Aryzta, the speciality bakery company best known for its Cuisine de France brand, has appointed a new chief executive of its North America business and a new chief strategy officer for its overall business.

Dave Johnson will join Aryzta as the new chief executive of its North America business, having previously served as chief executive of Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading B2B chocolate company. Johnson also has 20 years’ experience with Kraft Foods, the US food conglomerate, where he held a number of senior positions across the company.

Johnson will come in to head up Aryzta’s North America business at a difficult time for the division. The business has been struggling in recent years due to significant contract losses, which has served to drag overall group profit margins.

Chief strategy officer

Aryzta has also announced that Dublin-native John Heffernan will take up a new role as chief strategy officer with the group. Like Aryzta’s recently appointed Kevin Toland, Heffernan joins the company having previously worked at Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), where he was chief development officer.

Previous to DAA, Heffernan founded a number of business including Clearpower and Aer Ltd. He’s also worked with McKinsey and an Irish-based private equity firm Boundary Capital.

Aryzta chief executive Kevin Toland welcomed the new appointments to the company’s executive team,

“I look forward to working with Dave and John who will strengthen and deepen our team’s expertise as we focus on our core strengths and to returning Aryzta to performance and growth,” said Toland.