HERSHEY, Pa. — Incoming Hershey Co. president and chief executive officer Michele Buck has named a new executive leadership team.

Announcing the appointments this week, Hershey said the revamped management team balances continuity through leaders from within the company and top talent from outside the chocolate and confections giant.

Michele Buck

Todd Tillemans has been named U.S. president at Hershey and will lead the flagship U.S. business, including core confection, its expanding portfolio across snacking, and its sales and go-to-market teams.

Tillemans is slated to join the company on April 3 from Unilever, where he worked for more than 23 years. At Unilever, he has held multiple leadership positions, including leading Unilever’s skin care business in Europe and Russia, its personal care business in the United States and, most recently, serving as president of customer development for the U.S.

Steven Schiller, currently president of China and Asia, has been promoted to president of international. He will continue to oversee Hershey’s China and Asia markets and will take on oversight of the Americas region, India and Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Plans call for Buck, executive vice president and chief operating officer, to take the reins as president and CEO on March 1, succeeding John Bilbrey, who will continue as nonexecutive chairman.

“Hershey is an innovative snacking leader with its number one market share in U.S. confection and increasing breadth across U.S. snacking,” Buck said in a statement. “I’m extremely confident in the individuals who will lead our organization as we delight our customers and consumers with innovation and news in the marketplace and strive to deliver leading sales growth and margins across the food industry. This is a great team, with a range of experiences, expertise and backgrounds to accelerate our innovation, execute with excellence, instill a commercial mindset in all we do, and inspire our remarkable employees to achieve our goals.”

Hershey also has promoted Terry O’Day to senior vice president and chief product supply and technology officer. Previously holding the title of chief supply chain officer, O’Day will continue to oversee the supply chain organization and will add responsibility for Hershey’s productivity, information technology and enterprise connectivity initiatives.

In addition, Hershey said that Waheed Zaman, chief knowledge and technology officer, will retire from the company on March 31 and that it has identified an external candidate for chief growth officer, who is slated to join the company this spring. The growth officer will lead Hershey’s insights and analytics, strategy, marketing excellence functions, innovation, research and development, mergers and acquisitions, and The Hershey Experience.

Patricia Little, senior vice president and chief financial officer; Leslie Turner, senior vice president and general counsel and secretary; Kevin Walling, senior vice president and chief human resources officer; and Mike Wege, senior vice president and chief administrative officer, will continue in their roles, according to Hershey.

“These appointments reaffirm our commitment to creating opportunities for remarkable people to grow within the company and to attracting world-class talent from outside of Hershey,” Buck added. “On behalf of the board of directors and management, I would like to thank Waheed Zaman for his work over the past four years to advance our technology, data and analytics capabilities.”