The Dawn 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

As CFO, Karl is the steward of Dawn’s financial health, leveraging his decades of knowledge and international experience to ensure a secure future for the company. Karl leads the financing/accounting, audit, accounts receivable, accounts payable, credit and collections teams. Karl works across regions and functions to improve Dawn’s global management of our capital resources, with the goal of driving efficiencies and improved processes. In his 15 years with Dawn, he has held various financial and commercial leadership roles, most notably being heavily involved in the development and significant growth of our international business. He brings extensive international experience with Dawn and in previous roles with publicly listed companies in the agri-food sector. Karl is married with three children.

“Dawn is at an important point where our global capabilities are developing to facilitate growth and move us forward into true international leadership.”

Hails from: Southampton in the UK (however, I consider myself half Swedish and half English because of my family roots)

Our Greatest Asset: The people within Dawn and the heritage and authenticity in bakery are our greatest assets. We are experts in bakery, meaning our people understand and appreciate the business we are in and excel at sharing that passion and knowledge with our customers and partners.

Our Greatest Challenge: Dawn is now staged to grow to the next level. To succeed at this, we need to prepare our business to hit our growth targets. We can only accomplish this with communication and clarity of our strategy, as well as establishing the right processes and enablers, and I believe we are well on our way to doing this.

Favorite Sports Team: South Hampton Football Club “The Saints”

Favorite Baked Good: A good sourdough bread. However, my favorite sweet baked good is a glazed donut.

Hobbies: I enjoy cycling, both road and mountain biking. I try to do this as often as I can, typically two to three times a week. Generally, I am also into sports and music, all genres and sorts, but particularly rock and blues. I also play the guitar.

Favorite Food: Fish and seafood. I try to eat healthy, so lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Favorite Travel Destination: By far, my favorite destination is our holiday home in Sweden. It’s by a lake and a great place to relax and enjoy with my family.

As President of LATAM, Emilio is responsible for leading the business for the Latin American region. He views his primary opportunity as pursuing regional growth and doing it with the right profitability to achieve the company’s strategic growth plan. Emilio manages more than 600 team members focused on all the functions of the Dawn Foods business and servicing a wide variety of customers. Emilio has been at Dawn Foods for one year. Prior to joining Dawn, he was with Cargill for 11 years as the President of Cargill Mexico.

“I’m eager to provide a global perspective to our business and leverage our strong tradition in bakery to connect with our customers.”

Hails from: Mexico City, Mexico

Our Greatest Asset: Dawn’s greatest asset is our expertise around baking that comes from our heritage and time we have been in the bakery business. This tradition allows us to connect with customers in ways that other companies cannot.

Our Greatest Challenge: Also related to our heritage, we need to focus on leveraging that tradition but positioning ourselves for the future. It’s a challenge to remember what makes you unique and at the same time continue pushing into a more global, modern way of engaging our customers.

Favorite Sports Team: Real Madrid

Favorite Baked Good: Croissants

Hobbies: I love to cycle, both mountain and road cycling. I get out as much as I can. I also like to cook (mostly savory), travel with the family and enjoy trying out new foods.

Favorite Food: There is so much to love! I love anything on the grill — but it has to be charcoal, not gas!

Favorite Travel Destination: I enjoy renting a place for my family in the middle of anywhere, without knowing what to expect. I call them “let’s see what we find” vacations.

After a successful career at Barilla where she managed the brand for the growing pasta business in the U.S., Angie joined Dawn Foods to strategically guide North American marketing. Now, as Chief Marketing Officer, Angie is taking her cross-channel and category expertise in North America and applying it to innovation and marketing best practices globally. Angie is passionate about the central role Dawn’s products play in consumers' sweetest moments every day, believes in the importance of gaining a deep understanding of customer needs, and wants to ensure we are delivering the products and services that matter.

“We are the bakery expert. Our understanding of market dynamics and our customers ensures we can offer innovative solutions needed to build their business in a meaningful way.”

Hails from: Nashville, TN

Our Greatest Asset: Our greatest asset is our heritage. For over ninety-six years we have focused on our people, delivering the best products that ensure the success of our customers. We put these simple rules at the center of all we do, we always have and always will. I believe this differentiates us in the industry and ensures that we keep focused on building shared success.

Our Greatest Challenge: We are focused on growing as a global organization while ensuring we are meeting the needs of our local customers. We are challenging ourselves to think differently while maintaining a relentless emphasis on People, Products and Customers.

Favorite Sports Team: Tennessee Titans

Favorite Baked Good: Croissant

Hobbies: My favorite time is that spent with my family. I also love to travel and consider myself a "foodie," always looking for new restaurants and experiences wherever I go. I enjoy yoga and Pilates.

Favorite Food: Guacamole

Favorite Travel Destination: Italy. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit a few times. My favorite trip was two weeks traveling throughout the country, visiting small towns and villages and enjoying local food and culture. It was an amazing experience!

