Mike McLaughlin to Lead Business Transformation at Southern Glazer’s as CTO
Spirits beverage distributor Southern Glazer’s is initiating a business transformation called North Star, being led by a new chief transformation officer, Mike McLaughlin.
McLaughlin will be tasked with modernizing and standardizing the company’s business processes, implementing technology to meet the changing needs of Southern Glazer’s supply chain partners, employees, and customers.
He will report directly to CEO Wayne Chaplin, officially taking on the role in February of 2024.
Ramping Up North Star
The North Star project was introduced in 2023, with cross-functional teams at Southern Glazer’s setting up the framework for an official 2024 kickoff toward end-to-end modernization and streamlined core processes.
Several investments over the last year are early indicators of Southern Glazer’s continued commitment to bolstering its capabilities.
Last March, the company equipped its field sales teams with new image-recognition, computer vision, and artificial intelligence tech that can detect, recognize, and analyze data from the field teams’ product and menu photos to provide market intelligence in near real-time.
Over the summer, Southern Glazer’s also tapped POS on-demand cloud printing tech to minimize the time and distance print materials need to travel and reduce the amount of waste created, supporting a more sustainable supply chain model for print POS overall.
McLaughlin is the second recent leadership hire tasked with developing transformative business strategies. In August, the company appointed Alan Wizemann as its chief digital officer.
Chaplin said the North Star strategy will build on previous success at the company, helping to differentiate the brand in the market by better anticipating changing customer and supplier needs and evolving Southern Glazer’s business processes.
“Mike is a trusted and respected leader with a clear vision for the future, a track record of strong operational results, and a proven ability to drive enterprise-wide change, which makes him the ideal leader for this transformative role,” added Chaplin in a statement.
McLaughlin has a long history with the company. He was previously regional president of Southern Glazer’s central region business, covering the following markets: Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. Prior to that, he served as EVP of sales at Glazer’s Distributors since 2013.
Before joining the company, he worked across several senior executive roles with Southern Wine and Spirits of America, and has more than 30 years of experience in the alcoholic beverage industry.
