Dean Foods announces Sliva promotion

Dean Foods of the US has announced that Harrald Kroeker, 50, president of the Fresh Dairy Direct (FDD) division, will be leaving the company to pursue other opportunities. Though Kroeker’s departure from FDD is immediate, he will remain with Dean Foods through the end of November. The company also announced today the promotion of Chris Sliva, 47, to the new position of Dean Foods chief commercial officer, effective immediately. Sliva is currently president of the Morningstar Division of Dean Foods. In this new role, Sliva will be responsible for directing the commercial strategy of both the FDD and Morningstar divisions’ sales and lines of business. Sliva reports to Joe Scalzo, president and chief operating officer. Sliva takes on the newly created position, which is designed to more closely align the company’s sales organizations, commercial lines of business, and customer relationships, the company says. Sliva’s immediate focus is creating and executing selling strategies tailored for key accounts and channels across categories.
Sliva joined the Dean Foods WhiteWave division in 2006 as senior vice president of sales and chief customer officer. In 2008, he was promoted to chief operating officer, Morningstar and to president, Morningstar in January 2010.