Kraft Names New President

6/22/2009

W. Anthony (Tony) Vernon will become President, Kraft Foods North America, in mid-August. Vernon, 53, joins Kraft Foods from private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, following a successful career at Johnson & Johnson. He will report to Chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld and become a member of the Kraft Foods Executive Team. Vernon replaces Rick Searer, who will retire at the end of September.

"Tony has an impressive history of building and sustaining iconic consumer brands. His strong track record of growth through consumer-driven innovation, world-class marketing and strong retail relationships will help to further accelerate our business performance," says Rosenfeld.

At J&J, Vernon ran multibillion-dollar independent business units and led many of that company's largest consumer brands, including Tylenol, Motrin, Pepcid AC, Imodium and Splenda. His accomplishments include leading the strategic evaluation, licensing and launch of Concerta and turning Remicade into a market leader in biologics; both of these prescription drugs are now billion dollar franchises for J&J.