Source: AdAge
The U.S. beer industry’s glass ceiling has finally been shattered. Heineken USA on Tuesday named Maggie Timoney as its CEO, replacing Ronald den Elzen, who is assuming a global role at the Amsterdam-based brewer. Timoney is the first woman to lead a major U.S. beer supplier, according to Heineken.
Timoney joined the U.S. division from Ireland, where she ran Heineken as CEO for the last five years. The move is a return to the States for Timoney, who joined the beer marketer in 1998 in a national sales planning role and was named Heineken USA’s senior VP of human resources in 2010.
“Maggie is a competitive and energetic leader who is known for inspiring teams, operationalizing plans and mobilizing organizations to deliver business results,”, Heineken Americas Region President Marc Busain said in an announcement, adding that she “over-delivered on volume, revenue, profit and market share targets” in Ireland.
Heineken USA, whose brands include its namesake lager as well as Dos Equis, Tecate and Strongbow, ranks as the nation’s fourth-largest U.S. beer supplier with nearly 4 percent market share, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights, which called Timoney the first woman to lead a top five U.S. beer supplier. That list currently also includes Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors, Constellation (Corona) and Pabst.
The U.S. beer industry remains male-dominated, especially at the wholesaler level, where beer distributorships are often passed down from generation to generation. White males dominate the audience composition at major beer industry conferences. The industry is a bit more diverse at the supplier level, where women have made steady gains.
