Dive Brief:
- Tyson Foods promoted Doug Kulka to CIO, a company spokesperson told CIO Dive Friday. Kulka most recently served as VP of delivery-as-a-service IT.
- Tyson also promoted Danyel Bischof, former VP of IT of poultry, prepared foods and customer enablement, to CTO.
- “This dual leadership CIO/CTO model allows for a simultaneous focus on business relationships and operational efficiencies to drive excellence throughout Tyson Foods,” a company spokesperson said. “It will allow Tyson Foods to prioritize system optimization and process improvement while also advancing business innovation and automation.”
Dive Insight:
In January, former Chief Technology and Automation Officer Scott Spradley left the company after joining in 2017. At the time of the departure, an SEC filing said Spradley’s responsibilities would be taken over by members of the company’s IT team.
In Kulka's most recent role at Tyson, he maintained more than 140 projects and grew the team to more than 300 members, according to LinkedIn.
Bischof led the technology team responsible for two of three of the company’s businesses. Bischof focused on leading digital transformation through cloud migration and implementing leading-edge IOT, machine learning and predictive analytics technology, according to LinkedIn. As VP of IT, Bischof reported to Spradley.
The tech leadership revamp comes after a rocky few months for the company. John Tyson, CFO of Tyson Foods, was arrested in November on charges of public intoxication and criminal trespassing, according to the Washington County, Arkansas Sheriff Department.
The company also underperformed in its latest earnings. “We got hit in the mouth in Q1 because of all the protein on the market,” Tyson CEO Donnie King said during the company’s Q1 2023 earnings call in February.
The company has invested heavily in automation, recently rolling out automated sandwich and burrito assembly capabilities.
“We have also continued to scale our chicken debone automation across multiple facilities…,” King said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. “Our progress displays how Tyson remains focused on optimizing our business processes, digitalizing the supply chain, increasing automation and aggressively managing SG&A across our operations.”
Correction: This article has been updated to fix the spelling of Danyel Bischof’s name.
