Scott Wallace has been promoted to Chief Customer Officer at Horizon Family Brands, the Broomfield, Colorado-based portfolio company behind Horizon Organic, Maple Hill Creamery, and Wallaby Organic yogurt. The appointment formalizes a customer-strategy layer at the executive level — a structural move that signals the company is treating retail and commercial channel management as a board-level priority, not a sales-department function.
Wallace joined the company in November 2023 as vice president of sales, moved to senior vice president in 2025, and will now partner across sales, marketing, operations, and brand teams to drive customer engagement and identify shared-growth opportunities. His background spans wholesale and distribution, omnichannel retail, and data-driven sales management, with prior leadership posts at Danone, Kellogg Company, and Procter & Gamble — a pedigree that reflects experience navigating competitive shelf space and complex buyer relationships at scale.
What the Hire Signals
For organic dairy and yogurt suppliers, retail buyer relationships have grown measurably more complicated over the past two years. Consolidation among regional grocery chains, tighter shelf-reset windows, and growing pressure from private-label wellness SKUs have made account management a senior-executive discipline rather than a mid-level sales function. Creating a dedicated CCO role concentrates commercial intelligence — pricing, velocity data, promotional cadence — at a level where it can directly inform brand and operations decisions. Operators and procurement teams buying Horizon Organic or Maple Hill products through foodservice distributors should watch whether the CCO structure accelerates co-promotion offers or unlocks new volume-tier pricing.
CEO Tyler Holm framed the promotion around Wallace's "customer-first mindset" and his ability to bring cross-functional teams toward shared commercial goals — language that reads as a signal the company is aligning its three brands around a single account-management framework rather than running parallel sales motions per brand.
What Buyers Should Watch
Wallace's background in omnichannel retail and data-driven sales management is relevant for any operator or distributor currently in a buying relationship with the portfolio. A CCO with that profile typically accelerates the use of POS and sell-through data to shape promotional planning — which can translate into better-structured trade programs and more responsive category support for retail buyers. For foodservice operators sourcing organic dairy, this is a credible signal that the commercial team at Horizon Family Brands is being positioned to move faster and with more executive authority.
The promotion also adds context to the company's broader growth posture. Building out an executive layer around customer strategy — rather than adding headcount in field sales — suggests leadership is betting on deeper, fewer, more strategically managed accounts over wide distribution plays. That's a model more common among premium CPG brands protecting margin in a competitive organic set.
- Scott Wallace's CCO appointment formalizes customer strategy as a C-suite function at Horizon Family Brands, spanning all three brands.
- Wallace brings omnichannel retail and data-driven sales experience from Danone, Kellogg, and Procter & Gamble.
- Operators and distributors in buying relationships with the portfolio should anticipate more coordinated trade and promotional programs.
- The move reflects a broader CPG trend toward consolidating account management under senior leadership as shelf competition in organic dairy intensifies.
- For operators tracking organic dairy procurement trends, this signals a premium portfolio tightening its commercial infrastructure heading into 2027 planning cycles.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
