October 3, 2006
Roselfeld No. Five in 'Fortune' 50 Most Powerful Women in Business
Patricia Sellers
Fortune.com

At Kraft, the $34 billion marketer of Oreos and Maxwell House coffee, Irene Rosenfeld also aims to be a transformational leader. But she had to leave the company and prove herself elsewhere to earn the CEO title. Rosenfeld, 53, had a superb 22-year record at the world's second-largest food company, rising from associate market research manager to president of the North American business. "She's a no-nonsense problem-solver with an almost laser-like focus on improving a business," says Bob Eckert, a former Kraft chief who is now CEO of Mattel. In 2003, as Kraft's growth slowed and Rosenfeld disagreed with the direction of new top management, she decided to leave. Advisors scratched their heads. "Why get off the treadmill? You have all this talent," Heidrick's renowned recruiter, Gerry Roche, told her. But Rosenfeld knew what she was doing. She took a year off, turned down several CEO opportunities, and heeded the advice of her onetime boss, Jim Kilts, who ran Kraft before he headed Nabisco and Gillette: "I told Irene, 'Always go with a super company. Don't get caught up in the title.' " She ultimately joined PepsiCo to run Frito-Lay, its most profitable division. Her successful stint at the $10 billion snack unit (Frito-Lay's profits rose solidly despite higher costs for potatoes, corn, and energy) convinced Kraft's board that she is the kind of CEO it needs. In July the board ousted Roger Deromedi, a stringent cost cutter and top-down decision-maker. Louis Camilleri, Kraft's chairman (and CEO of Altria, which owns 88% of Kraft), called Rosenfeld in. She claims she's a better leader today, having worked at Pepsi: "I learned the value of a relentless focus on growth," she says. Three months into her job as CEO, Rosenfeld is trying to view Kraft the way an outsider would. After visiting 22 Kraft plants and facilities around the world, she announced a sweeping reorganization to hand more power to the company's line operators.
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