General Mills CEO and leadership

Jeffrey L. Harmening is president and chief executive officer of General Mills, having taken over from Ken Powell in June 2017. He served as Chief Operating Officer of General Mills, Inc. since July 1, 2016 until May 31, 2017.

As Chief Innovation, Technology and Quality Officer, Jodi Benson is responsible for the invention and commercialization of new food products and technologies which provide increasingly higher levels of well-being, ease and joy to meet consumers evolving food values.

Most recently, Benson served as leader for our integrated ITQ Centers of Excellence, focused on the broad set of capabilities most critical for General Mills’ ongoing success, such as Food Safety, Nutrition, Scientific & Regulatory Affairs as well as Product Design & Innovation. It is the mission of this team to turn possibilities into realities.

Benson has held multiple positions within ITQ which include leading the International Growth Team, living in France while leading the Global Fresh Dairy for Yoplait and Häagen-Dazs, Baking and Strategy & Innovation. Benson joined General Mills in 1990 as a Scientist II in R&D in the Pillsbury Division.

Benson received her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and Polymer Chemistry from the University of Minnesota.

She has represented General Mills on the Häagen-Dazs Japan Board of Directors, the GMI Benefits Advisory committee and today serves on the General Mills Foundation Board of Trustees, 301 INC Board of Advisors, the Cereal Partners Worldwide Board of Directors, and the World Food Programme Board.

As a chief human resources officer, Jacqueline Williams-Roll is responsible for the development of the global people and organizational strategies to enable the growth of General Mills. Her goal is to inspire General Mills’ talent and teams to deliver winning performance through purpose, development and connection.

Williams-Roll joined the company in 1995 and has held human resources leadership roles in Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing and Talent and Organization Effectiveness.

Williams-Roll has worked a large part of her career on businesses outside of the United States, including an assignment based in Switzerland in which she led human resources for Europe, Middle East and North Africa, and as vice president of human resources for the international segment.

Before joining General Mills, she held sales and management roles with Jenny Craig International.

Williams-Roll is a member of the Human Resources Policy Association, the Center on Executive Compensation, the Peer Roundtable for CHROs and the Center for Executive Succession.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University and Master’s degree from University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. She serves on the board of the University of Minnesota Foundation as Chair of the Human Resources Committee, and she is on the board of the Human Resources Policy Association. She also serves as a member of the Carlson School HR Advisory Council.

Kofi Bruce is our Chief Financial Officer. He assumed his current role in February 2020 after serving as Vice President of our Financial Operations since September 2019. Prior to that, Bruce was Vice President, Controller.

Bruce joined the Company in 2009 as Vice President, Treasurer after serving in a variety of senior management positions with Ecolab and Ford Motor Company. He served as Treasurer until 2010 when he was named Vice President, Finance for Yoplait. Bruce reassumed his role as Vice President, Treasurer from 2012 until 2014 when he was named Vice President, Finance for Convenience Stores & Foodservice. He served in that role until he was named Vice President, Controller.

Jaime Montemayor is chief digital and technology officer for General Mills. He has oversight for the IT and Technology Solutions teams and is responsible for leading General Mills digital transformation efforts, including new capabilities that will advance innovation and speed to market.

Montemayor joined General Mills with over 20 years of experience in the technology space, having held leadership positions at 7-Eleven and PepsiCo.

During his time with PepsiCo, Montemayor led multiple IT-enabled business transformations, spearheaded the development of the analytics-at-scale strategy and deployed innovative capabilities to better prepare the company for future retail and consumer trends. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and chief information officer, Digital Innovation, Data and Analytics where he was responsible for the enterprise commercial, innovation and data and analytics teams.

Montemayor’s career has been global and multicultural with a focus on developing talent and building strong teams across many geographies including North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

A graduate of ITESM (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico), Montemayor began his technology career at Oracle Corporation, before holding leadership roles at Booz Allen & Hamilton and PepsiCo. He received his Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1988 and serves on the board of trustees for Northwestern Mutual.

Jeffrey L. Harmening is president and chief executive officer of General Mills, having taken over from Ken Powell in June 2017. He served as Chief Operating Officer of General Mills, Inc. since July 1, 2016 until May 31, 2017.