Chuck’s career spans over 30 years of Marketing and General Management. Most recently, he was the CEO of Seventh Generation, maker of environmentally friendly household cleaning and personal care products. Prior to that, he was President and CEO of a major division of PepsiCo, with revenues approaching $10B, and an employee base of 10,000 associates. During that time, he has had a full array of experiences: New product development and implementation; rapid growth opportunities and challenges; turnaround situations; and M&A activity. His core strengths are in the area of Marketing Strategy and Execution; Consumer Insights; and Leadership/Team Development.
Chuck began his career at The Quaker Oats Company, and spent the first years of his career in Consumer Insights, helping define and implement the first systematic, disciplined pursuit of a complete consumer knowledge base on the company’s key brands and key consumer groups. He helped to pioneer an approach to consumer segmentation that became the foundation of how the company operated all of its brands.
For the last 20 years, Chuck has been in a variety of Marketing and General Management roles, first at Quaker Oats, then at PepsiCo subsequent to the companies’ merger in 2001, and then as Seventh Generation's CEO. A key role was as President, Gatorade, where Chuck and his team doubled the business in less than 5 years through aggressive, powerful Marketing execution, highly successful line extensions, and a new product, Propel, which pioneered a whole new product category called Fitness Waters. In his last position as CEO of QTG (Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade), he led the team through very challenging cost and competitive challenges, while maintaining healthy growth at both the top line and bottom line, including a successful acquisition of an emerging growth company, Naked Juice. Also involved here was a massive IT enterprise system transformation which heightened the demand for the capability to lead in highly uncertain circumstances. In this context, Chuck implemented a program that spanned all associates focused around authentic, genuine leadership development, which continues to be a passion of his.
He holds a BA in Psychology from Bowling Green State University, and an MA in Experimental Psychology from the same institution. Chuck is an avid runner, and equally avid guitar player and songwriter.
Chuck began his career at The Quaker Oats Company, and spent the first years of his career in Consumer Insights, helping define and implement the first systematic, disciplined pursuit of a complete consumer knowledge base on the company’s key brands and key consumer groups. He helped to pioneer an approach to consumer segmentation that became the foundation of how the company operated all of its brands.
