Richard Brindle

College of Business, Engineering, and Computational & Mathematical Sciences Alumnus of the Year, 2014

Rick leads Industry Development for Mondel?z International; North America. With annual revenues of approximately $36 billion and operations in more than 80 countries, Mondelez International, Inc. is a world leader in chocolate, biscuits, gum, candy, coffee and powdered beverages.  The company comprises the global snacking and food brands of the former Kraft Foods Inc. following the spin-off of its North American grocery operations on October 1, 2012.  Mondelez International's portfolio includes several billion-dollar brands such as Cadbury and Milka chocolate, Jacobs coffee, LU, Nabisco and Oreo biscuits, Tang powdered beverages and Trident gum.

Rick has been in the Packaged Goods industry since 1977. During his career, he has held leadership positions within Kraft Foods, Nabisco, Procter & Gamble and Safeway Food Stores. His last retailing assignment was as a store manager with Safeway’s Germany division. His Business Development leadership assignments have spanned the Grocery, Club, eTailing and Mass Merchandiser classes of trade. He has had business development responsibility for such retailers and wholesalers as Wal-Mart, Supervalu, Safeway, Costco, Giant Foods, PeaPod, FreshDirect.com and Amazon.com.

Rick is one of the industry’s more enduring veterans in the online grocery segment. Since 1997, he developed and led Nabisco’s Global eSales. Rick continued in this role through the acquisition of Nabisco by Kraft Foods and the recent Kraft spin-off. In June 2006, Consumer Goods Technology magazine recognized Rick as one of the “CPG Industry’s 20 Top Visionaries”.