Kimberli Carroll is the new president and CEO at Frisco, Texas-based Ruiz Food Products.
In September 2023, the company, the largest frozen Mexican food manufacturer in the United States, promoted Carroll to chief operating officer. Carroll, who also will serve on the board of directors, previously served as executive vice president, general manager and chief commercial officer for the company’s foodservice and retail businesses.
Dan Antonelli, the current CEO, will transition to the new position of executive board chair. Kim Ruiz Beck, a Ruiz Foods owner and current board chair, will remain on the board as an owner-director.
These changes are effective Jan. 21.
“As the Ruiz Foods board of directors considered the direction for our next CEO, the best candidate was right here on our leadership team,” Ruiz Beck said. “Kim Carroll quite literally grew up inside the Ruiz Foods organization over two decades. She began her career in marketing, was a member of the team that developed and deployed the most successful new product in the company’s history, and has served as a leader implementing dynamic, transformative change throughout our entire supply, production and distribution chains.”
Carroll possesses the leadership skills essential to continue to move Ruiz Foods forward, as well as the “deep relationships and commitment to our people and culture that are the foundation of what we do each day,” Ruiz Beck said. “This combination makes her uniquely qualified to lead Ruiz Foods as we boldly work to become the nation’s best frozen food company in the eyes of our team members, suppliers, customers and consumers.”
Carroll said, “Dan Antonelli has been instrumental in leading the transformation we started in 2021 to become a top performing company, and Kim Ruiz Beck has been our north star, leading us by embodying the values of the business. Now, it’s our job to continue their legacy by ensuring our brands are the market leaders in every channel we pursue.”
Ruiz Foods Products Inc. is a privately owned corporation co-founded by Fred Ruiz and his father, Louis, in 1964. Ruiz Foods employs more than 4,000 and has five manufacturing facilities in California, Texas and South Carolina.
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