Simon Baldry has over 30 years’ experience in the food and drink industry at board and senior management levels. He has worked in the confectionery, ice cream, and soft drinks sectors for Mars Confectionery, Cadbury Schweppes, and Coca-Cola Enterprises and has operated in the UK, Russia, and Poland.
In his various leadership roles he has consistently driven commercial growth through implementing change strategies and has considerable first-hand experience of what makes a business transformation successful.
Operating in Russia in the early 90s, he took the Cadbury business onshore, developing a commercial route-to-market, creating a high-performing team, and building a local factory and supply chain. In these early days, as the market was opening up, change was the norm and managing a business and motivating a team through constant evolution were important lessons.
In Eastern Europe, he merged two competing businesses, integrating the two management teams into one team focused on driving a commercial change strategy that rebuilt marketing and sales capabilities. The factories were also reconfigured in order to create the investment needed to build the brands and drive top-line growth. Creating a winning reason for change that resonated with both teams was key to starting this transformation.
In the UK, Simon has led two large organizations in established markets through change. When he came on board at Cadbury and Coca-Cola Enterprises he found that both were market leaders in need of a new ambition for growth and the commercial strategies to drive this change. While working with these established businesses and large teams, it became clear to him that deciding what to change was only part of the challenge; deciding how to change was the key to a successful implementation.
He now combines his professional business counsel consulting activities with building his own ventures: a B2C startup and a small B2B business.
Simon lives in London with his wife. He has a BSc in management sciences from Loughborough University (UK) and speaks English and Russian.