Bob Howland recently joined Dawn Foods as a member of the Dawn Leadership Team in the newly created role of Chief Digital Officer. With over 20 years of digital experience, Bob has been a pioneer in driving transformational solutions throughout his career. Bob will leverage his leadership, insights and expertise to implement Dawn Food’s long term digital vision, strategy and ecommerce business 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 implementing digital solutions. 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.

With over 25 years of experience in the food manufacturing industry, Gabrielle leverages her strong leadership skills and operational expertise to drive efficiency and effectiveness across Dawn’s manufacturing plants.  As a member of the Dawn Leadership Team, Gabrielle is focused on developing and implementing consistent processes and calibrated systems throughout Dawn’s global manufacturing footprint.

Her passion for leading, collaborating and connecting with people has led her to develop strong, cross-functional teams, which have delivered powerful results. Joining Dawn in 2012 as Vice President of Operations in Europe & AMEAP (Africa, Middle East and Asian Pacific), Gabrielle contributed to significantly increasing Dawn’s operational efficiency, improved quality assurance and ensured that the safety of Team Members was always put first.

Gabrielle lives in the Netherlands and enjoys spending time with her family. She especially loves to go horseback riding with her daughter in the forest near their home. 

“My passion is all about leadership; achieving results by connecting people. In my global role, I look forward to delivering this passion throughout the World of Dawn and taking us to the next level.”

Hails from: The Netherlands

Our Greatest Asset: Our people, our culture, our teams.

Our Greatest Challenge: We have a great example of diversity in culture and gender, so like any other big global company, communication and understanding of these cultural differences is crucial for our success.

Favorite Sports Team/Figure: Max Verstappen (Belgian-Dutch Formula One racing driver), what a talent – no fear.

Favorite Baked Good:  Raspberry/White Chocolate cookie; the best cookie we have. You can’t resist.

Hobbies: Horseback riding with my daughter and out in the forest. Sailing. Walking with the dogs in nature. Spending time with my family.

Favorite Food: Fresh fish and tasty healthy salads.

Favorite Travel Destination: I love to travel and explore new destinations; preferably nature destinations vs cities. Our trip to Alaska a few years ago was a great experience.

With more than 35 years of experience in food distribution, Eric leverages his operational and leadership expertise to drive continued, profitable growth in the Dawn Bakery Distribution business. Passionate about delivering positive customer journeys, he focuses on putting the customer experience at the forefront of distribution. He is excited about the continued evolution the bakery industry is experiencing and the broad availability of baked goods in the marketplace. He is committed to positioning Dawn to serve the bakery market, in all its global channels — new and old. From his roots leading his family’s distribution business in New Jersey, he has been with Dawn since 1990. Eric enjoys spending time with his wife and family. They have two grown sons.

“Every day I am energized at the opportunity there exists for Dawn to participate in new bakery markets. We are committed to our customers' success and can play a tangible role in helping them grow their businesses.”

Hails from: New Jersey

Our Greatest Asset: People. Collectively we have 1,000s of years of experience in bakery and distribution. We are passionate and committed to the success of our customers and the industry.

Our Greatest Challenge: The disruptive technologies effecting the supply chain dynamics in this industry. It is vital to Dawn that we continue to value and build genuine relationships with customers, connecting them with the tools that will make it easier for them to do business with Dawn.

Favorite Sports Teams: Football: Michigan, NY Giants, Detroit Lions. Basketball: NY Knicks, Detroit Pistons. Holy Cross (my son is the Asst. Men’s Basketball Coach), Phoenix Suns (my son is a Sales Manager for the team), Baseball: NY Yankees.  Hockey: NY Rangers.

Favorite Baked Good: Old Fashion Sour Cream Cake Donut with a lot of Glaze

Hobbies: Bicycling (I ride to raise awareness & funds for the Make a Wish Foundation in their 3 day 300 mile ride), sailing, working out, movies, books, theater, and being an all-around sports fan.

Favorite Food: Italian Food

Favorite Travel Destination: Cruising to interesting Ports of Call

As Dawn’s first in-house counsel, Scott enjoys providing innovative and creative business solutions that appropriately balance risk with opportunities for growth. Scott is committed to building a best-in-class legal team to ensure that Dawn’s history of excellence in governance continues now and into the future. With more than 30 years of experience with several Fortune 500 CPG and food manufacturers, Scott is excited by the entrepreneurial opportunities at Dawn Foods.

“Working for an entrepreneurial organization is invigorating. We are encouraged to innovate and think collaboratively. There truly is a Dawn Difference!”

Hails from: Minnesota

Our Greatest Asset: Our people. We have a strong, collegial group who are results-driven and focused on delivering the strategic vision for Dawn Foods.

Our Greatest Challenge: To act and think globally to ensure consistent and sustainable growth.

Favorite Sports Teams: Nebraska Cornhuskers, Minnesota Vikings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks

Favorite Baked Good: Cinnamon Roll

Hobbies: Anything that’s in the great outdoors!

Favorite Food: Fresh fish (preferably caught by me!)

Favorite Travel Destination: Northern woods of Canada / Barcelona

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.

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.