gives me goosebumps.

Favorite Baked Good: Muffins

Cake or Yeast Raised Donut: Yeast Raised

Hobbies: Now I have finished playing rugby (after 23 broken or fractured bones) I have returned to mountaineering and extreme marathon’s which usually take place over mountain ranges. I also do quite a bit of swimming and cycling as I used to be a triathlete.

Favorite Food: I trained as a chef before entering business and my passion is for Italian food and fresh seafood.

Favorite Travel Destination: You have to go a long way to beat Italy. The people, the architecture and the food. My special treat to myself is to be on an Italian beach with a small fire pit cooking fresh sardines and enjoying a glass of wine as the sun goes down. Perfect!

As President of Dawn Foods Europe and AMEAP (Africa, Middle East and Asian Pacific), Steven’s role is to drive strategic and profitable growth in this region by building strong customer relationships through Dawn’s relevant product portfolio, services, strong innovation and value added concepts, helping to fulfill the mission of growing the Dawn brand globally. Steven joined Dawn in 2014, as vice president of Western Europe. Prior to joining Dawn, Steven spent most of his career with Unilever where he held positions in International Marketing and International Sales, as well as senior leadership roles. The larger part of his career he worked outside the Netherlands.

“Dawn is making a critical step in its growth strategy by moving to a true global company because we are committed to taking local market factors and cultural influences into consideration when thinking about serving our customers. By thinking Globally while implementing regionally, we will optimally combine global synergies and local opportunities. It will mean a change to the business approach, but I know that Dawn is up to this challenge.”

Hails from: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our Greatest Asset: Our greatest asset is the broadness of our portfolio and the quality of our products, specifically in dry mixes. We provide absolute value in producing the leading mixes that customers around the world appreciate. I also believe that the specific Dawn Business model, combining both production and distribution, is a real asset. The core values that stem from a family-run business help us to stand out.

Our Greatest Challenge: We have defined a strong and clear strategy for our global business, and now we must execute it with focus, dedication and 100% excellence. We are moving forward by putting a leadership structure in place and by taking a more cohesive approach to how we view the business. We are thinking globally. This is more complexity, but it will give us huge advantages long term. I know we will succeed.

Favorite Sports Team: Formula One racing, where normally I would support Team Ferrari, but now with Max Verstappen (a Dutch racing talent) joining Red Bull, I have changed.

Favorite Baked Good: Donuts

Hobbies: Beyond working, I enjoy sports like field hockey and tennis, but I hardly have the time for it. So mostly I do running to clear my mind. I typically run a 10K every run, one or two times a week. I also love to work in the garden and spend time with my family. This is the most valuable way for me to spend my time.

Favorite Food: Indonesian food

Favorite Travel Destination: I travel so much and therefore I like to be at home with my wife and two children. When I do travel then I love Spain. I lived in Barcelona for almost seven years and it is my favorite destination.